Linux Based Palm OS Due Sometime in 2008

"Sometime in 2008" is significantly delayed, not because Colligan refused to say when it would be out, but based on the competition facing Palm *today* vs when the Treo line first came out and Palm was cock of the block.

Tee hee. Snort. Guffaw.

TVoR

It has been a fun ride and I'll check back every once in a while but the iPhone is just an amazing machine and experience.

It does have shortcomeings, don't get me wrong. It needs a few 3-rd party apps before it will work for everything I currently use my 700P for. There are also some minor but supremely annoying interface items that need tweaking. However, here is the real conclusion:

When you compare the BASE iPhone with the BASE Palm OS or Windows Mobile, there is no comparison - iPhone is perfection. Palm & WM's only real hope will be to expand into new features & hope Apple never adds to the iPhone as it is, or ever allows 3rd party development.

Handspring Visor, Palm V, Treo 180, Treo 90, Treo 600, Treo 650...
MTT

we know apple won't stand still, however palm has been stagnant for years.

Multi-touch schmulti-touch. I clip snippets from the web and documents to paste into emails, memos and messages all the time on the Treo. Have fun re-typing stuff on your virtual keyboard...

we know apple won't stand still, however palm has been stagnant for years.

Irrelevant when Apple are asking you to pay $600 with contract for a device that lacks such basic features.

But of course the lack of cut&paste isn't going to make much of a dent in the sale of iPhones. The people who are buying it are not likely the kind who plan on getting any real work done on it. Just like the lack of true third-party apps isn't going to hurt the sales of iPhones to people who don't put third-party apps on their smartphone. It's all about self-selecting groups. I don't suppose Jobs care very much at all about the smaller group of true power users simply because they are a smaller group. He doesn't need them.

I on the other hand have no interest in a $600 phone/media device that I can't install any of my "critical" third-party apps on and that I can't even do cut&paste on. No thanks; I'm still shopping.


Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Want an alternative? Try this: http://www.ubuntu.com/ or http://www.mepis.org/

Or planned?

Got a PALM-sourced pointer to back up that belief?

[alas, The Kidlet is using my main computer right now so I can't easily check my personal copies of various PALM thingees to try to check for such a beast - but I don't remember seeing one]

The key is within YOU, Timmmmmmmmmay.

TVoZ

TVoR

You sound a little bitter about it... why is that?

I will never use the foleo as a companion to anything, not treo, not iphone and no, not even for another foleo :-) i believe a mobile phone should be as simple as possible, light, unbreakable... i do not want to go out carrying some fragile, easily scratched super expensive treo.. it is simply a compromise i can't except! to little to actually work on it, to big and fat to take everywhere! i want to separate the phone from the computer, give me a small compact nokia 3120 http://tinyurl.com/23n9en
small, super-strong device, i can really take anywhere in my back pocket without the fear of sitting on it... and when i travel, and need computing on the road, that's when i take the foleo! as a multimedia device, an office platform and as a teminal to my computer at home.

iPhone is iFailure! good news for palm...

Is that you Mr. al-Sahaf? Glad to see you've got a new job in Palm PR after your last job as Iraqi Minister of Information.

iPhone is just a feature phone with fancy UI and good looks. It is definitely a bloated device, the OS itself already taken 700MB with such a basic features. I can't imagine if it is going to perform like a Treo how large the OS is going to be.

Wow there are still some Palm apologists around, instead of sour graping about the iPhone it's time customers demand Palm bring its smartphones up to date by adding wi-fi! How many more years are the Palm Os faithful going to endure?

The whole point of the OS X is the flexibility of what software can be installed on the iPhone, note how quickly the YouTube widget appeared on the iPhone? It's a shame that the iPhone remains a closed system but theoretically any software that runs on a Mac will be able to run on an iPhone. By the way, how many feature phones have VPN and wi-fi? This is an OS in a phone Palm can only dream of. It does make me wonder about Cobalt. Funny how Apple could put OS X into a mobile device yet Palm shunned the presumably smaller, less sophisticated Cobalt.

No lucking out - my Treos have all been very solid. (Let's not mention my 680's headphone jack...)

Smaller Treos are coming. Yes, they are 3 years too late, but better late than never, right? Right? RIGHT?

Right!

Poor camera, slow internet, & poor call & reception quality are hallmarks of the Treo line. We put up with them because we want & need everything else the Treo does.

Handspring Visor, Palm V, Treo 180, Treo 90, Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 700p
MTT

It is not a smart phone at current version. It is just a feature phone with fancy UI and good looks.

Eh...A feature phone with an OS and integrated software more advanced than any smartphone? You nervous fanboys will say anything to convince yourselves (and others) that iPhone somehow isn't going to steal sales away from your beloved platform. Colligan seems to know better, since he warned analysts that next quarter earnings will likely take a hit from iPhone sales.

The argument that iPhone somehow isn't a smartphone is my favorite. That's like Toyota unveiling a stunning new sports coupe, and GM's defense is that it's not really a car...it's a motorized personal transportation vehicle.

iPhone's only real shortcoming, from my perspective, is that it feels like a new house with unfurnished rooms. The living room is gorgeous, but the bedrooms are still bare. Then again that's the mark of great software- delivering a user experience so good it leaves you wanting more, rather than wishing what it had just worked (as is the case with Treo). It's clear that Apple intends to push software add-ons to iPhone over time. And analysts are saying that Apple will in fact open iPhone to third party software development, and plans to do so later this year. The initial goal was to produce a product that is stable, offers a jaw dropping user experience, and worked well. More than anything it is that last point that is key.

In that regard iPhone scored well. Even at this first generation stage it performs better, does more, and is far more innovative than even a fifth generation mobile platform.

If this ridiculous notion helps you sleep at night, pleasant dreams. But as you tip toe through the tulips of your little fantasy world, keep this in mind - Apple sold more iPhones over the past three days than Palm sold Treos in three MONTHS.

Having spent the past few days with my iPhone it universally mops the floor with any current mobile platform. The software is YEARS ahead of Windows Mobile, Symbian, and RIM. Palm's Gerber Baby OS isn't even in the same league with OSX, comparing my Treo 680 against the iPhone is just sad. Sadder still that iPhone gets vastly better battery life than the 680! Once you immerse yourself in the iPhone's UI and software you'll never want to go back to your current smartphone. For example, the fonts interface uses the same font rendering as OSX, so text is formatted to look exactly as it does it on your desktop, even scaling up or down using the "pinch" gesture. If I want to make the text larger, I just draw two fingers farther apart and the document expands/zooms. Contrast that with the blocky pixelated text on your Treo, BlackBerry, WinMob, Symbian device, and you'll want to vomit. It's a shame that iPhone isn't open yet to third party software because as it stands it would make an unbelievable eBook reader. When that time comes it could even do for eBooks what iPod did for digital music.

As for iPhone killing PalmOS/Treo - Blackberry already did that. While waiting in line on Friday I was stunned by the number of Blackberries. They were everywhere, and the majority of BB users I spoke with had upgraded from a Treo. Most were surprised that I "still" use a Treo. PalmOS is the Speak N' Spell of mobile computing. We grew up on it and then...grew up.

I don't see how Palm can survive against the lethal force of competition it now faces, and I'm not just referring to iPhone. The Palm brand name lost most of its value. The OS had its day and is fading into obscurity. They can't execute against changing market realities. Their "third business" is a dud.

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http://www.pocketfactory.com
http://www.elitistsnob.com

For the time being, only Palm can kill Palm. Hoping they don't do that. ;-)

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