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It's been a while (about a year) since I last investigated this, so I may be off-base, but I think this is still reasonably current:

Most of the cellphone companies, especially the PCS ones, claim to be able to deliver digital data connections. Almost none of them can, and if they can, the performance is painfully slow. These folks just don't understand the value of opening up their bit stream. (Dream On: Really, I just want a good IP pipe, and I'll decide myself whether to use it for web, mail, telephony, or whatever. This assumes that the phone companies are interested in building an open IP architecture, sadly, they're not...)

So far as I know, there are no wireless ISP services that offer both road coverage and non-painful speeds.

Probably the best option today from a coverage standpoint and a real data solution is one of the CDPD-based services like OmniSky or GoAmerica. You can also start at the sites of the equipment providers like Sierra Wireless or Novatel Wireless. This approach still leaves a lot to be desired, but is likely the best reasonably-priced option available now.

Alternatively, you could try to live in the 802.11b world, hoping to find access points. Some cities have better documentation of this than others - Austin has a very incomplete list at Austinwireless.Net, mostly because RoadRunner is heavy-handedly disconnecting people they find out are running 802.11b APs. This is not a great option, but actually getting better as 802.11b takes off - lot's of offices and coffee houses have this stuff now.

Of course there are the exotic options like Iridium, but it's expensive and I expect most of their bandwidth is being used by the DoD right now...

Metricom's Ricochet was a great system if you could get it, but I was never able to consider it: they never got enough of Austin covered to really make it an option. The only people I know that were really able to use Ricochet were in the Silicon Valley (San Jose) area, where the coverage is pretty good. It would be nice to see this approach (if not this company and its implementation) make a comeback - microcells are a great idea technically, but it appears to me that the cost of getting the rights for microcell sites is what killed them, compounded by the sheer volume of sites they need. I expect Metricom's cost of site acquisition was astronomical, except in places like San Jose where the city gave them carte blanche to hang boxes on any light pole.

sure, no CDPD in NA.

Im really just trying to find a replacement for the Toshiba Libretto. After Toshiba stopped making the palm top, the only real choice people had was PDAs. I really need a wireless device, If I only wanted a calendar or contact list, I have PocketNet phone with Fonesync software. But I needed a true wireless connection with a tcp/ip stack(for SSH) so I picked up a CDPD modem. But carrying around a full size laptop sucks, so I migrated to a PDA. I first started off with an wireless Palm Omnisky. Battery life was nice, upto 1 week light use, and 2 weeks if it sat im my pocket. But I wanted color and sound, I migrated to the PocketPC (Ipaq) and CDPD modem. Not bad, I can surf websites in html not wap, and even listen to mp3s. (Very important for work ya know!) Battery life is weak, and I find myself letting the battery die right when I need. Picked up a IBM Microdrive. Fast, was able to move documents from my laptop and back, neat idea, but didnt use it as much I wanted. I gotta get around to trying out the Pocket Divx Player and put a divx movie on the microdrive. (Gotta watch Red Dwarf ep with the Sock Puppet.)

Heck, They even have PDA pr0n for those long boring conference calls. :)

Nope.

Unlimited Omnkisky service is as cheap as $29/month.

http://www.omnisky.com/products/serviceplans.jhtml

I use it with my Visor, and it's a little slow but still usable.

Still no word on screen resolution... I assume if they aren't touting 320x320, that means they are still at 160x160. Of course, that is all PalmOS 4.0 can handle is 160x160, anything higher (e.g. Sony Clie) uses some sort of pixel doubling or something.

I emailed OmniSky last week to ask if they have support for the Palm505 yet. They said that they were not ready to announce any new support yet. But made it sound like they would. The link above lists Minstrel modems (the ones OmniSky uses) available in April 2001. So I assume shortly after the m505 hits shelves OmniSky will have full support. That gives users a full TCP/IP stack (afaik), modem for $199 with rebate, unlimited service for $39.95/month.

The new vibrating/silent/audible alarms being built in is a nice touch.

And it appears that applications will be able to be run directly off the SD Cards. That's a good thing too.

Personally, I would like to order one, they sound great... but I'm just unsure of the life of this thing. If Palm is going to release a 320x320 device with a StrongARM processor next year, I may just wait. But for now, I'm planning on buying one when they hit store shelves.

I have to say, the heating up of the PDA wars is definitely getting interesting (Palm vs. Handspring vs. iPAQ), but I have to say the most intriguing part of this whole battle, to me, is the emergence (and advances) of wireless Interet access.

I currently have a Handspring Visor w/ OmniSky and am, for the most part, loving it. I think getting email and news while beyond the reach of my notebook/desktop is extremely cool.

BUT -- I saw the top-o-the-line iPAQ the other day w/ the wireless modem add-on, and, frankly, I'm impressed. First off, it's color & sleek (m505/Visor Prism matches it there), it's got a PCMCIA (or whatever they call it these days) expansion module, which means the wireless modem can also work on my laptop, and thirdly (and this is the most impressive part to me), it's got a FULL web browser built-in.

I've always been as anti-WinCE/Pocket-PC as one can get, but the fact that I browse full color, full-graphics, and full-text web pages (well, for the most part) on a palm-sized device is totally cool. I know this technology will improve, but PocketPC's definitley got the lead right now.

My question is how are these new Palms going to handle the whole net access question? I have high hopes -- there seems to be mention of the "Wireless Access Software", but that doesn't seem to be more than the 'ol IR-to-cellphone gig.

I'm waiting to see what kind of wireless modems are available for these devices, and what kind of web browsers will go along with them. If the modems are like the current Minstrels (i.e. tiny expansion slot but a modem that >doubles the overall size of the unit -- LAME), I'm going to have to keep waiting....:(

nlh

I'd rather have the colour of the Prism. That plus an Minstrel modem with OmniSky, and PalmVNC, I can connect to my linux box from anywhere, and have the nice rich full colour of my KDE desktop.

For Palm and Handspring, The PalmVII isn't the only way to go. OmniSky offers hardware and an ISP.

Well, I now have a better idea of what the security issue was with SSH1, and I've already secured some servers with it.

I've also found OmniSky's wireless modems for the Palms, Jornadas and Handsprings. They're currently $99 to purchase and $39.95/month for unlimited access. I've got my boss talked into it, considering that he was going to pay pretty much that price for a cell phone, which would prove worthless if I was out "in the field" and away from a machine with net access.

A shell account anywhere... IRC, Lynx, e-mail and web access... Works for me.

Believe it or not Palms can and do crash a lot.

3com/Palm has had a big problem with the Palm Vx and memory issues (its the 8MB model), plus buggy software can completely wipe a Palm.

I was a beta tester for OmniSky and there were a ton a problems (which I knew to expect). Their 1.0+ release is much stabler, and hasn't crashed yet.

If it's got a CPU, it can probably crash.

send flames > /dev/null

Since nobody's mentioned it yet, you might want to check out OmniSky. They just finished their beta program, they're taking orders now, and are shipping in a few weeks. Inexpensive clip-on CDPD wireless 19.2kbps modem for the Palm V, full TCP/IP, unlimited service.

I just ordered mine.

Of course, the Palm V only has 2MB of RAM, unlike the Palm Vx, which can make web browsing, news reading, running a web server, and e-mailing feel a bit cramped. So I'm getting mine upgraded to 8MB next week. There are currently 3 companies who do this, and this one has gotten the best reviews and is also the cheapest. Many of the OmniSky beta testers did this.

This is wonderful---all the Palm spin in one place. But we're (mostly) Linux people, right? Aren't we immune to software marketing spin? After all, much of the following sounds strangely familiar...

Palm OS(R) handhelds are the standard

Microsoft operating systems are the standard

- Palm OS has more than 75% market share worldwide, and our installed base doubled in the last year.

Microsoft operating systems have 99.44% market share worldwide. Installed base doesn't have room to double.

- Palm OS has more than 5,000 software programs, 10-50 times more than any other handheld platform.

Windows has a (countably) infinite number of software programs.

- Palm OS is supported by the leaders in enterprise software, including Oracle, Siebel, SAP, Lawson, Sun, and Sybase

Don't get us started.

Those are all great arguments against Linux as well.

OK, on to some better ones.

Palm OS handhelds are the leader because they were designed from the ground up for your needs.

- They're designed for information management when you're on the go, not to be a shrunken PC. Key features of a handheld are different from a PC:

- Simple. You can instantly access the information you need.

Microsoft at least is making gestures in this direction in this release.

- Wearable. It's small and light enough that that you can carry it in a pocket or a purse all day, and the batteries last long enough that you can go on a business trip without fear of losing information.

Enh, the Everex Freestyle (no longer sold under that name) was always smaller than a 5000/III, and the Compaq 1500 series is competitive in size. Battery life? No question that some PalmOS devices have much bigger numbers. The Casio E-15 I play with has enough rechargable battery life that I don't worry about it much, just like my Pilot 1000.

- Mobile. You can always update your information through wired or wireless connections, even when you are on the go.

Well, duh. The only way I can read this is as a PR attempt to imply that other platforms don't have this capability. The statement itself is vague enough that an IR or cabled connection to a cellphone would qualify, and even my Newton talked nice to a cellphone.

The palm-sized CE devices out there are pretty weak in wireless communication, which is why they can get away with this implication. I don't know of any consumer-oriented palm-sized CE devices with integrated wireless net. Palm, because they're that market leader they're bragging about, does get the benefit of high quality third-party networking products (because they're the biggest market). There is nothing like the OmniSky around for CE, and it's the one product that makes me want to go drop ~$800 on a Palm V and that modem.

OK, now on to their evaluation questions. I'm going to divide up Palm operations into three notional organizations. Palm-HW builds the Palm-branded hardware like the Palm V. Palm-Opsys implements PalmOS...and also the applications bundled with it, like Address Book. Palm-Desktop builds the PC/Mac software that works with the device.

- How many software programs and hardware options are available? As for any other computing product, the number of software and hardware options determine how much you can do with it. Palm OS has by far the largest selection, with more than 5,000 software programs and hundreds of hardware expansion options.

Again, Linux people have been through this once before....

- Do the people around you use it? Handheld users share information. They use the infrared connection to exchange business cards, information, and even software programs. Make sure you're not stuck on a handheld island.

The answer to compatibility is not standardization on a single product. The righteous answer is open standards for interoperation. See IrDA's specs for a good cut at this; in particular, IrMC is relevant to PDAs. Open standards could cut the tie between Palm-Opsys and Palm-Desktop.

App sharing, well, that's a tougher nut. Blah blah blah tcl blah java blah waba blah blah. Shame about Sun, though.

- How many companies sell it? Which companies support the platform? How many? How innovative are they? Palm licensees and OEMs include many of the most innovative companies in electronics, including leaders like Sony, Nokia, and IBM, and hot new companies like Handspring, Qualcomm, and TRG.

I'm amused by this. Microsoft used to have a big pile of HW vendors, and 3com only had the single Palm-HW vendor. Then a year or two passed...

I haven't been impressed with the diversity and innovation of the manufacturers of devices that license PalmOS. They are just grafting a part or two onto the dragonball bus. In many cases, it's obvious they've licensed much of the Palm-HW design as well (why do all those cases look so similar?) The fanciest integration to date is the Qualcomm pilot-in-a-cellphone, but I don't think it's had much market success.

Some of this lack of innovation is due to limitations in PalmOS. They can't switch processors (64k limits must die) or go to a higher res screen without breaking those thousands of apps they're bragging about. (Yes, they could add LCD to the current silkscreen area, but going to a 240x320 screen will not make pixel-positioned forms very happy.)

- Is it open? Make sure your freedom of choice is protected.

...coming from a proprietary OS vendor (Palm-Opsys), this rings hollow.

Some handhelds restrict your choices by forcing you to buy all of one company's software programs,

Not CE, and I think this is another false argument-by-implication.

limiting you to a single expansion technology,

Even the CE hardware vendors appear to be rebelling against "must have CF". The iPAQ moved CF and PCMCIA support into expansion packs, and there are some MultiMediaCard CE boxes coming.

or not working with the full range of corporate software. [...]

standards, standards, standards. Not in Palm-Opsys's best interest though.

- Are you forced to pay for features you don't want? Everyone wants different things from a handheld. Adding hardware features increases the weight and cost of the system. Bundling extra software costs you money, and uses extra memory which adds even more cost and reduces battery life.

Oh, Palm is going to tout price competitiveness? That's a win for everyone, especially if it eats into those huge per-device profit margins.

More seriously, there is a complicated set of tradeoffs here. Bigger hardware can reduce software development costs, if done right (CE is a poor example, of course). Adding more software to ROM or flash adds just the marginal cost of more storage to the hardware price; it does not suck more RAM or CPU if not used. The additional software bundled then has development costs, but if the software broadens the appeal of the device sufficiently, it may amortize over a greater number of units, and push up those economies of scale.

The real fun begins once you really unbundle the system. Say, an OS like Linux as common ground for HW manufacturers, a couple choices of app framework (gtk, fltk, W, microwindows, plus extensions), a few good PIMs to choose from, all interoperating with a variety of synchronization tools on the desktop. The market could make better decisions in the bundling/feature space if component costs were explicit.

- How simple is it, really? Beware of companies that try to cram an entire PC into your pocket. [...]

- How well do the features work in real life? Sometimes features work better in a demo than they do in real life. A prime example is browsing the Web. [...]

This is the best battering ram against CE that Palm has. Trust me. I own both. :-)

I'm going to elide the feature list because they seem to be going for parity with CE rather than superiority.

Jay

Not Bluetooth...

Check out http://www.omnisky.com/products/index.html
for the wireless palm pilot modems.
Unlimited National CDPD Wireless Service with no roaming..

Side note, Each mobile has its own IP.
Just ssh/vnc into your box remotely, via your palm... oh yeah..

PS. That wap phone that article is talking about is the AT&T Pocketnet phone. (Out now)
http://www.attws.com/business/gov/explore/plans_ph ones/pocketnet/mitsubishi_t250.shtml
Check it out, the phone rocks! (I have one)

-IronWolve

I am listening to the show right now and someone
was saying they wish they could get palmV wireless
inet access (me too). There is this thing called
omnisky.
I haven't tried it, but it's there.

• Full-Featured Email from your existing accounts
• Real Web Content with access to virtually any Internet site
• Enhanced Palm Applications for easy record sharing
• High-Speed Modem for the Palm V for fast access on Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) Networks
• Unlimited Nationwide CDPD Wireless Service with free roaming

• Full-Featured Email from your existing accounts
• Real Web Content with access to virtually any Internet site
• Enhanced Palm Applications for easy record sharing
• High-Speed Modem for the Palm V for fast access on Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) Networks
• Unlimited Nationwide CDPD Wireless Service with free roaming

OmniSky, currently in beta, is selling a Palm V Mistrel modem for $299, and free CDPD Internet service (through your PalmOS) until the end of April 2K. After their service goes live it is guaranteed to not cost more than $50/month for unlimited usage, and beta testers get 15% off of whatever they decide to charge.

If you're inside their coverage area (they are really using local providers like AT&T, GTE, Bell South etc.) you can browse the web, send/receive email, read newsgroups, telnet, etc.. I even use PalmVNC to take control of Windows desktops (with the appropriate s/w installed on the target machines)...from anywhere...for administrative purposes of course.

I'm really happy with the service, it's not perfect, and their Palm software needs work...but it is beta...ain't going to be perfect.

I've developed some PQAs that let me deliver content from our client's databases (via Java Servlets) straight into their Palms (though it could go to Windows powered devices too...).

Cool stuff.

That and other new technologies. I mean, c'mon, when a service like Omnisky doesn't serve the small market (*cough* Albany, NY) you live in, you know you have to get out.

OmniSky (www.omnisky.com) is merely the network that is used for wireless Palm net access with the particular hardware for the Palm V discussed in this article. Palms do not in fact have built in modems; there are external modems available for the Palm, but the big deal about this technology is that wireless net access is now becoming a feasible thing for the Palm, and there's actually a market for competition between forms of access now. That's a big plus because it will drive prices down and quality up (theoretically... :).

Apparently, it's a cellular modem, probably 9600 baud.

That's not true, actually.. Surprisingly, the Palm VII (and I've had one now for a good 5-6 months) runs off a radio signal, not a cellular modem. There's no modem part involved (i.e. no modulating/demodulating).

You're correct about there being no full TCP/IP implementation. You can't run any normal TCP/IP application, but only the special PQA's (Palm Query Applications) which are basically just extremely simple HTML-based apps which can request very simple HTML pages from an actual HTTP server. However, the Palm VII itself doesn't actually hit the HTTP server, but goes through the Palm.Net proxy server, which reads the requested page and (1) strips the page of all images unless otherwise told by the page (via a metatag META NAME="PalmComputingPlatform" CONTENT="YES" is it I believe (this is knowledge from some time back I haven't used in a while)) and (2) then compresses the page into a format the Palm VII can decompress in order to use as little precious bandwidth as possible.

See, that's the trick about PQA's. They follow the usual "minimalist" strategy of Palm Computing, which is to avoid all the fancy things that only attract attention and don't really serve any major function and stick to the things that are really useful and do them well. The Palm VII was initially, and still is, criticized for this, however, in this age of the Internet in which many people are caught up by the idea of bigger, better, and flashier. However Palm realized that the most viable option for them was to take a step back from all that and find a type of wireless service that was viable for the world of today (or at least the world of 6 months to a year ago, and we all know how different that can be from the world of today when we're talking electronics). It wasn't yet feasible to create a wireless service with unlimited access, or at least wasn't easy to pull off, so they created a service that was based on how many KB you used in a month. I had the 150 K/month plan for $24.95/mo I believe it was, and while this seems like nothing (the size of the Slashdot front page perhaps? :), when you're using a PQA it really is quite a bit, unless you're doing lots of massive data downloading, such as lots and lots of email. I found it honestly hard to run through 150KB/month.

However, if I understand the Palm V with the OmniSky wireless service, it allows you to use PQA's (which was previously not possible as the Palm VII ran Palm OS 3.2, which handled PQA's, and all the other Palms ran Palm OS 3.0 or 3.1) and I'm not sure how they managed this through a Palm V (but I knew it could be done with enough expertise) and can also run regular TCP/IP programs, i.e. AvantGo, ProxiWeb, or an email client. Correct me if I'm wrong about that, but I think that makes for quite a flexible environment. You can choose the OmniSky per-KB plan (I don't remember exactly what the costs are but I'm sure they're available at OmniSky.com) and just use PQA's (with the flexibility of being able to use any browser, etc in an emergency) or you could choose the more expensive unlimited plan and have the ability to use PQA's or regular TCP/IP progs no matter what.

FWIW, I find PQA's much nicer to run on a Palm screen than full-fledged web pages, because PQA's are optimized for a black and white screen of that size whereas most webpages certainly are not and a poor job is usually done of representing them on a 160x160 pixels screen. Also, I'm not sure what the speed of this new Palm V wireless modem is, but PQA's also load much faster on a slow connection than a large web page would.

Anyway hope this info's useful to someone, and I didn't just waste 15 minutes typing it all up. :)

The real problem is internet access. To make full use of a wearable computer, it needs to be connected to the network. I should be able to real time monitor my servers, be alerted of email, read slashdot, send email, fix my servers, post to slashdot... all while riding in the car, on the train, in the restauraunt. Cell modems are simply too expensive

Perhaps something like the OmniSky service currently available for Palm PDA's would be perfect for this sort of thing if the hardware issue could be worked out. Right now coverage is spotty at best outside of major cities, but it's wireless and has a fairly inexpensive flat-rate plan at $50/month. Also, Bluetooth would be perfect for wireless connectivity while wandering around the office.

CDPD is used in the Palm III's Minstrel, and the new Palm V Omnisky Minstrel [www.omnisky.com]). If I recall there are a couple of PCMCIA type II and III cards that support it as well (the Spider comes to mind)

AT&T has 'unlimited' service for it at around $25/month for the palm $55/month for other devices in many areas (called AT&T Wireless IP Service) and it gives you a 19.2k TCP/IP stack.

The service is damn near ideal for wearable/pda use, so, I wouldn't go so far as to say there are no options for internet connectivity.