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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."
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.
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...
I thought this was a really cool article, then I realized its not 1998.
Does Palm have any kind of momentum at all anymore?
"Sig free in '03!"
how about "Palm OS Full-Speed" and "Palm OS Hi-Speed"?
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;)
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".
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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"!)
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>
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.
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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
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.
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.
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.