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Shouldn't Palm at least be checking to see if the apps are malware?

'cause Apple's application inspection regime has worked well to prevent malware, right?

If your platform security relies on code inspection to catch malware, you're setting yourself up for epic fail.

Is that functionality malware? From post #29585841,

I was curious if this was possible on other devices. Seems like all the big ones have some API functionality to retrieve similar information:

- http://docs.blackberry.com/en/developers/deliverables/8540/Retrieve_phone_number_BB_device_565546_11.jsp Blackberry

- http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2004/11/28/271110.aspx Windows Mobile

- http://www.forum.nokia.com/infocenter/index.jsp?topic=/S60_5th_Edition_Cpp_Developers_Library/GUID-3EB7E846-A29F-4546-B04D-A90B009903EF.html [nokia.com] Symbian (while on casual inspection there appears to be no function to retrieve the phone number, you can retrieve the IMEI, and be notified on events such as phone calls, at which point you can retrieve the caller ID as well as the dialed number)

- http://developer.android.com/reference/android/telephony/TelephonyManager.html Android (requires permissions be granted to the app)

So it's malware on the iPhone, when it's a supported API on a number of other platforms, except Symbian.

OTOH, this is good for Palm - we'll soon be inundated with Norton Antivirus for WebOS, McAfee Antivirus for WebOS, etc. Just like Symbian and I believe WinMo have. After all, we can't have another Liberty virus that afflicted PalmOS devices. (This was named after the Liberty Game Boy Emulator for PalmOS).

And I suppose, good for developers of fart apps, flashlight apps, and other spam apps. Last one was particularly interesting. Helps the Pre's app numbers, though.

That still won't run on a Palm V. (OS 5.0 only).

However, Liberty (commercial)--remember, this was the one with the supposed 'crack' released by the author that was a trojan instead-- will do it just fine, as well as palmboy if you prefer oss.

I can't play Legend Zelda, Final Fantasy, or Dragon Warrior on my Palm V.

Um, actually you can. Gambit Studios has had a gameboy emulator out for the palm os for quite some time. Some of the older palms are a little sluggish, but it works.

If I could, I'd make some kind of palm gaming application so that people could download ROMs of their favourite old-school games

Considering the the the latest Palm hardware runs a 400 MHz XScale processor, speed ought not to be a concern for emulation now. And the video display is something that a $100 handheld game unit won't be able touch.

Those who are tired of the snake & pong games on their cellphones might like to stick an emulator on this.

Maybe the real question is, "When will game devices start featuring PDA & phone functions?"

ah, but you can install liberty or Phoenix on it and play a good chunk of the GBA game library :)

and and i would that 200 MHz CPU would capable of pulling off a GBA emulator, or at least a GBC (but i don't know for sure)

I can't believe I'm not seeing shouts of "wait till I port GNU/Linux to it!"

I'm also surprised more people are not crazy about this idea, especially considering the competition coming out soon like the n-gage from Nokia. Why am I surprised? Because the PalmOS is a haven for open-source developers where many of them can't abide to develop for a Pocket PC, and the n-gage is obviously a more closed type of system.

So, wake up! It's a Palm--and it's got a controller built-in. I've been waiting for this (and had a fully fleshed-out idea for it) for a few years! And I bet the Liberty folks will be salivating over this announcement.

Or if you're a Palm owning Gameboy fan then try Liberty or PalmBoy (free).

There is also a GBA emulator for the PocketPC apparantly. Although I've not tested it and there was a rumour of one of the GBA emulators being a hoax.

Biggest problems are that:

• Battery life in a pocketpc is low enough as it is without having a game hammer it even more
• You can't press two buttons at the same time with an iPAQ, possibly others too

--

You can download Liberty from gambitstudios.com (and be sure you're avoiding the Liberty trojan floating around). They suggest using an overclocker for best performance. The site has some fun screenshots of the emulator running Tetris, Zelda and Pokemon *groan*, too. Oh, and if you have a Palm IIIc, you even get to play em in color.