Google Maps My Location Feature Available Tomorrow

great question. press release is clear as mud.

ryan - do you know the answer?

I also wouldn't rule out some Treo's until we are able to test them out tomorrow.

Curiously, Palm said before that a rom software update would be needed to add this functionality, however it seems we are getting it in a new version of Gmaps so who knows?

On the other hand, it's one of the tiny reasons that would make me to switch to Centro (apart from when my Treo breaks).

-
With great power comes great responsiblity.

There is *ZERO* technical reason (and if there is, then someone PLEASE tell us here in abundant detail!) that I can see for leaving Treo users out in the cold as far as the GMM location feature update.

Palm should be used as a case study of how to turn what was once one of the valley's brightest, freshest, firms into a steaming pile of, yes, bullshiit in a protracted death spiral in the span of a decade.

First, PDA users get the short end of the stick from Palm. Now, Treo users are getting it from both Palm and the carriers. Case in point if the Google Maps fiasco isn't enough evidence: the Verizon Centro, nearly identical to the Verizon Treo 755p in every way, can have the $29.99 data plan but the Treo cannot. Palm is *ONLY* giving us this My Location feature (much like how they turned off BT DUN on CDMA handsets for the TX & lifeDrive to push users to Treos) to artifically create reasons for existing Treo (and PDA!) users to see the Centro as an "upgrade path".

Folks, this is the prime example of a company so engulfed in GREEG that they abandon any and all shred of customer appreciation & goodwill. Unless there is a VERY sound technical reason for this (and once this Centro-only patch is rightfully hacked & distributed across every Palm-related site & forum you'll see that there is not), everyone employee of Palm should be flogged. Better to just never release this update than to give Treo users a kick to the groin like this.

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

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." - Robert J. Hanlon

http://www.razix.net/mloc/

Actually, they've already hired me and I'm fixing things ...
http://tinyurl.com/5b599l
... right now I'm working on doubling the 1K clipboard limit. Wow!

Pat Horne

Thanks for the reply. I will give you my honest, 100% sincere response.

I continue to buy Palm products because the Palm OS is STILL, in my oh-so humble opinion, the BEST, most efficient mobile platform for quickly/easily inputting & recalling data. The BEST. Not the flashiest, most stable, or the hippest, simply the BEST overall platform for personal information management.

First and foremost, I have come to rely on use the Palm OS PIM features (not Agendus, DocsToGo, Datebk etc--the bone stock, classic Palm OS PIM apps) on a daily basis over the past 10-12 years. While I *COULD* change to another platform but, as Gekko said the other day, why bother learning/exporting an entirely new OS? I can flip through nearly any Palm OS device release over the past 12 years and instantly recall anything I need to. If the need arises, I can tell you what I was doing on THIS day in 1996 or my phone number was two residences ago. That kind of capability is nice and hard to wean yourself off of. As a developer, you can likely appreciate the fact that some users (whether an individual like myself or

I've tried the iPhone, various WinMob/PPC models & a few BlackBerries. They are all more powerful at this stage than POS but because I value simplicity & ease-of-use over gee-whiz multimedia features, I stick with POS. iPhone is still too limiting, WinMob is improved but still too cluky and BB is still too e-mail-centric.

Now, I want to see Palm advance the platform as much as anyone else here. I want to have a big iPhone-style screen coupled with BB-style GPS & wi-fi and WinMob high resolution support and full 3G capabilities etc etc. But on top of all of that bleeding-edge innovation I want Palm to maintain the unique combination of flexibility, ease of use, familiarity, and dependability of the classic Palm OS PIM apps & UI (basically, what Cobalt could've/should've been). At this stage of the game I'm fine with abandoning backwards compatibility with Garnet if it means getting Nova out in a timely, stable manner. I'd rather have to rebuy a dozen apps & games than spend time fooling with exporting/tweaking/manually re-entering a dozen years worth of contacts & calendar events.

There's a difference with being a Palm-bashing day trader or platform-agnostic Palm Pessimist versus a concerned Palm OS fan in it since '96. I'm a die-hard Palm OS fan who is hellbent on seeing both the platform and the company change for the better, not hop willy-nilly from one agenda to the next while shedding loyal users in the process. I have a vested interest from the perspective of both a USER and a FAN (not anyone affiliated in any way with Palm's stock price or the tech industry) in seeing the company & the platform succeed. And it irritates me to no end to see Palm squandering opportunity after oppotunity to revitalize what was THE premiere mobile platform less than a decade ago. Users and developers alike flee the platform, yet Palm continues to stride right along oblivious to it all, chest puffed out, head held high and tossing us a few scraps like Facebook & GMM here and there.

Unfortunately, as of this precise moment, I sadly see ZERO signs of change on the horizon, aside from the nice aesthetics of the Treo 850 and the solid specs of the 800w/850. But of right now, my 755p still functions and Palm are still in business...and I have a new TX stashed away in my closet for a worst-case scenario. I'm going to stay here contributing to PIC & the community and keep calling it like it is for at least the next year and give them a fair shot at finishing up Nova.

I hope this is thoughtful, honest, and sincere enough for everyone.

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9peqtstOaHs

... even if he is a womanizing, drunken, slosh.

Pat Horne

While I understand your complaints with Palm, having endured the 700p MR debacle myself, I wonder if you've ever used the Centro. I still own my 700p, but I can tell you that hands down my Centro is a better device overall. Although the screen is smaller, it remains sharp and vivid, but obviously not as large as the Treo. The keyboard, while smaller, has keys with a sticky feel to them, so I find that I make less mistakes in typing on the Centro, because the fingers don't slip. The external speaker is way better on the Centro than the one on my higher dollared Treo; just no comparison at all here. You've already mentioned the built in programs as being better, so I need not make that point. I don't know if my Centro could stand a drop as well as my Treo or not, as I've fortunately not had to try that aspect out. However, with identical programs on my Centro that my Treo holds, my Centro is far more stable. I don't suffer the resets that my Treo went through. It makes me wonder if the Centro really is the same inside as the Treos, or if something has changed. There is just no comparison in the stability factor.

Battery life is the only complaint you register that I can agree upon. You have to be more careful with the Centro and ensure regular charging as it won't get the mileage that the Treo will.

Oh, and we have about a dozen employees who use either the 755p or the Centro, here locally, depending upon which network they choose. In just a few short months, two Treo users have had to get replacements due to early life failure. Make that zero for the Centro users. Again, there seems to be something different in the internals with the Centro, and perhaps that is at least part of the reason why Palm doesn't update the Treo along with the Centro. Just a thought anyway.

I hope as I'm sure you do that the Nova does have backwards compatibility, and that it measures up to the expectations we all have for the future OS of Palm!

I've used the Centro at length (borrowed/played with one, not owned it). While there is nothing inherently wrong with its specs/performance relative to other Palm OS devices, it's just the physical attributes that I find so off-putting. Tiny keyboard (I have fat thumbs), small square screen (by far its worst point-and I have 20/20 vision), weak battery life (a definite deal-breaker for me), and a flimsy stylus and marginal aesthetics/build quality compared to my 755p make it a no-go.

Now, the Centro does have its positive attributes, as I've stated several times here and over at TC. It has a brighter/whiter LCD, louder earpiece & speaker volume, marginally (IMO) better voice quality, a slightly newer OS & improved software bundle and, of course, GMM functionality, with the AT&T version also getting PTT to somewhat mitigate its lack of 3G.

If I currently had, say, a GSM 650 and needed a cheap interim device, I'd probably buy an unlocked Centro. But being firmly entrenched in Verizon, the 755p fits my needs (big keyboard, bigger LCD, larger capacity battery) far better than any Centro.

According to various sources, Palm did redesign the 755p/700p innards in-house and miniaturized everything for the Centro. And the Palm OS Treos definitely use a different Qualcomm chipset vs. the Centro, so some subtle differences are to be expected, as are the inevitable NVFS performance optimizations.

Of course, my gripe is that the cell tower triangulation for GMM isn't using any kind of aGPS chip and therefore, should work on any modern Palm OS 5 smartphone. That's like my 2 year old Lexmark printer not having a dedicated driver for Windows Vista. Lexmark COULD support it but they'd rather me just buy a new printer. Same goes with Palm. The "fixed" 755p was in stores and for sale PRIOR to the availability of the first 700p ROM update, y'know...and the TX was in stores prior to the availability of the LifeDrive 2.0 update that made the device semi-usable.

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