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PalmOS was more popular than the Amiga. At one point about 90% of smartphones were based on Palm software, and by 2000 they had already sold more than 7 million units--compared to roughly 6 million Amigas across its entire lifetime.

The only Commodore computer that outsold Palm was the Commodore 64, with 22 million units. The main reason Amiga seems like a much larger influence than Palm is that overall computer sales were so much smaller when it was active. 6M computers in the late 80's/early 90's was a lot. Smartphones are already shipping over 250M units a year.

I had a Palm IIIc (which I won, thanks ZDNet) which was really quite neat. And it was easy to use, and snappy. And the desktop software was pretty good.

Downsides - Serial connection was slow, low resolution display, lack of central repository for software - although some websites did step up to the mark.

Upsides - http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/560/palm-simcity-in-color/

You need to imagine Strong Bad's voice saying it for full effect:

HANDSPRING'D!!!

I remember when the CEO of Handspring announced that smart phones were the future for Handspring, and sales of the Visor PDA went almost to zero immediately, and sales of Visor accessories (Springboard cards, etc.) also went almost to zero immediately.

The Cius Tablet has been shipping for less than a year, and the CEO just announced that no further development will ever be done. The chances of anyone getting interested in this now: 0%

And wow, Android 2.2 on a $750 device with a 7 inch screen and a funky Intel chip? 680 grams (about 1.5 pounds)? The review didn't say anything about an ARM emulator so I assume any Android apps with native code for ARM just won't run on this thing. I'd sooner put CyanogenMod 7 on an old Nook Color. 448 grams (just under a pound) by the way.

(Oh wait, I already did that. A Nook Color makes a surprisingly nice Android tablet! It is a lot faster with CM7 than with the factory Nook software.)

The fact that the CEO was willing to Handspring this device probably means that the sales were already close to zero, so he didn't feel there were any sales left to discourage.

They basically had huge, fat, margins, essentially no competition in the smartphone arena, for almost five years ...

RIM has always been a tiny phone manufacturer. Did they ever get to two digit market share even with smartphones? A random page with 2006 smartphone market shares, puts Nokia at 50.2% and RIM at 8.3%. Next year to that iPhone was released and it has been steady downward trend for both of those manufacturers...

Look at this "iPhone like" color Palm from 2001.

Oh, you're killin' me. I miss my wonderful Palm PDA's. Well, I don't actually miss them because I still have them. My Treo 650 is my backup's backup cellphone. They simply worked really well, did everything I wanted back then. --JSt

Use the stash of Palm's patents against the obvious patent trolls. HP should then embrace Android.

Look at this "iPhone like" color Palm from 2001.

some Star Trek nerds might speculate on how an economy like that depicted on Star Trek might work

In a way, that's the whole point of SF -- To explore how people relate to new technology, new cultures and new ways of living.

In 1966 it may have seemed far fetched to have the crew of the Starship Enterprise carrying around flippy communicators and tricorders while jotting down notes on tiny pad-like computers, but after years of watching and wondering "Why not?", here we are.

In fact, the texting part uses Off-the-record, which is available on lots of software, including libpurple-based like Pidgin (as a plugin) and Adium (out of the box).

So if you configured an account able to receive SMS (like a SIMPLE or Skype account) on these software, it already works.

And as the webOS chat module is libpurple-based it might not by that much difficult to bolt OtR on Palm Pre (some hobyist have successfully ported other libpurple plugins onto the Pre).

You can swap out the recognition libraries on your phone. I had Graf1 on my Treo650 and Centro after years of having a Palm IIIx and Visor.

Here's a link I googled up real quick:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=5830

imagine an fold-up full-size keyboard for the iPhone that could work in any text field

You mean, like the fold-up (almost) full-size keyboard for Palm OS devices that worked in any text field but sold almost nothing?

If you want a device with a keyboard, you get a device with a keyboard. Any external keyboard will add so much weight (and size) in your pocket that it's useless, and you end up never using it.

Story says...

This, of course, is without user consent or control.

But From Palm Infocenter, they say

Palm's own "Terms and Conditions" statement, along with their Privacy policy, detail that Palm basically maintains it has the right to indefinitely collect, process, store and share this information. Users must accept this multipage collection of fine-print waivers and disclaimers in full during the initial device setup process before being able to utilize the device.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/7797/palm-hires-apples-former-head-of-mac-pr/
Heck you can google Palm Apple Employees

Sprint has more than 6 months. Verizon will be selling a "pre-like" device -- probably, the Palm Eos, if not a third as-yet announced WebOS device.

The Wikipedia article you quote says it has a Linux kernel (citing this interview as source), so what's the confusion?

"Though the demonstration was impressive, notable absentees from the demo were video streaming and any in-depth show of the music player."

PalmOS has had PocketTunes for years -- and Pandora already has a version for WebOS. Music player won't be a problem.

Video streaming? Don't know. Don't REALLY care.

It also has an externally replaceable battery, so one guesses the individual batteries won't last as long as an iphone or else it's thick as a brick. (they don't give the dimensions or show it in profile)

If you bother'd to look:

"Dimensions: 59.57mm (W) x 100.53mm (L, closed) x 16.95mm (D) [2.35 inches (W) x 3.96 inches (L, closed) x 0.67 inches (D)] " (link)

The iPhone not having a user-replaceable battery is just dumb. It's the one thing on a device that WILL wear out, and it's also the one that gets the most benefit from being user-replaceable.

No mention of the enterprise-like push apps that Rim and iphone now sport. No mention of corresponding desktop based easy-management software like itunes or me.com

1: Did you even WATCH the presentation? Yes, it can do enterprise-push. The darn thing screams enterprise in the OS.

2: If you think iTunes software is "easy", then I'm certain Palm won't be a problem for you. They didn't mention it because, quite frankly, they're not focused on desktopy sync.

and of course it is yet-another OS. is there an SDK?

It's HTML5, CSS, and javascript. And yes, there will be an SDK packaged with an eclipse-based IDE.

Some videos of the new platform are up at palmcentral. The second one shows a live demo. Looks nice.

(my HTC Wizard does fairly well with a 195MHz processor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Wizard [wikipedia.org] imaging what it could do with a 1GHz Atom).

Really? I also have a HTC wizard, and the embedded windows mobile really sucks.
Mobile IE is totally useless, the wifi networks interface is very incomplete and sucks.
Active sync is totally resource intensive.
There is little you can do with mobile Office.
In all the windows mobile default applications, only the mail client does the job.
Besides useless applications, the windows mobile kernel is always crashing.
Looking to non-default applications, Mobile Opera its very cool but it totally nukes the device memory after a while.
This is totally unacceptable in a device with WIFI/GPRS/EDGE/IRDA/BT/USB.

But anyway, Linux on the HTC Wizard (http://linwizard.sourceforge.net), which I'm one of the project admins/developers, does a much better job. You can have GPE
http://familiar.handhelds.org/releases/v0.8.2/install/dl-gpe.png
qtopia
http://wiki.openmoko.org/images/e/ea/Qtopia002.png
or even the openmoko
http://www.palminfocenter.com/images/palm-tx-openmoko-2.jpg
running on it.

The wifi and bluetooth drivers are still missing and the GSM driver is incomplete. With some programming love on them, the wizard would be a much better device.

A company is guaranteed to have its best days behind when its executives laughed off the idea of competing with competitors that were known for their innovations.

"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone."
"PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
-- Ed Colligan, Palm CEO, The San Jose Mercury News, via Palm Infocenter

In 2004, Palm planned to convert PalmOS into nothing but a GUI and backwards compatibility API layer, replacing the OS with Linux. Lots of Palm software assets and licenses were transferred among Palm, China MobileSoft, and the Japanese "Access" mobile SW company over the next year or two.

By now, we should be able to get smartphones with easy Web access, the thousands of little PalmOS apps, and all the Linux apps, all upgradable at a "tap" over the air or USB from the Internet. But it never happened. Instead, Palm put out a couple of different models of Treo, which were excellent phones when released, but rapidly eclipsed by more frequent updated releases of Symbian and Windows phones.

I bet what happened was that just announcing a PalmOS/Linux smartphone earned its execs and directors a lot of money, money changed hands in the endless spinoffs/acquisitions/mergers, but no one ever paid a team to convert the phone to Linux or PalmOS as a layer on top of it.

Another good question is why I can't just install Linux on any of the new phones with HW compatible with it, and keep my telephone service contract. That should be easy by now, and shouldn't require Palm to do it.

Also a Palm (mine is T3) + pssh setup here.
But in addition, I have a full-sized foldable keyboard (mine uses the connector, but they also exist with Bluetooth too).

SDIO card for Wifi (when available, otherwise bluetooth to an extremely old GPRS enabled phone).

The only regret I have is that pssh doesn't use the multi tasking features of PalmOS 5. When you exit the program, the program terminates and the connection is shut. (You can't switch between programs). Unlike for example the music players or some of the internet messaging software which all *DO* still run in the background even if you switch to another app.

If you really want to be green, get a Palm Pilot (or some feature rich cell phone equivalent) with a rollup keyboard. Plug it into a monitor & that's about as green as you can get.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=6455
I guess it depends on what you consider a PC

First Symbian now Microsoft. It sure has the two competitors in a uproar.

If you're targeting a world wide market, it's just common sense to go for GSM first. CDMA can come later when you're established.

Most of that list was my observation of the iPhone.

The keyboard "stinks" for me. I could not type well, but I only gave it half an hour. I see a lot of frustration in my future if I get an iPhone.

Personal usage patterns? I don't follow. Everything on my list was a specific pro or con not related to my usage pattern. Either you can do something or you can't. I can't type on the iPhone keyboard, is that due to my usage pattern? Maybe I should give up typing...

As for shareware, I have a MP3 player and chess installed on my 650. I included links for some things that are available on the 755p, but not much is installed on my 650. The three others I want are the GPS addon, the stereo bluetooth, and the tether to PC option. Not a lot of additional cruft, but more than you can add to an iPhone.

Maybe I missed some pros of the iPhone, but there are specific pros there on the list. Thin, widescreen, better camera. The GUI comment was meant to be funny, because that really seems to be what is selling this thing. Rational arguments based on capability appear to be overridden by the GUI, and that was the point.

I have to keep my keyboard locked to avoid calling people. But for usefulness, the five way rocker is great. I don't need a stylus anymore, once you know how to get around in all the Palm applications.

BTW, the EVDO on the current 755p runs a 500 Kbps link for a tethered laptop. EVDO Rev A may come on the 755p from Verizon, and it runs 600 to 1400 Kbps. Not sure what EDGE runs, but it looks like around 100.
http://www.evdoinfo.com/content/view/2009/63/
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9487/verizon-co mpletes-network-upgrade-to-ev-do-rev.-a/
http://www.timeatlas.com/mos/Cell_Phones/Prospect/ EvDO_and_EDGE_Offer_High_Speed_Access/

Even though the treo is dated, it works well in so many ways.

I played with an iphone on Wednesday. There are some issues that would make it a show stopper for me.

-Keyboard stinks. Best way I could get anything typed accurately was hold it in one hand and point with the other.
-No correction in web URLs and email addresses, so you have to be perfect.
-No period in the keyboard (period, /, and .com buttons in web browser kbd)
-Touch buttons too small. Although my Treo 650 screen buttons are often too small, but I rarely use them)
-No removable media (Why switch to mini SD Palm? idiots)
-No video recording
-No editing MS word documents
-No EVDO (Edge was slow when it worked, 755p may have EVDORevA at 600kbs)
-No stereo bluetooth (http://www.softick.com/bluetooth-audio/)
-No third party applications (Chess, new browser, core media player, etc)
-No laptop networking using phone (http://www.junefabrics.com/palmnet/)
-No removable battery (Like 2x capacity third party)
                http://shop.treonauts.com/content/accessories/---2 512.htm [treonauts.com]
-No way to quickly dial contacts
-No way to navigate single handed (five way rocker rocks)
-No tactile feedback (I like a click when I hang up the phone)
-No GPS addons like
            http://hardware.smartphonetools.treobits.com/conte nt/accessories/10-95--2230.htm [treobits.com]
                    with free software links to free google maps
            http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=softw are.showsoftware&PartnerREF=&siteid=1&prodID=13173 5 [palmgear.com]

More iPhone limitations from
            http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2007/06/ why-the-iphone-.html [typepad.com]
-No exchange integration for online calendering
-No hacks for "push" email
-No voice call recording
-No voice dial
-No cut and paste!
-No task list!
-No global find!
-No file encryption
-No podcast download over the air

iPhone does have:
-Slick gui (that gets in the way, browsing on safari was stinky. Zoom and scroll, zoom and scroll, not too impressed. Sideways was nice)
-Wifi built-in
-Widescreen
-More MP in camera (2.0 vs 1.2 in treo 755, both suck)
-Thin form factor
-Glass screen (more fragile than treo?)
-Did I say sexy GUI?

Neither have-
-Built in GPS
-Flash in browser
-Wireless networking for letting laptops online easily

So the Treo pros outweigh the cons. I am sticking with a new 755p as soon as I can get it, which looks like September.

Crossposted from my comment on another board:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/8918/verizon-tr eo-755p-in-september/ [palminfocenter.com]

Even though the treo is dated, it works well in so many ways.

I played with an iphone on Wednesday. There are some issues that would make it a show stopper for me.

-Keyboard stinks. Best way I could get anything typed accurately was hold it in one hand and point with the other.
-No correction in web URLs and email addresses, so you have to be perfect.
-No period in the keyboard (period, /, and .com buttons in web browser kbd)
-Touch buttons too small. Although my Treo 650 screen buttons are often too small, but I rarely use them)
-No removable media (Why switch to mini SD Palm? idiots)
-No video recording
-No editing MS word documents
-No EVDO (Edge was slow when it worked, 755p may have EVDORevA at 600kbs)
-No stereo bluetooth (http://www.softick.com/bluetooth-audio/)
-No third party applications (Chess, new browser, core media player, etc)
-No laptop networking using phone (http://www.junefabrics.com/palmnet/)
-No removable battery (Like 2x capacity third party)
        http://shop.treonauts.com/content/accessories/---2 512.htm
-No way to quickly dial contacts
-No way to navigate single handed (five way rocker rocks)
-No tactile feedback (I like a click when I hang up the phone)
-No GPS addons like
      http://hardware.smartphonetools.treobits.com/conte nt/accessories/10-95--2230.htm
          with free software links to free google maps
      http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=softw are.showsoftware&PartnerREF=&siteid=1&prodID=13173 5

More iPhone limitations from
      http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2007/06/ why-the-iphone-.html
-No exchange integration for online calendering
-No hacks for "push" email
-No voice call recording
-No voice dial
-No cut and paste!
-No task list!
-No global find!
-No file encryption
-No podcast download over the air

iPhone does have:
-Slick gui (that gets in the way, browsing on safari was stinky. Zoom and scroll, zoom and scroll, not too impressed. Sideways was nice)
-Wifi built-in
-Widescreen
-More MP in camera (2.0 vs 1.2 in treo 755, both suck)
-Thin form factor
-Glass screen (more fragile than treo?)
-Did I say sexy GUI?

Neither have-
-Built in GPS
-Flash in browser
-Wireless networking for letting laptops online easily

So the Treo pros outweigh the cons. I am sticking with a new 755p as soon as I can get it, which looks like September.

Crossposted from my comment on another board:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/8918/verizon-tr eo-755p-in-september/

The claim of being a closed system is totally unsubstantiated. Meybe they are confusing it with the iPhone. The Foleo will be an open-system, SDK will be available at the time this device will be on the market. Developers are actually encouraged to make applications for the Foleo. From the webcast :

"The device is powered by a Linux core with a custom Palm graphical interface. The Foleo will be a fully open platform, with Palm encouraging creative third party applications. A SDK was promised to be posted when the product becomes available."

Sounds exactly like Access Linux Platform.

One thing still makes no sense to me, though: If Access (ex-PalmSource) needed two-odd years to come up with their new Linux-based solution (plus having a head-start thanks to Access's existing technology), how on earth is Palm the hardware company going to create its own entirely new platform in less than a year?

Methinks Palm may end up using ALP after all. Right now they're talking big, because they want to have better bargaining chips and a backup plan in case ALP flops. But having Linux-based Palms with an in-house OS on them out the door within the year? Sounds unlikely. (Unless they pulled an Apple and were developing this thing in secret for a long time.)

must be your lucky day

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=58 30

Is there some reason these haxxors couldn't have had as much fun with Access Linux? Which is what the original PalmOS has been evolving into.

The news here is not that Palm is going to Linux. The news is that they're developing their own, rather than using Access's. In effect, they're recreating the OS department that they spun off as just a few years ago. It's amusing how many corporate machinations end up with "Oops! Never mind!"

There is no BeOS-based Palm Software. There should have been, but they never released it.

This is not the PalmSource/ACCESS Linux platform, it is something new. Apparently they have been working on it for a few years. More info at palminfocenter.

From PalmInfocenter: http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9351/palm-annou nces-new-linux-based-mobile-platform/

Obviously you didn't read the article to which you linked:

Wishing doesn't make it so, for you either.

Wrong again...

CMS was bought by PalmSource well before they were acquired last year (or was it late 2005?) See PalmCenter

Stick with the original UX50. :)

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=61 62

Really? Then show me where I can get a software player not made by Microsoft capable of playing PlaysForSure Media! In particular, show me where I can get one that works on operating systems other than Windows!"

That's easy. Pocket Tunes Deluxe for Palm OS can play "PlaysForSure" audio. (I.e. it is a Janus-compliant player.) And of course Palm OS is an operating system other than Windows.

Umm, what?!

Your Treo has accelerometers and a proximity sensor?

Not as powerful a one, but there's a reason it shuts down when dropped (and not broken, it just knows when to save itself from corruption)

It has a Dock Connector?

Yes. It's called a USB cable.

It has a full web browser (not some shrunken down "baby browser")?

Correct.

It has a touchscreen interface?

Yes, and has for years.

It has a virtual keyboard so you don't have to press 7 four times to get an S?

It has a full keyboard you can type on in your pocket. Have you even seen one? That's the dumbest comment of all these.

It syncs with iTunes?

Who wants that? It syncs like a hard-drive. 4gb SD card slides into computer. mp3's are copied, and then played.

How many people are going to post ignorant "My phone does all this" claims without thinking it through?

How many people are going to realize many phones have been doing the majority of this stuff for years....and the iPhone won't be about for a number of months?

No, your phone does NOT do all this.

It does the vast majority of it....and well...and has since Oct. '03.

I'm not saying the iPhone isn't a good accessory that will get your boyfriend all hot and bothered, but to say that the featureset is unique is beyond ignorant.

As are the people who rated the previous comment as "informative".

Kodak had one model of camera with an OLED screen a couple of years ago, which I don't think ever made it to the US, and then I don't think there were any devices using OLEDs at all, until just now, there's finally some that are using them.

Back in 2004 Sony released a model of the Clie (VZ90) that had an OLED screen. [3.8 inch, 16 bit color, half-VGA resolution] No US release for it, and it was actually the very last PDA of the Clie brand.

The price of VZ-90 was $800. The screen must have cost something like $400 or $500, since the rest of the hardware was (if I'm not mistaken) comparable to PDAs from Palm, Dell, HP that cost around $400 or so.

It seems to me as well that Palm is always killing itself.

It started off as a promising unit inside 3Com, which was then spun off. A nice move except that the major brains left soon after (and some of them started Handspring).

Not long after Palm started to stagnate and see other Palm OS licensees passing it by handily (at least technologically, even if not in terms of sales, Palm always has been favoured because of its name), it bought Handspring, which rejuvenated itself for a while.

Then, Palm again started to commit suicide. During the process the OS and device businesses were split-ted, which could have been good, but poor decisions drove both spun-offs ever downward again.

But all is not lost, based on what I've read lately about ALP (check out http://www.palminfocenter.com/ if you haven't), there's still hope in me that my next phone/PDA will run the Palm OS. One that has a complete different internals but shares the same philosophy, and improved interface.

There's nothing at all unreasonable in those specs. Except for the ridiculous screen size he wants, it sounds a lot like a Clie VZ90. Japan only, of course.

Fluid Lenses. http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/6605/new-liquid -lens-digital-camera-tech/

Look. I loved my Treo 600. Palm said it was going to release a Blackberry emulator http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=68 24 for it, then changed the tune to say it would only be relased for the Treo 650 (sometime in December 2005). It still hasn't been released for the Treo 650 and still isn't available for the 700W. I HATE the blackberry Im forced to use on a daily basis and would much prefer to have a Palm on my hip again. How about an info update, Palm? Will you EVER release the Blackberry Connect port for PalmOS? PLEASE!

Well, since this has become a thread of rumors, I may as well post the following pics:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/8358/rumor-poss ible-images-of-the-treo-700p/
Again, not confirmed.

I use a Palm Tungsten T PDA and wanted a basic bluetooth GSM phone that I could use to connect the Palm to the Internet. The best I found -- actually, the only basic phone I found -- was the Nokia 6310i. Basic black and white screen, basic keyboard, somewhat large compared to other phones, but IT WORKS. My 6310i is now over 3 years old and I've seen nothing on the Canadian market that looks like it. I have a great Palm PDA - why would I want a $500 colour phone discounted to $99 with a 3 year contract?

like one of these
Having permanent storage for a pda by sticking a hdd on the back sounds like a great idea but the problem is that if you want the device to have any battery life at all then you need to power down the hdd. This means that you get terrible lag every time the device powers up the hdd to access your data.
It's easier for ipods and the like cos you can predict what data is going to be required (the next track in the playlist is usually a safe bet) and pull the data into a local cache well in advance. That's harder to do on a pda as the data access pattern is largely random.
The lifedrive is a lovely looking device tho, and you can get caching software such as sharkcache which improves it greatly. But then you are back to the start as your data isn't on the hdd any more.
bummer.

Ah, the true meaning of teh Yarkstick

Palm is already working a new version of Palm OS with Linux as the kernel, effectively creating their own "OS X" story.

Given the amount of time spent on OS6, I think they're creating their own "Hurd" story, not "OS X" story ...

(mind you, I notice that http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=65 42 has some first screenshots of Cobalt, so maybe it's possible that it won't be vaporware after all ...)

Er.

It might have something to do with Sony's hardware still being supported, as opposed to Zodiac discontinuing support.

Plus, it's based on PalmOS, isn't it?

But I could be making that up ...

But Access (the purchasers) paid something like 200% more than the "value" of the stock (though I guess things are worth what someone is willing to pay. Palm did make a bid for PalmSource, but they were outbid by too much and decided that it "just didn't make sense".

So I'd say the palm platform is far from dead, Palm is just diversifying. I mean, they're just a hardware maker now, and if someone wants to buy your handsets with winmob on, you give it too them.

1. Listen to customers
2. Give them what they want
3. Profit!!!