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PalmSource Drops Mac Synchronization in Cobalt
Gear_Media writes "Originally posted at PalmInfocenter: 'In a surprise announcement at the developer conference, PalmSource revealed that Palm OS Cobalt will no longer offer synchronization with the Mac. This marks a departure as previous versions of the Palm OS had long shipped with Mac compatible hotsync software.' Smart move? I think not."
Maybe its time for apple to ressurect the Newton?
As far as I know, Mac OSX comes with iSync which does this anyways.
They might be relying on Apple to take care of the software now. They have Address, iSync, Cal and other stuff that syncs with the Palm, so they probably figured, why not let Apple worry about maintaining this stuff instead?
With Mac OS X getting stronger support from both nerds and end users and palm losing in its own niche, not supporting a platform with an existing userbase is pretty moronic.
maybe palmsource knows something we dont re: isync?
I can understand their approach though. If they release their own sync software they end up with a bunch of extra tech support calls.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Right now there are two main players in the Handheld market: Palm and Microsoft. Most of those who are using a Mac are doing so because they arn't too happy with Microsoft's offerings. That leaves Palm (yeah, there are other companies, but none as strong as Palm). Sure its a pain in the ass to buy 3rd party software but I don't think it will affect them overall.
My Apple iBook G4 12" w/802.11b/g + Bluetooth is small enough anyway. It's the size of s sheet of paper and it weighs four and a half pounds. Meanwhile, it can burn CDs, play DVDs, and sync with my cell phone.
If I really cared about sync'ing with a lousy palm I've got Virtual PC on my iBook already.
Given the relative market shares, maybe Apple is going to devote those resources to integrating with Linux instead. Didn't the Linux (desktop) user base slip past the Apple (desktop) user base last year?
Well, there's the iPod. Not a "real" PDA, but you can load it with your calendar, addresses, and other such data for reference on the road.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
you're incorrectly intertwining market share with install base. The problem with that is that market share is a figure that relates directly to quarterly or yearly sales figures (something that translate well to Linux and OS X because these platforms tend to outlive their usefullness as compared to their Windows competition this compelling individuals to keep aging hardware longer and not make another sale) Linux has it even wose than OS X, because Linux is distributed for free, so in most cases... it wont translate to a "sale" Think of it like this... if a single Windows user buys 4 computers in 4 years and a Linux or OSX user buys 1 computer in that same time period, the way "marketshare" works is that Windows would have the lions share of the market while Linux and OSX users would be religated to a fraction of that figure EVEN THOUGH THE SAME NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS WOULD BE USING THE COMPUTER. If the *Install Base* term were used instead, each platform would occupy the same number of users. Unfortunately, this misappropriation of words has caused the entire population to believe market share translates to install base. This must change. The alternative OS community must work in unison to break this trend by correctly using the appropriate term to describe one or the other.
Add to that that they need to dedicate developers to supporting a platform that less than 5% of customers use.
I'm sure that was their logic, but it's short sighted. Palm competes directly against Win CE--Mac users are a natural customer base. Case in point: I've been shopping for a cellphone/pda. Guess which ones I'm not looking at any more?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I think consumers have gotten used to getting free sync software. Unless a device has passed its EOL, I just don't see anyone paying for drivers or sync software.
Aside from the fact that Apple and other third party entities do a MUCH better job a syncing that Palm does on it's own hardware, I think this is a strange decision. In fact, this might be one of the few "no longer supporting Mac" statements I've heard in almost two years.
If anything, most companies are jumping into the ring on Mac support because of OS X being so versatile. Seems strange, but like I said-- you'll still be able to sync your Palm pilot, just not with their software.
If anything, it's bad PR and just another reason to ask yourself why you really need a PDA anymore. I believe a good cell phone with iSync would take care of it.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Well it's better than dropping it in carbon freeze, I guess. Oh, wait. Different thread.
What probably happened was that Mac users are probably moving to the free Apple stuff like iCal and iChat and iWhatsis instead of Palm Desktop, and then by extension they'd be required by the userbase demand to make the Palms sync with the iApps. So they said, "Feh... whateva..."
I would almost wager on Apple putting a Palm sync feature into the next releases of their iApps. At this rate Apple might wind up making all the hardware AND the software for Macs.
Not that I'd turn my nose up at iBryce. C'mon, Apple. Everyone's grandma wants to do 3D rendering with deep texture editing.
--- Ban humanity.
Seems like a marginaly smart decision on Palms part. Palm is probally loosing money developing software for Mac, where Mark/Space can turn a profit as they are a smaller company with lower rent, smaller staff, etc. Palm could probally license Mark/Space's software to distribute with Palm devices for less money than it would cost to develop it in house. Of course that would require lawyers.
I wouldn't be suprised if Apple itself or 3rd party OSS developers make conduits for iSync too.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
And you're incorrectly intertwining a slightly trollish comment with a funny (and appropriate) joke.
we are building a religion
a limited edition
we are now accepting callers
for these pendant key chains
I think Palm's decision is probably a mistake, but hardly unprecedented. A lot of game developers, for example, have done the same thing.
The math is really pretty simple - if Macintosh development and support costs total less than the potential income from sales to Mac owners, the company stands to make money. Nonetheless, we have repeatedly seen companies forego such profits, reasoning that the market share is too small to bother with.
As long as they allow independent developers to step into the breach, no-one should suffer from this - but all too often that route is blocked as well. How they justify this to their financial officers I can't understand.
I know that a lot of Mac users out there see this as some kind of conspiracy, but the truth of the matter is: if Mac Users were a viable market for Palm OS products, Palm OS would enjoy continued support on that platform. PalmOne, and PalmSource, are not run by fools. They're the only company in recent memory to beat Microsoft in direct competition. This decision can not have come as arbitrarily as a lot of the people on this forum speculate. Either there are some serious architecture issues with OS X that drive the cost of developing a software package that is comparable to the one available on Windows to an unprofitable level, or the market for OS X users is just so small, that it doesn't make it worth their while to pursue that segment. Considering that software for the Mac has been released for previous versions of Palm OS, I'd tend to believe that the prior is the actual reason.
I suppose there is a third option, and that is that Palm is aware of some new product that Apple is preparing and doesn't wish to commit resources to the development of a software package that may be trumped by some new Apple product. This doesn't make that much sense, in that Palm was able to wipe the floors with Wince, developed in house by MS. In that situation Palm couldn't give up on such a huge market segment and remain in business. With Apple, they could certainly give up on such a small segment without much concern. Apple has done so much with its branding that there is a risk that even if Palm could create a better product for the Apple market, it might not matter in the minds of Apple users.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I wonder that it doesn't bother Palm that they are tying their future to a company (Microsoft) that also happens to be their biggest competitor (PocketPC).
It'd be worth a little money to retain some freedom, I think.
I also wonder if Microsoft's use of PowerPC chips in Xbox2 is a similar sort of freedom from Intel.
How hard is it really, to put together a little app that sits between the USB port and some generic calendaring application, that passes info back and forth, applying simple rules as whether to delete, duplicate, or change a database record?
.05 (mac user) = 4Mil/yr old mac revenue
.5 (loss in customers) = 2 Mil/yr new mac revenue
The fact that some small third-party developer has been able to do this in the past (and probably will do so in the future) points to the fact that this is a trivial thing to do. The only cost to Palm is in tech support (which may be the real reason they dropped support, not the development costs.)
Assuming that Palm really can save maybe a million dollars a year by not developing for the Mac, and in doing so, they alienate about 50% of their future Mac business, AND that Mac users are represented in their customer base at about 5%:
$80Mil sales/yr *
4Mil *
Assumed cost savings by laying off Mac engineers: 1 Mil/yr
Projected loss by laying off Mac engineers: 1Mil/yr - 2Mil/yr = (1 Mil/yr) decrease in gross sales revenue.
Like I said, the real cost probably isn't in the engineering, even if you're real conservative about the cost of the engineering talent. It's probably in the tech support (Palm has outsourced their tech help line to India, so this probably has something to do with it...)
Just because they use gcc/POSE/etc. does not mean they "support" Open Source development. In fact, quite the opposite. They tried to absorb those projects, and failed, because of the huge number of Free Software users and developers supporting them in their absense. In fact, Palm has been using OUR hard work for their own profitous gain. Now that has stopped.
We're already replacing the need for their tools, step-by-step, because they refuse to help us and cooperate with us. We're not asking for the source code to the OS, just the API to the subsystems they use, so we can extend them into other areas, thus reinforcing their market and their device sales.
They don't seem to want to help us, so our motivation to keep helping them, is significantly lower.
The solution, support a different vendor, one who does support our goals and our hard work.
I beg to differ. MissingSync/PocketPC is a hell of a nice piece of software, and isn't even the only game in town for Mac/PocketPC syncing.
Palm f'ed up by not including Mac support of some kind into Cobalt or the HotSync component. They're just removed one more differentiator between themselves and their largest competitor.
Rather than being able to market "The flat-out best PDA for Mac users who are going to buy a PDA", they've made a clear and bold statment that no longer will they support users who haven't already paid a nice big tithe to Palm's biggest competitor.
Once again for the business school dropouts: PalmSource has taken one simple step to ensure that every one of their customers has given PalmSource's #1 competitor money first.
Way to go, guys.
Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that your palm data is locked up in proprietary formats?
This is just the excuse I need to find a decent pda that spits out xml. If there is such a beast.
grokosaurus at yahoo dot com
I try new versions of iSync every time Apple releases them. And yet iSync still takes 5-10 times longer to sync then the Palm HotSync software. This sucks because I *want* to use iCal, but I can't if I have to spend 5 minutes syncing (instead of 30 seconds).
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
dude.
the usb market probably would have grown and done it's thing without the imac, but you know what? the instant the imac came out, the usb market exploded. yes, it's because all of the sudden there was a captive market of imac owners who needed printers and slow-ass usb hard drives, but the point was the imac was a major product whose sheer popularity created an entire market for usb devices.
the same could be argued for digital video editing--until apple created a market for 1394 minidv cameras by shipping millions of copies of imovie, no one was doing it at home except for uh, you, with your 1989 amiga. cut-ting edge, my man.
and i clearly had a centris 660av with a 25mhz 68040 and DSP chip that could capture s-video out of the box in 1993. it was just a pain, because the computer couldn't talk to the camera very well--there was s-link, but it never worked right. apple made it all just work(TM) and that's kind of what people give them cred for, y'know?
(interesting note about multitasking: when apple went to OS X, preemptive multitasking meant that the age-old behavior of all processes screeching to a halt when the mouse button was held down was finally done away with. there was actually a massive outcry because people in realtime production environments had used this little limitiation to their advantage, essentially starting and stopping the computer as they needed. i just thought that was interesting.)
london is drowning and i live by river
What it means is that Palm has come to the realization that the benefits of supporting the Macintosh are not enough to justify the cost of maintaining sync software for the platform.
Is that so hard to understand? You might not like it, but Palm owes Mac users NOTHING - as a public company it exists to make money for its shareholders and a decision made on any other basis is wrong. If you can do a better job of providing Macophiles with a PDA that works on their platform, write your business plan and go get some funding - but I feel that if you do some research you'll find there's no money in it.
Jpilot is the answer. Not only is it a near-perfect replacement for the Palm Desktop, thanks to the pilot-link backend it can do things the latter can't, including synching over Wi-Fi.
Ok some of you don't use the palm..great..however understand they in some segments of the business world they are MANDATORY... As a 3rd year medical student I can tell you that every serious doctor is getting one, pt charting systems are supporting them etc .. they are awsome reference sources.
The problems with palms action is not the lack of hot sync as I fully expect isync to fill this gap and if not mark space will fill the gap.
The problem lies in the many applications on the palm that "sync" with a central DB to update a reference. Apple needs to ensure that palm and pocket PC apps that use this fuctionality have the hooks in OS X that they need to function , without a seperate version of the palm or pocket PC app.
This kind of thing KILLS Apples market share. Apple can do what they like on their own turf but they MUST interoperate with 3rd parties SEAMLESSLY, better then windows if they expect to grow.
This is a crushing blow which means Apple will have to work hard to overcome. Futhermore dog plus world will cover the fact that palm will not support the mac but no one will cover the fact that isync can fill a significant portion of this void.
I love my mac but more Apple needs to realize that they must beat windows when it comes to 3rd party interactivity.
Apple could come out with a PDA device
BUT
1.)It must be perfectly compatible with palm or pocket PC...no exceptions
2.) when connected to my mac those palm apps must sync and be able to conenct without a single change in the developers code.
if either of the above is NOT true then the problems will ALWAYS be blamed on Apple so long as the product functions under windows XP..even if the real problem is with the palm app.
Which brings me back to my original point...this is a huge burden for Apple but its the ONLY way to make the device work.
The iPod is an excellent example. The ipod has been succesful BECAUSE it works better on BOTH mac and windows esp with itunes....any PDA will have to follow the same path which is significantly harder due to multifunctionality of a PDA
i suspect that Steve Jobs problem with PDAs have something to do with these tough issue.
I would love to hear from some people who develop for palm about the problems with syncing thru a mac for a Db driven app..(like Epocrates or PEPID)
IMHO
anyway
Andrew
I agree, Palm's being stupid but let me get this straight. You're saying that a good way for Palm to stop Apple from developing its own PDA is by cutting off support for Palm's PDAs on Apple hardware? All that does is create an incentive for Apple to make the Newton II (iNewton, I'm guessing). Palm is creating a situation where there is demand but no supply. Someone will fill the void. As mentioned elsewhere, however, I think an opensource solution will emerge that'll let Palm's products work just fine with OS X. No big deal for Mac users, but definitely a loss for Palm.
I have to wonder whether anyone would be stupid enough to buy Palm-based hardware knowing that they would be spending additional money to buy sync software
:)
Not to be a troll, but why would anyone be stupid enough to buy a Mac and expect everyone to support them?
I mean, already most software for Windows doesn't come out on Mac, most games don't come out on Mac, most hardware doesn't support Mac.. so why is this any different?
There are plenty of people still using Amigas.. and you don't hear them bitching. Well, every once in awhile you still do.
Considering that Apple users have a higher proportion of PDA ownership than PCs...I doubt this is the case. Instead, I think PalmSource found that another company - MarkSpace DOES create Palm synching solutions better than their own. So instead of developing their own, they just licensed it to Mark/Space.
It does not matter if 100% of all mac owners also own PDAs. If 20% of PC owners own PDAs, you are still outnumbered by a good margin. Mac is a niche player in the PC market, and that is fine, there is room for niche players, but please, do not think the Mac is anything but, and don't exepct it to be treated as anything but by anyone other than a mac owner. Its life.
I like classical music. I am in the minority. I do not complain about the lack of shelf space for classical CDs in Walmart as compared to Rock or Pop. I'm in the minority. My tastes are a niche market. I live with it.
PalmSource Cheif Competitve Officer, Michael Mace, has issued a statement direcct from PalmSource regarding the issue in the article comments, "PalmSource is fortunate to have a great Palm OS developer community who provide solutions for Macintosh compatibility today. Palm OS provides an open and flexible architecture and allows its licensees to decide whether to ship a Mac compatibility solution with their Palm Powered device. (One such solution is provided by Mark/Space.) We are continuing our efforts with Apple to provide compatibility between Palm OS and Macintosh."
This last statement is the most promising. Assuming it isn't empty spin, further support for Palm devices via iSync seems probable (provided the HotSync manager issue is addressed). I can't imagine Apple will let a core part of their iSync hub disappear. But we have only the above to speculate about. Perhaps Apple will make some sort of announcement. Once again, speculation.
Still, I feel Palm's decision is a foolish one. I am a Mac user mostly, and when I hear somebody isn't going to support my platform of choice I get angry - feel betrayed - dread the smug comments from my Windoze using associates.. All in all, I am left uninclined to further support that company. For instance, my Clie 710C is getting long in the tooth. I've been eyeing Tungsten PDA's for a few months and was initially excited about the Cobalt announcement. A part of me wants to look elsewhere now just to spite them. Maybe an iSync compatible cellphone might be my next purchase?
But since I do own a Clie, and already own Missing Sync, I have already gotten used to zero Mac support from the parent company. I trust Mark/Space to fix this problem for future versions of the Palm OS. But other people won't feel the same way. Mac zealots especially. Is it good business to anger even a small percent of your customer base? Shouldn't the "working with Apple" comment have come along with the bad news? Seriously stupid business move, IMO.
~Doug!as
Fun with Inkwell | www.coo
I concurr. PocketPCs are actually very powerful- more useful for running Unix ports than the Zaurus ever was for me. :) A real multitasking OS.
Although, I'll never buy a 240x320 device, not these days. PPC makers should really get with the times- the Toshiba e800 being the one exception. But at least 320x480- come on guys!
And yes, that "smart minimize" (ha!) button is one of the worst things I've seen in *any* UI. But, it's easily fixable in a transparent way. I used to use Magic Button on a PPC 2k2 device- makes that close button actually close the app. The app doesn't change anything else about the way your system looks or works, it only does two things- makes sure that every app has a close button (some don't, you have to use the menu to exit, or worse, another tool!) and that when you tap the X it quits the app entirely.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Actually, there is. Mac OS X does not use the Linux kernel.
...
Yes, but it uses a *BSD kernel and pilot-link works with both linux and BSD-based systems with USB syncing (according to the README.usb file included in the package)
In any case, this message suggests that pilot-link builds fine on OS X.
So there you go