Fossil Palm OS Wrist PDA on Sale for $80

Yeah right. And who's the one who had to come wimpering back to PIC afterward where people had no choice but to listen to his infantile drivel? I notice you didn't want to name the site or provide a link so that people could see you at your best.

http://www.allaboutpalm.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44&page=1&pp=10

Actually, if you ignore TVOR's (how can I say this delicately) difficulties with understanding some of the subject matter and the frustrated outbursts it prompted from him, there's a pretty detailed thread with a lot of interesting material concerning PalmSource's shift from Cobalt on Cobalt to Cobalt on Linux. Mace answered questions for most of the time and Dianne Hackborn (PSI engineer) pitched in some good technical stuff during the rest.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

And I think it's somewhat striking to see that these VERY SIMPLE questions about the abilities of Cobalt went unanswered:

I already alluded to what should be expected of a true "multitasking" OS. What Cobalt can and cannot juggle successfully is restricted by the processes + memory needed by the background app. My argument is that the Cobalt kernel and its multithreading architecture limits what developers (and users) can do from Day 1. Limitation is not A Good Thing.

Your example of receiving + answering an email is a good (realistic) example of what kind of juggling should be expexted of a PDA/Smartphone OS. But then we really have to get into a lot more detail than that to see if the Cobalt multithreading is robust enough to cut it. Say you're downloading email + also on the Internet with the broswer rendering a page and you're listening to MP3 through your headphones. First email arrives -> can you get the notification in a pop-up window in your browser or on the DIA? Assuming you can and click on it to open the email program -> does the browser keep rendering the page smoothly in the background or does everything slow to a crawl once the browser is relegated to the background? OK, so now your email program is the dominatrix app and you open the first email while the others are continuing to download. The email contains some attachments (JPEG, Word document, Excel file, PowerPoint presentation, WAV, MP3, etc) and you click on the file to view it. Does the appropriate viewer open the file seamlessly, relegating your email program to being a background thread again? Does the email downloading continue seamlessly? Does everything slow to a crawl? Are there adequate resources available to open a JPEG? Word document? Excel file? PowerPoint presentation? WAV? MP3? Suppose you want to reply to that first email and insert an attachment (JPEG, Word document, Excel file, PowerPoint presentation, WAV, MP3, etc). Can you do that?

What happens if you're doing some research on the Internet while simultaneously downloading email. Open apps: browser (background), email program (background) and Word-compatible text editor (foreground). You're copying + pasting text from the webpages into your text editor. The browser crashes. Does that take down your email program with it? If you also lose your email program, is the crash a graceful exit, or do you lose everything that was already downloaded? A hard reset at that point would be not A Good Thing.

You're recording a video with the digital camcorder. Can you receive email in the background?

You're receiving email and open the first message. Can you dictate a reply and send the recorded WAV or MP3 recording as an attachment as the downloading continues? [As an aside, iRiver MP3 players are capable of recording voice and line-in input as MP3 convertible files. Does Palm have this ability and if not can PalmSource add it ASAP?]

Just a few examples of what I think is reasonable to expect from a next-generation PDA/Smartphone OS.

TVoR

Most readers have figured out by now that Cobalt is a heap of steaming dung that can't do what was expected of it. The current (final?) version is slow as hell and buggy as well. Good job, PalmSource!

Have a nice day.


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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
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The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

JLM.

No, there were a couple of Clies that used the 66MHz version of the Dragonball and my Samsung SPH i500 phone does as well. Nice smartphone, by the way, that i500. Incredibly small (credit card size) and thin (3/4" when shut), rock solid inside and out. Nice combination of original graffiti and a standard 12-button phone pad. No frills, just good old Zen of Palm.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

I specifically didn't say Palm-powered device but a device bearing the round Palm logo. In addition to the T|W, the m515 really should've shipped with a 66mhz Dragonball.

Reading comprehension is not exactly something he's even remotely familiar with. Have you noticed how Palm Apologists are always so eager to disagree with unflattering FACTS that they don't even bother to think before they enter Defensive Rant Mode (DRM)?

It would be nice to see a (civil) round table discussion between the Palm Apologists and the Palm Realists here at Palminfocenter with "just the facts" and no fevered rationalizations.

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

LSHTARDMF* TVOR, are you supposed to be serious?

*(laughing so hard tears are running down my face)

I'm still waiting for the mythical "color HandEra."

I still predict a Zire 72, a T7, and maybe a 6gb LifeDrive for this fall as it's the cheapest/easiest/quickest way to get any kind of buzz with the next Treo AWOL. Also, with the video iPod launching this fall, a "fixed" LD can be touted as having "superior" video & photo capabilities over a video iPod (but still relegated to an iPod mini-sized HD capacity)

If a new LD appears so soon after the first one we can be assured that Palm really WAS using early adopters as paying beta testers.

I bet some might even interpret BargainPDA's rumor as the possibility of a dual launch of a 6gb LD running FrankenGarnet alongside a 6gb LD running WinMob?

No, I maintain that '06 will be the year of the WinMob Palms and that the remainder of '05 will be used for getting the line rebadged back to "Palm" and tweaking FrankenGarnet one last time.

I'm sure it cost >$80 to make (think of the cost of all those years of development).

Surur

Somebody was paying for them. Maybe it's been the Japanese: http://www.tokyoflash.com/viewwatch.php?id=78&KW=

No accounting for taste, heh.

Still, in a way it's too bad a Palm on your wrist isn't considered chic since a small wearable computer is otherwise a cool idea. It just needs to take another form somehow. Something less obtrusive and less "yesterday's future". What about a pen-shaped device that projects a laser-screen image on the surface in front of it when you put the tip down and then accepts input from movements of the tip. They're using tiny lasers to project virtual keyboards onto a table, so why not the device screen itself?

I know, I know. A bunch of geeks would buy them, put them in their pocket protectors and the coolness would instantly dissipate.

Still, we will someday have cool, wearable computers, I'm sure of it. Give Fossil something for at least giving it a try.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

Imagine all of the dictionaries and Graphic calculators i can install onto that baby for the SATs and other tests !

The world will end in 2006. Just as it was predicted in the bible along with the release of Microsoft Longhorn.... :p

Actually, this could be an attractive solution with a little more development. Imagine it slimmer, more in line with Fossil's better designs, and with a little OLED display and BT radio!

At $80 it's really a steal for techies. Super VZ on that little thing screams ... it's not like your gonna keep the entire Smithsonian Institute in main memory anyway.

Now, does that PalmOne WiFi card work on it yet? :-)

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

What it really needs is to be just a little bigger and have some extra LEDs like these: http://www.pimp-watches.com

And yes, it does HotSync as normal, but it should have it's own HotSync ID.