Former Danger and Helio Design Director Now at Palm

Or are we to believe someone hired in July will have something revolutionary into Production by December?

http://tinyurl.com/5w47yh

Pat Horne

What Palm OS needs is new innards.

Give it more robust multitasking.
Up the screen resolution on devices and icons.
Give us the ability to do voice dialing over a Bluetooth headset.
Give us Wifi.
Give us GPS, instead of just Google Maps with MyLocation (which can only locate me within 900 meters, anyway).
Enable Graffiti (Graffiti 1, for bonus points) without the use of a hack.

If all they do is slap some lipstick on, it's not going to be very impressive at all. Part of the whole point of Palm was the KISS philosophy. If they lose that, they've truly lost their soul - and for what?

The UI needs to be modernized in terms of resolution and color depth, but changing it radically would be the kiss of death to Palm.

Another point is Palm is a profit-making company, the product design must meet the needs and wants of customers in addition to match the features provided by their competitors. It is not a lab or academic research. If the company cannot provide a good product and the similar features provided by the competitiors, the company cannot survive in the market. What's the point of making a product when the company cannot survive.

Like the hardware requirement, why they need to care about whether I use it or not. Like the computer, every computer has a analog modem regardless whether you use it. As customers, we want the choices. We do not want to be limited or determined by manufacturers. For example, I want Wi-Fi, then give a wifi version of Treo with high cost. I am asking Palm to make all devices Wi-fi ready.

My 2cents opinion.

I hope he got good $$$ for his stock!

Take it from Mike & me that Rob was *THE* UI god that made Palm OS such a phenomenal leap forward in its day (1996ish). While Hawking might have been the subject of all of the Wired articles (etc), Haitani was sort of the unheralded genius

I haven't read Piloting Palm in quite some time but I believe he was with the firm from the early pre-USR days through at least late '04...

"In his 2001 interview, Rob talks about the interaction design priorities that emerged as he led the team to design the Palm OS and original applications. He decides what should be most prominent based on frequency of use, and strives to make the most often used interactions accessible in a single step."

I consider Haitani-again, not knowing him firsthand or anything-but based on his post-1996 activities-to have been much more crucial to Palm's successes after the Pilot than Hawkins himself.

P.S. Interesting, that connection between Numenta/Hawkins & Vitamin D/ex-Palm & HS staff...

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

Who knew Ed Colliagn's IQ ended after just three words?

And that in these latter days he'd even forget *those*?

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

It's delightful that you (masochistically) stray away from the pack. Although I might be voting for Nader this year as well.

If I may make a recommendation, it would be this: buy it when you get the chance. If you don't, you're going to start waiting for certain updates, then certain applications, and before you know it, nine months have gone by and you're hearing rumors about the new model, and the cycle repeats. Throw caution to the wind and give it a shot. Hell, if you threw $400 at a Lifedrive, you can spare a few c-notes and a contract.

Last thing - did you ever buy that Civic, or are you still riding horseback?

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

>>>IIRC, he got the LifeDrive with a dead Microdrive for $200ish on E-Bay or Craig's List etc.

Well, here we separate the stalkers from the amateurs!

And you're BOTH amateurs.

Total cost of LifeDrive - about $150. That's *including* all 3 bits: dead LifeDrive from ebay, 4GB CF, and paying somneone to install the OS to the CF.

I have to say I've gotten *more* than $150 worth of *misery* from the freaking thing.

No, I never did get a Civic, or any car. I am still doing that biped thing. This is NYC. Cars are more trouble-making than freedom-making.

Where's the ROI?

That's a serious question.

I think Palm made exactly the right move with this.

Early-adopters/fan boys are perpetually early-adopter/fanboys - keeping them satisfied with the "current crop" is NOT cost-effective.

I've been with Palm since near the beginning (early 1997), have promoted their products to many high tech companies and IT professionals as well as in user groups and conventions, and this one act by Palm has finally pushed me into a level of disgust that may lead to a transition over to Blackberry for good.

What about the **CUSTOMER'S** "ROI," Palm? The Treo form factor hasn't completely been replaced by the Fisher Price Centro as evidenced:

http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo680/
http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo755p/index.html
http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo750/index.html

...and they are *still* pitching these *current* devices at Enterprise users...

Support *AFTER* the sale - *AFTER* a customer has invested in your product, is the sign of a company truly interested in its future. Palm is showing over and over that it's the kind of company that doesn't give a rat's patootie about fixing current problems or issues with *current* products - they just figure we'll keep coming back for whatever $600.00 garbage phone they release next simply because it fixes a few bugs they built into the current one. SONY plays that game with its computers - ask any IT professional if they'd *ever* buy a SONY laptop or desktop.

Hopefully someone's working on a PalmOS emulator for the upcoming Blackberry Bold. Many hundreds of dollars in accessories and software that I love, stuck on hardware that's receiving next to "zero" improvement or attention by their maker. By the time Palm brings out any hardware worth considering, they'll be like the proverbial tree in the forest with nobody but pimply Centro kids around to hear them fall.

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**Another vote for a >100MB RAM Treo**

Even their "maintenance release" for the 755p didn't bother updating Googlemaps, Pocket Tunes or even Docs to Go with the current patch of the ROM-based software (which was available long before the 755 was released). They were releasing a ROM patch anyway, and they cared so little for their customers that they left outdated garbage in the ROM that we'd need to mitigate ourselves by leaving patches in precious RAM. You'd be hard pressed to say it would have taken "hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost" to AT LEAST patch some ROM apps while they were wiping the entire ROM anyway...

"New Friends are Silver, Old Friends Are Gold," and it's sad that Palm seems to favor sacrificing a lot of gold to concentrate on picking up a little fickle silver to get by...

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**Another vote for a >100MB RAM Treo**