VZW Pre Plus EOL in Oct, Pixi Plus to Live on Until March

Got "categories " in Calendar by syncing with Google Cal, and using a different cal for each color / "category". Worx pretty nice. Speed issue with Calendar app has been relieved by the new 1ghz kernal. This thing screams now. Still no year view, Contacts have goods and bads, but work OK when gotten used to.

I have my doubts, but hope that WebOS2 would make a real effort to upgrade the 4 PIM apps. This could be a real selling point for Palm IMO. Unfortunately the world has gone after retina displays, 82 million apps in the catalog, and 3D games, and 4G. All are nice, but the "organizer " of it's day is soooo necessary. Tools or toys?

My son (college freshman) missed an appointment the other week. I asked, why did you not have it in your calendar of that 5 month old $600 iPhone? He said, "I've never put an entry in that Calendar before". Smartphones huh?
Pat Horne

I have Companion-Link USB and between the time I last posted and this, I have lost 3.5 months worth of Contacts data! Tech support was walking me thru some troubleshooting and the PC overwrote the Pre and I had no backup b/c it was yet to sync properly. Fit to be tied at the moment.

But, I mention this b/c C/L has a similar product, that instead of using the USB sync to Palm Desktop, it uses a PalmDesktop->Google->Pre sync that forgoes the cable. If they don't get me data back, I'm gonna demand that instead or I'll sit down "indian style" in front of their home office and protest. :-)
Pat Horne

We will probably see that tomorrow.

Turns out that tech geeks still don't have the slightest clue what'll sell and what'll actually be useful to the public. The majority of people don't want to multitask Photoshop and YouTube on a $200 netbook. That was basically the chief complaint of the iPad detractors. Most who had a distaste for the iPad and recommended netbooks didn't even own a netbook themselves.

I've told everyone here already that I bought one for my parents. They love it. A manager at work asked me about it recently and I told him to try it at the Apple store before the Labor Day weekend. He came into my office on Monday and told me he and his wife love their new iPad.

These are not Apple fanboys. These are regular people with shit to do. And they were more than happy to fork over $500 for it.

Typical hyperbolic screechings of an Apple fanboi.

Any iPad success to date is due primarily to marketing. People are buying iPads without even knowing how/where they will even use them. Jobsian marketing > consumer intelligence.

A $300 or $400 netbook would be more practical to more people than a $500 or $700 iPad. Of course, Steve Jobs told everyone that the iPad is "magical", so you fanbois immediately parrot this rubbish everywhere.

In a perfect world we could vote dumbass fanbois like you off the planet. Amazing that you are allowed to keep your job as a security guard at the power plant, Homer.

abosco wrote:
Brilliant analysis. You're right and the entire market is wrong. Millions of people spending hundreds of dollars on a product are doing so with no research. You're an idiot.

Try a netbook. They SUCK. What people need is a portable device that can browse the web, do email, and play multimedia with an easy interface. What they don't need is Windows XP, 2 minute boot-times, and sluggish performance.

I do have a netbook and I like it very much. It boots up in under a minute and runs everything a full-sized PC or laptop runs - including Flash. It's a real computer with a comfortable physical keyboard which is not limited to Apple's walled garden.

While it is true that Windows XP, like all windows OSes, is subject to the inevitable bit-rot that leads to sluggish performance and somtimes forces "power users" wipe it out and do a full reinstall, it is also quite easy to install one of the many excellent Linux distributions designed for the ground up for netbooks. I run Jolicloud on mine and it is extremely fast and I have it installed alongside of Windows XP giving me the best of all worlds in terms of speed, stability, portability, compatibility, and not needing to be activated through iTunes.

none of which an ipad can do along with probably a lot of other shiit i don't even know about. WTF?

While I have my issues with Apple, one good thing they don't use forced obsolescent every two years just to refresh the dealer stock. An iPod or a Mac bought five years ago will work in the current Apple infrastructure of most existing peripherals and network services. Yes, it is slower and less features, but it will work.

On the other side, Palm infamous cyclical, abandonment of supported platform form factors (connector du jior and such) and SDK (no direct Garnet support in webOS -- yes they could have easily bundled in the Garnet emulator no matter what BS was said by their marketing.) hurt them hard.

Walking away from Garnet and thus a developer base that they grew over a period of ten years really did them in. Those that made these forced obsolescence decisions following some trendy MBA fad need to be answerable for this.

I'm sure Apple will come out with a new iPod that will blow the socks off others. After the HP buyout, Palm is now just a page in the Big Ledger over in Palo Alto near Sand Hill Road. With the shake up in CEO's at HP, I worry for the now Palm division. I can easily see closed door meetings with third parties wipe out the whole Palm division, cancel project and force the merger as a loss for tax purposes.

Last I heard, Jeff got his big check and is totally out of the Palm infrastructure with the merger. Who knows. Has anyone read the full SEC filing of the HP / Palm merger?

Dahyum! This place really IS dead.

Gary
Tech Center Labs
www.talestuff.com
www.iTalentProductions.com

They all do it. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Palm - they all track you and sell your data to the highest bidder. This whole "Don't be evil" philosophy proved to be just extremely targeted marketing to geeks. They are the equivalent of Microsoft with a smiley face drawn on a paper bag over its corporate head.

Google provides some really, really good services. But at its

But back to Google--I hate Gmail and its annoying "conversatioins". I hate their calendar and their hodge-podge services that are either perpetually in beta or gradually die a quiet death on the market. And the fragmentation plaguing the Android world is truly horrific right now. The new lifecycle for a new Android-based device is this:

1. User buys a device running an "old" version of the OS
2. User sits around waiting for an update (Froyo, Gingerbread etc)
3. User hopes their phone's carrier & manufacturer can get it together to release the update
4. The update is finally released after months of delays and a few lingering bugs remain that will never be addressed
5. The user's device is EOL'd and the user has another 16-18 months to go on his/her contract before it can be replaced with another subsidized handset.

That's the lame thing about mobile tech: if you want to roll with the latest & greatest hardware AND your carrier of choice, you have a very meager selection of OSes to choose from.

Really, installing a little Blackjack or puzzle game from the Android Market and and it wants to have access to your contacts &location??? Please!

Tucker, can't you just disable the location status stuff? Basically just toggle the system prefs option for E911 only for location? Love that WiMax & that big screen on that Evo, though! I think that as Android picks up momentum, especially as we start seeing more Android-based PMPs and prepaid offerings, more "stand alone" options will open up to users as far as locally cached data and ways to circumvent all of the location posting crap.

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->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X + Palm TX