Comments on: Palm OS 6 To Be Released in Late 2003

Hoping from one connection to another, protocols, ect.

>>For multimedia, palm already got a fast CPU, good speaker, and camera on their PDAs. what else can they add?

That does not mean it is as good as it can be. My guess is new UNIVERSAL APIs (meaning media players that work on every device), support for diffrent codecs, ect.

security? So what are the security holes Palm has so far?

A whimpy password is not good security. REAL 128 bit encrytion is security.

Did you really think the OS was perfect? Its good, but not perfect. Technology moves on, and operatins systems must keep up.

As for wireless, at this point other there are multiple directions. Palm seems inclined to wait until cellphone chips come down to $10 and include them. But they might well in the short term, relent and include a CF slot, so that for *today* the user can choose best of breed solutions for themselves, and/or mix and match. For example the pocketPC camp can add a tri-band GSM phone to any CF slot:
http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/3542.html

But in the mid-term the better solution might be the now FCC approved software definable radio. It takes more horsepower and battery (but we have lot of both currently in the platform), but one DSP array can be any wireless technology, or given sufficient resource availability, be multiple wireless flavors at the same time.

Imagine now your PDA is a IS-95 or CDMA2000 phone by day with an office number, a GSM phone by night on a personal account, or when overseas on a trip. And all while offering BT and or WiFi in the background as needed.

As for 2.4Ghz cordless phone around the house, there used to be just that, in fact, as a Visor springboard module from a local company. Pop it in, and voila, a cordless phone. Some of the models even gave internet data abilities to the Visor in addition.

Well I beleive if they had another chance they wpuldn't buy Be. They would invest in better marketing and better UI on PalmOS 5.

And yes, UI could be better and i dont want to buy Aeroplayer, LauncherX.....ETC.

Java support should be built in. Should have been in OS4. Should have been in OS5. If they build it in, the programs would run "faster" since they wouldn't need a interpreter (unless that what was built in). Apple did something similar for OS X.

_____
Fammy

Moreover you get more information on this thread at brighthand:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V5D432B74

The Sun Java impelementation of MIDP for Palm is only supported on POS 3.5. It's old stuff that is not going to be updated. It may work on OS5 devices, but there will be no update for any problem it might have.
Palmato

------------------------
Tired of PPC? Get a TT!

Palm has no interest in making it easy for people to write cross-platform applications. Palm has consistently tried to create a franchise of proprietary APIs, and they still have the developer base to get away with it.

If PalmSource has anything to do with it, Java isn't going to ship with Palm until Palm has absolutely no other choice.

However, PalmSource now faces a dilemma: if they do a reasonable job with PalmOS 6, then porting Java and cross-platform toolkits will be easy. If they continue shipping the kind of weird architectures they have been shipping until now, they are going to lose market share and developers.

For those of you waiting for PDAP, it was essentially dropped. The main APIs from it (for accessing PIM info and FileConnections, if I remember right) were kept as optional API packages. The PIM APIs will be nice if/when they ever see the light of day on a device. In the long run, I think they made the right decision, but it is also hard to not see it as a setback.

Instead of dragging their feet to a J2ME CLDC MIDP 2.0 with the FileConnection and PIM APIs implementation, which is where I can only guess they are heading (since JSR-75 was for CLDC). Why don't they get Insignia to do a PersonalJava port for OS 5 (like is available for nearly every other PDA) and/or head toward J2ME CDC Personal Profile with the PIM APIs (which is where I'm assuming everyone else will head in the future)? The CLDC stuff is nice for an OS 4 device, but I fear it is going to be too little, too late for the OS 5 (or 6) devices.

OTOH: HOLY COW!! *SOFT* Graffiti!! Make it SKINNABLE, dammit!

And I can see this isn't a hoax: I see the WiFi signal strength icon from the Tung C there.

I'm not keen on having *two* rows of titlebars in editing an Address. Look at how inefficient that is. What a waste of space!

I also think the Soft Graffiti area should allow the things I mentioned in my article. Plus, I see they now have room on both *sides* of the area -- let us cram some user-defined icons in that area too. Like maybe Cut/Copy/Paste icons. Even better: ditch the damned time of day at the bottom and put those icons *there* so you don't have to bring up the SG area or tap on an icon to bring up the Command Bar!

This thing still needs lots of work. LOTS!!

COOOOOOOOOOOL!

Look at that scrollbar! awsome! Evarything looks great! Look at the date though. Year 2002. Sounds like a prototype to me. Rest assured that will all these months since those shots, the real OS will look even better!

*sigh* Me, too.

This is exactly the problem: Palm doesn't ship a modular operating system (vendors supply drivers, developers supply applications). Instead, they just dump a bunch of code on hardware vendors and tell them "hey, you hack it till it works with your hardware". That's Palm's problem, not Sony's (other than that Sony signed up for it).

Wha? In particular since OS 5 - PalmSource has made the OS code quite modular. This has been at the request of and for the benefit of, licensees. Why you are painting a picture of 'poor sony' held hostage by PalmSiource is beyond me - its up to Sony to support the OS with their devices in whatever way they see fit. And they do - they have their own version of the app launcher for example. This is not a 'hack' - why do you use this term? Licensees have full access to the OS / built-in app source code and permission to modify it. So how is this a hack?

I'd gladly pay a few bucks for a seamless "grafitti 1" compatibity utility. Any developers got something like this?

-Kevin Crossman

Then Graffiti 2 can die a slow, painful death :)

I hope these make it in by 0S 7.

Are you sure these are BlueAnon's cousins?

I hope these make it in by 0S 7.

Theese are in OS6.

Mike, you probably don't care what I, a random reader thinks of you, but know that it reflects very poorly on any sort of credibility and integrity you have. I'm certain I'm not the only person who thinks so. Congratulations.

Peace Out
Alan

And not everyone is going to want The Next Thing. Plenty of people are out there today buying the mono, no-backlight Zire (God help them!!).

Good question. Maybe to shift the virtual graffiti area to the top of the screen?

"what's that icon at the LOWER right of the area"

It looks like a pencil icon. Maybe to activate handwritten notes like Diddlebug maybe??

"what happened to the Calc icon?!"

Probably not enough room to display the Calc icon on top. It may be just another application on the app menu

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
- Bill Gates (1955-), in 1981

Oh come on! Use your brain and look at the second picture. If it was not VG, could that popup be there?

At first, I thought your comment was dumb. Then I went back to look again -- hmmm.... why is there an UP ARROW in the upper-right corner of the G area? If this was Soft Graffiti, wouldn't that be pointing DOWN so the area would COLLAPSE?

The up arrow is obviously a Graffiti shift icon. I think the little pencil below opens and closes the writing area.

What - no quad cpu systems ?! Thats OK - XP home edition doesn't support that either:)

-- to what? SIXTEEN? INFINITY?

>>You're insane. Look at an OS 5 screenshot compared to those, and I dare you to tell me that there isn't any cosmetic changes.

He did not say no cosmetic change. He said no fundamental change, and he is a little right. Still title bars, buttons, selector triggers, ect. Although, the launcher does not look like any other app anymore, because it has no title bar, and is blended into the writing area. Also, it seems tabs are added.

Its the opposite - when PPC was introduced several yrs ago, MS leap-frogged Palm in terms of technology (multitasking, faster processors, hi-res screens, mp3 etc). In the last 2 yrs Palm has caught up and passed PPC in some ways (screen res). By comparison, PPC has changed very little (PPC 2003 is basically a bug fi release).

Well, no.

The Eejit went on to drool:
Mike notice that those "possible" OS6 pics have your beloved VIRTUAL GRAFFITI? Isnt that on your wish list? If it is in OS6 I was right huh? Still wanna disrespect me for calling you on your premature rant?

Schmuck! Go see a comment I posted earlier today. That is most likely NOT Soft Graffiti. Another silkscreen jobbie.

The Approval-Desperate Cretin repeated:
"Better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

-- yes, you should have taken that advice to begin with. You still can. Go away.

The Blithering Cretin then went into a full-blown psychotic episode with:
You dare question my intellect when I continue to toy with yours. You dare insult my previous posts when for you reading my words amounts to a "HIGHER EDUCATION."

-- you know that medication your stopped taking? Refill the prescription. When you have a full bottle, take it. The FULL BOTTLE.

(Damn, this thread is OUT there!)

-Bosco
Proud Member of the Top Non-Mods
Members: abosco and ImpReza M3
Now accepting new applications

-- Travis Bickle; Taxi Driver.

Oh but my opinion already seems to matter since you got so bent over my first post. Musta hit a nerve, huh Mike.
But come on "empty lifed?" Isnt that what your shrink tells you when he explains that your 24/7 devotion to everything PDA is a problem? You see Mike I've been here since 01 and nearly half the posts I've ever made are here. I go for months without posting boo. See my life is too full.

You on the other hand LIVE HERE, and on every other PDA board. When you get some REAL friends, and a REAL life, you wont have the time to spend all your time in your little PDA cyberworld.

"Look at me" you say.
Isnt that what your little tantrum is about?
Palm "look at me"
"I said a year ago I wanted..."

But again the bottom line is I'm right
Your rant was premature. :)

I was offline from 11PM Thursday until 8PM Friday. But I'm sure Islander kept checking PIC over and over and over to see if I replied. The loser. (Hey, it's Friday! Porn tape night for you, Islander!)

Something non-developers don't understand: the look of the OS is the tiniest fraction of the work that goes into an OS. Beos are not a team of graphic designers - the 'look' will doubtless be somebody else job (constrained by the need to meet reuqirements dictated by the OS's functionality). Palm OS 7 SHOULD NOT be completely different for the sake of geeks wanting to see something 'far out'. Palm is what it is because it was the first PDA OS to make sense and have a simple interfaxce for the average user to understand. The trick is supporting advanced features, while maintaining an interface that people know and that supports backward compatibilty for old apps. I like the new look (if the screenshots are true) - much nicer and cleaner than PPC which always makes me feel claustrophobic.

[i][b]Poor Islander! He seeks my approval sooo much, the empty-lifed, illiterate cretin. He creates an entire thread that shrieks "Look at me, Mike! Doesn't someone as insignificant as ME matter?"[/i][/b]

Mike you lost, take it with a bit more dignity. The only person that looks like a cretin right now is you. Please remember the old Usenet rule number 1: The spelling lamer automagically loses.

There are more countries on this earth than the USA, and you would do well to remember that PIC is an international forum and not every one speaks English as a first language.

--
J. Cifer

-- good one!

>>Where has the dropdown meny button gone from the virtual silkscreen?

-- VERY good catch! A+. Kind of PIC reader I like!

Think before you post.

Could it be -- to bring up the Command Bar?!

But then, where's the DOWN arrow to collapse the SG area?!

OK, so now where is the DOWN arrow to collapse the area?!

I now think that "pen-like" icon on the lower right is actually a TOGGLE for the SG area. Tap once, and it changes it state: Open or Close.

Er, what was March 12th of 2002?

(It's now obvious that the time mnachine feature has been pushed ahead from OS7 to OS6!)

Something tells me this Xmas season is going to be *abysmal* for PalmOS PDA sales. Most of the money will wait for OS6 devices in 2004...

The hardware is already here. It's going to run the same processor, so it shouldn't take as long as OS 5 did to come out in an actual device. With OS 5, they needed up get a new processor AND a new OS.

I actually think this year will be huge for Palm OS sales. If Sony doesn't release something extremely startling by next month, the PPC OEM's will own the summer.

-Bosco
Proud Member of the Top Non-Mods
Members: abosco and ImpReza M3
Now accepting new applications

...that used non-existent film reviewers to provide fake praise quotes in ads for its rotten movies!!

...that recently stated news.com would be embarrassed at all the errors in its report about MStick changing -- and it turned out NOTHING in news.com's report was wrong!

...that licked its chops thinking it was going to trademark the term "shock and awe" and degrade it to the level of videogame commoditization.

But I have made the point.

Which is: never be a suckup for any company. Especially one you *don't* work for.

Uncle! Uncle!

(But when we meet, shall we play baseball? I'll bring the BAT! nyahaha!)

I have a huge-color-screened NX that lasts me over a day in battery life. I can't imagine using my device for 5 hours in a day, unless I was listening to mp3s on a plane or something, but nothing in the average day. I think battery life is fine right now. Also, the new devices are much easier on the eyes than old 160x160 monochrome devices. It IMPROVES usability. You're hoping for something that will never happen -- Sony/palm/etc is not about to switch back to 160x160 monochrome for their devices. You seem happy with just staying where palm was a few years ago. CPU improvements just take up more memory and kill battery life.

I'd never go back to a monochrome 160x160 screen, as the new ones are just so much easier on the eyes. Remember that these screenshots are most likely not of what OS5 will be when it is released. It seems to be just a concept. I don't really see 3D buttons as a step back though, as memory is not an issue (it's only going to take up a little bit of ROM) and it just looks a little nicer (potentially, if they do it right). They dont have to take up any more space either.