PalmAddicts Interviews PalmSource Spokesperson

Nail.

Hit on head.

Nuff said. PalmSource need to work on their PR activities - nobody's got any reason to remember them after the long period of quiet and shoddy "scoop interviews" like these.

A very disgruntled KultiVator

Also, a solid rubber mallet would be useful. Plus a duck and a hose, but I don't know where we'd find them at this time of night.

I think this thermorectal cryptonanalyzer is what they deserve ;)'

http://bestpics.ru/full/APRT_0.2.jpg

PALMSOURCE DAMAGE-CONTROL ROBOT SPEWS: "Our development efforts today are focused on the ACCESS Linux Platform. Based on Linux, ALP is being designed to provide handset manufacturers with faster time-to-market while supporting the goal of operators to offer revenue-generating services, applications and content. We believe that ALP combines best-in-class open source Linux components with proven mobile technologies developed by PalmSource and ACCESS.

In addition, ALP will feature MAX, an innovative application framework designed by ACCESS and PalmSource to deliver an intuitive, easy-to-use user experience and user interface for smartphones and mobile devices. MAX is being designed to seamlessly support the concurrent operation of multiple applications and tasks. It is also expected to provide easy access to background tasks. Designed to deliver a predictable and intuitive navigation model for both one- and two-handed user interface schemes, the MAX framework will offer the flexibility to support five-way navigation and two dedicated keys, as well as touch-screen and stylus input mechanisms.

By combining ACCESS' robust NetFront browser platform, its extensive business relationships with over 30 handset vendors with PalmSource's advanced operating system, application portfolio, renown user interface and worldwide developer community, we believe that ALP will provide the mobile market with a comprehensive, flexible and integrated commercial-grade Linux based solution."

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W T F??? Why not just say something like, "Sorry, PalmSource is not at liberty to discuss specifics regarding the plans of licensees and their use of PalmSource-licensed software." DAMAGE-CONTROL ROBOT's actual answer comes across as nothing but a load of incoherent marketing-speak. No surprises here - it's business as usual for PalmSource...

TVoR

We knew ALP was going to be a pretty significant departure from Palm OS as soon as we were told that PalmSource was basing the GUI on the Rome Project UI described at last year's DevCon rather than Palm OS Cobalt (which is more like the familiar Palm OS). It's not actually clear that there will be a big difference between the GUI for touchscreen vs non-touchscreen devices. But this is what we do have a good idea about:

1. Unlike Palm OS, ALP is going to support using two "soft buttons" for navigation (like most mobile phones). We can guess that instead of (or perhaps in addition to) the menu bar at the top of the screen with its multiple menus, there will now be two menus that are accessed from the soft buttons.

2. The interface is a fundamental rethink about the user interface. At the DevCon Larry Slotnick said that a lot of the thinking in the Rome Project was centered around how to give users access to "tasks" as the user conceives of them rather than just application functions. David Schlesinger once described MAX to me in a similar way: "The MAX framework is task-oriented--'answer a call', 'create a contact', 'send an email', 'accept an appointment' are all tasks--and it supports multiple simultaneous tasks and applications seamlessly, with easy access to things running in the background. We've designed MAX to 'scale up' to provide that same kind of access and ease of use to the advanced features we'll be seeing on next-generation mobile devices."

3. So obviously a big difference from Garnet is going to be how the device lets you visualize all the tasks running on the device and switch between them. Where you once had to return to the launcher (or use dedicated hard buttons) to switch applications in Palm OS and the previous application was always closed before the next would launch, now the launcher is probably going to be somewhat less important as a navigational tool in favor of a new task switcher that's available from any application you're in.

I agree with Marty that if you're not interested in seeing some pretty big changes from the old Palm OS GUI you're probably going to be in for a disappointment. Personally, I'll be disappointed if there *aren't* major changes. I'm sure shareware developers are hoping that users will feel that the MAX interface is so obviously better than the old Garnet GUI that they'll want to upgrade to new software written against the MAX API as soon as possible.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Care to elaborate further?

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