Palm Changing OS Strategy

profet writes "CNET.com is reporting that PalmSource plans to change its OS plans and simultaneously develop/release OS 6 and continue development on OS 5. The names shall be changed to reflect that they are both current. The plan is to have OS 5 for low end devices ($100 price point is a goal), and OS 6 for high end devices. This is a drastic change from their current practice of having one current OS drastically customized (read: hacked) to suit the manufacturer's needs. It looks like PalmSource is aiming directly at Symbian's success with Nokia's series 60 platform."

Comments

What's not mentioned

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that under the plan, the company will simultaneously develop multiple versions of its OS and aim them at different parts of the cell phone market. With OS 5, PalmSource was focused primarily on making a hardware transition.

Where have I heard all this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

PalmOS 3.1 is for desktops.
PalmOS 3.11 for Workgroups is for small networks.
PalmOS NT is the server platform.
PalmOS 95 *is* *the* upgrade for PalmOS 3.1.

This is gonna end in tears...

Re:Where have I heard all this before?

[I Be Hatin']

This is gonna end in tears...

Hmmm...

Palm 98 is just like Palm 95, except it doesn't crash as much.
Palm 2000 is the first stable palm.
Palm XP is the Palm Experience... something most Slashdotters are already familiar with.

Re:Where have I heard all this before?

[mattjb0010]

Yeah, let's not talk about Palm ME :)

Re:Where have I heard all this before?

[laird]

"Strech the Palm OS concept to a tiny cell phone screen that doesn't even have a touch screen, all the benefits and reasons that design choices were made break down."

I don't think that they're trying to cover quite that broad a range. The sense I get is that they're intending for PalmOS 5 to run on the class of machines it already runs on (ARM processor, 160x160 pixel or larger touchscreen, 8 MB or more of RAM, perhaps an SD slot), which they project will drop in price over time. PalmOS 6 will run on more muscular hardware (larger touchscreen, more RAM, faster CPU, SD slot) and provide richer multimedia and multitasking capabilities. So it's not so much for this year's cell phones as perhaps set top boxes, G3 cell phones, or high-end PDA's or tablet computers.

It's not clear (to me, at least) how much of a fundamental difference there is between PalmOS 5 and 6. So it's hard to say if it's essentially the same OS with more frameworks (like NT vs. NT Server) or a real forking (like Win95 vs. NT). Perhaps someone with some inside info could comment?

Re:Where have I heard all this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between PalmOS 5 vs. 6 is similar to Windows 95 vs. NT and MacOS 9 vs. X. Basically it's the transition to a real protected-memory OS, requiring a new underlying system architecture. So, similar to the Windows and MacOS transitions, PalmOS 6 is a completely new operating system, with a compatibility layer to provide the same APIs as on previous versions of the OS and maintain application compatibility.

linux PDA?

[axxackall]

If all I need is just a PIM (calendaring, contacts, notes, money, short messages), then what would be the reason to choose PalmOS vs Linux on PDA?

Anyone with some experience with both? I used Palm Vx with Palm OS 3 and found it too buggy. I saw ads about Zaurus and found it interesting. I am really close to get Linux PDA. But before I cash out, is there anyone here who found a reason to migrate from Linux PDA to Palm OS?

Re:linux PDA?

[AnonymousCowheart]

Ive owned both the zaurus and a few palms, the newest model i have being the palm m500. While the zaurus is a great toy, palm "just works." the damn thing is fast, rarely (about 5times a year, due to bad software) crashes, and even then, it takes like a 30second reset.
The zaurus however, does Much more, wireless, mp3 player, video player, etc. however as far as a PIM goes, you just can't beat palms ease of use, and speed. Especially graffitti, works great. Not to bash the zaurus, but i found myself 'setting it up' (see playing, trying to figure things out) more than being productive
in the end, i use the b&w palm, why? besides the above notes, the batteries last MUCH longer in it then any color screen would. Nothing fancy, just a PIM, like you asked for;)

Re:linux PDA?

[bwy]

I have owned a Zaurus and a Sony Clie (Palm OS 4). They are two different beasts. The Clie is a great address book, calendar, etc. and has good desktop software that I like since i refuse to use Outlook for calendaring. It is a small device and great at the traditional PDA functions. Synching is very refined and works well with XP and OS X 10.3 using iSync. I can sync right to Address Book and iCal.

The Zaurus was excellent at web browsing, hacking, running Java, running a real pop3 mail client, etc. Plug in a cheap WiFi CF card and you are good to go. But here is the thing. It is horrible at calendaring, synching, etc. The desktop software is pathetic. You almost certainly have to consider the Zaurus a very small linux based PC that stands by itself and forget about the desktop integration part.

All that being said, I sold the Zaurus on E-Bay recently and kept the Clie. The Zaurus is by far the best "toy". However, having a handheld Internet connected device wasn't that useful (for me, anway) especially since I own a 12 inch iBook. Having a list of important phone numbers and my calendar with me at all times and available instantly is important though and Palm devices do that very well.

Depending on what you want and need, the Zaurus might be a great choice. I had no complaints. It was stable and overall really cool. There is just something cool about using a handheld as a web server. (but then you inevitably end up asking "WHY"!)

Re:linux PDA?

[zulux]

If all you need is a PIM - Palm is definatly the way to go.

I *love* my Zaurus 700 series- it's fun to SSH into a server with 80x24 characters and a real keyboard , but for PIM stuff, it's slow and clunky.

Cool, erm...

[Ravensign]

I thought this was a really cool article, then I realized its not 1998.

Does Palm have any kind of momentum at all anymore?

Re:Cool, erm...

[Ralph Wiggam]

Does downward momentum count? If it does, then yes.

-B

Naming suggestions

[Anonymous Coward]

how about "Palm OS Full-Speed" and "Palm OS Hi-Speed"?

Uh, I think you have it backward...

[WIAKywbfatw]

If all I need is just a PIM (calendaring, contacts, notes, money, short messages), then what would be the reason to choose PalmOS vs Linux on PDA?

If all you need is just a PIM (calendaring, contacts, notes, money, short messages), then why would you ever consider choosing a Linus over PalmOS on a PDA?

PalmOS is built for the job, fast enough to do what you want (and more), power efficient, etc.

Stop looking for a sledgehammer to crack a nut and give serious consideration to a Zire or Tungsten. Which one is best for you depends on how honest you are when you say you're looking for "just a PIM".

Palm is losing their niche

[mnmn]

Palm OS is the OS for low-end devices with simple functions which do not require the headache of viruses/spyware/BSOD etc, and which do simple monotasking applications on budget ram and flash and no MMU.

Try to overdevelop Palm OS into a GUI layers, multitasking, and other higher end stuff, and youre directly competing with Linux, QNX, BSD and BeOS (maybe they plan to merge their BeOS with Palm on higher end). They should not want that. Linux with the community backing, applications, tools, hackibility etc will win hands down and we'll see people buying Dell machines, replacing Windows XP with Linux, getting the free PDA and replacing its PalmOS with Linux + XFree86 and its tools.

I think Palm should try to remain as simple as PalmOS 3.5 or 4.0 and instead focus more on applications. The OS should be developed to deal with more hardware, make easy-to-use SDKs to gather applications from the community and to handle nice themes. Thats all. Pretty soon someone will shrink x86 to palm size and make it consume power as little as the ARM720T, and Microsoft will rush to modify Windows XP for it, and people will just replace that with Linux. Palm will then have to rely solely on their lower end OS on even smaller devices.

Re:Palm is losing their niche

[GarfBond]

You have absolutely no idea what a palm device is used for. On a palm device, you *do not* load Windows XP on it. These are items with around 400MHz Intel XScale and around 32-64MB of memory.

PalmOS is for palm-sized devices (e.g. ORGANIZERS) that have very little flexibility as far as data loss, convenience, and user-friendliness. No user wants to open up a console and mess with XF86 settings to try and get their organizer working right in the middle of a meeting.

Part of the reason Palm is still popular is because of the fundamental design decisions made with the OS. Which is to be, above all, a damn good organizer. Part of what Palm realized (and what Apple hadn't yet with the Newton) is that user requirements for an organizer is significantly different from a computer. Users expect it to work just as well as their wristwatch. A great article to read on this is the "Zen of Palm" (http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/docs/zenofpalm/ ZenTOC.html)

In the handheld market, Palm is competing with PocketPC (or as it's less affectionately known, Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC) and to a very much lesser extent, Linux on the Zaurus.

In the phone market, Palm is competing yet again with Windows and then Symbian. And this division of markets is why they're concurrently developing OS 5 and 6.

And, for your information, PalmSource owns Be. Part of the whole point of OS6 is that Be engineers are putting significant efforts into it.

Gadget lust and price points

[Grrr]

I want to root for Palm. Really.

Even broke down and bought a used IIIXE... which died a month later. I know there is much newer tech out there now, and geeky individual buyers are not the preferred target market. I could probably get this doorstop fixed - but my cell phone and Blackberry are covering the basic PIM and game bases.

And I've never had to reboot the piece of paper in my wallet with all the phone numbers on it. Even a phone with an OS of any complexity makes me nervous. Again, I know they don't care about incidental sales...

This is a toy I would like to be able to con myself into "needing" -but at $300-$400 and formidable network access charges, it isn't that inconvenient to check e-mail with the cell phone or haul the laptop around.

While there many not be many people with the same mindset, I wonder if a $100 price point (for a device with some expansion capabilities) wouldn't get people like me off the fence.

<grrr>

Developers, developers, developers, developers

[Imperator]

PalmSource has made a mess of the platform from a developer's perspective. It used to be that all Palm OS systems were more or less the same--slow 68k processor, very small address space, small 160x160 monochrome touch screen. As the technology moved down in price, Palm OS systems started to get improvements like faster ARM processors (endian change!), more memory, and high resolution color screens. The problems are several:

• The hardware became too varied. Palm OS form resources use absolute positioning, so it's not easy designing a form for different screen resolutions. Having multiple copies of each form is a pain in the ass, both when creating the forms and when writing the code.
• The APIs became fragmented. Until recently, every device manufacturer with a resolution above 160x160 (or a collapsable input area) had its own API. Some developers of 3rd party apps go out of their way to support all of these--but most just support none.
• The development tools became too complicated. POSE was great, but now every device seems to requires its own emulator or simulator. Not every simulator makes it to every development platform. It becomes a pain in the ass to test for all the devices out there.
• Backwards compatibility was either overpursued or underpersued. For the former, consider sysAppLaunchCmdFind. Find is enormously painful to support--no globals, no exceptions, etc. But with the amount of memory in today's machines, there's no reason this launch code can't be accompanied by globals. Then in apps I can't be bothered supporting Find in, I'd be more likely to write the code--though it would only run if I had a launch flag to tell me my globals are present (sysAppLaunchFlagNewGlobals | sysAppLaunchFlagSubCall). For a lack of backwards compatibility, look at VFS.

So in summary, life has been frustrating for Palm OS developers. But the real losers here are the users. What used to be a vibrant community of 3rd party developers has somewhat dried up. People simply aren't writing as many good, device-neutral Palm OS apps as they used to.

Don't play OS wargames - be compatible

[vik]

I'm a developer of PalmOS and WinCE/PocketPC applications and I realised that fighting any kind of multiple-platform market required a cross-platform tool that works under top-notch IDEs like Eclipse. And there is one. And it's Free.

By writing programs in SuperWaba - a cut down Java VM - I avoid most of the crap associated with who has what version of what device. Palm V2.0 to WindowsXP/CE, I have just one application to develop and it runs on all platforms - even in a web browser.

Don't leave home without it :)

Vik :v)

Their strategy should be to _GET_ an OS.

[MMHere]

I don't intend this to be a troll.

They don't currently have a RealOS(tm), so why is acquiring/building a real OS considered a change in OS strategy?

When I say they don't have an OS right now, I mean:

- It doesn't do preemptive multitasking, so multiple tasks don't run simultaneously very well. It requires tasks to voluntarily yield, much like MacOS's before OS X. (Palm software people are old Apple software people anyway...) The Palms I've used also did very little in the way of letting multiple tasks run simultaneously. Usually the "top" app is all that's happening (possibly ignoring some interrupt driven background I/O).

- It doesn't have process memory space protection, AFAIK. Without multiple tasks actually running at the same time, this is less of an issue. Palms do, however, "crash" and need to be rebooted sometimes. Certainly this happens more often than on ucLinux PDAs...

If they're making those things possible (and PalmOS 6 is claimed to be "better at multitasking," so it sounds like they are), then it may be worthy of actually calling it an Operating System.

PalmOS =5.x limits what you can get from the hw

[schmaltz]

Look, Palm devices have gone from being about as fast as your wristwatch, up to today's being as powerful as laptops of a few years ago (400mhz, 32MB+ RAM, hundreds of megs in SD/MMC.) For a handheld computer that runs for days on battery power, that's quite a bit of power, and possibility.

They're powerful enough to play mp3s and movies, they do wifi, the pen interface has gotten simpler and more accurate. But it's all limited by the operating system. The problem with PalmOS is, it's built around a Windows 3.x-style event loop with no threading. "Cooperative multiprocessing," if you can call it that.

Word today from a developer at a biggish PalmOS app development company, is that Palm has gotten some of the BeOS blokes to develop a microkernel, threading, and device driver architecture; that'll be OS 6.0. It won't be open source, sadly, but it'll have Palm's usual level of documentation and support.

Look at the Zaurus for the example of a pocket computer that's reaching in the right direction: Linux with multitasking, device drivers... mad extensibility. Palm don't got that today.. although I think running KDE is a bit of overdevelopment. Who needs a terminal window, these things have enough power to process speech recognition? That's why the O/S needs to grow.

Compare apples to apples please

[Anonymous Coward]

It cracks me up to see all these PocketPC fans compare their latest big, heavy PocketPC beast to the ancient Visor Deluxe or Palm IIIXE. Those machines are at least two generations old!

I had just about given up on Palm -- until I got hold of the new Tungsten T3.

The Tungsten T3 has a gorgeous aluminum case with the same form factor as the classic Palm V-- meaning it will actually fit in your shirt pocket, and it runs at 400mhz with 64mb of RAM. It plays movies, it plays mp3's, has a built-in voice recorder, bluetooth, and plenty of other *actually useful* features, plus a huge library of software.

So please, if you're going to compare, be fair.

BeOS

[octal666]

I've heard PalmOS bought a while ago the old good BeOS, might it be they are planning to use it as the new PalmOS 6?

By the way, just yesterday I bought a Tungsten T2 and it's my first PDA, and the first thing I see this morning is Palm is changing something, I've broke in cold sweat while reading the story. Slashdot is going to kill me one day.

Simple reasoning behind the scenes

[Jouni]

It's very easy to see why Palm would be doing this - there is a fairly big stock of devices out there.

Touting the new OS 6 as the best thing since sliced bread would make it extremely hard to ship pre-6 devices, both for themselves and all the licensors. So understandably they have to downplay its meaning to avoid sitting on warehouses full of Tungsten devices nobody wants to buy.

It's somewhat amusing that the only named benefits they can find for the old OS is smaller footprint and cost. :) If there are two real market segments for the two operating system versions, they would be "people frustrated with crippled non-multithreading 16-bit legacy OS" and "people who just don't care". Unfortuntely, you can't sell Tungsten @ 400 USD for the second group.

I will hold my judgement on whether Palm OS 6 really is the savior of Palm, but as with any projects this magnitude, expect this too will take a while to mature.

Jouni