Enthusiast Hacks WiFi Into Treo 650

Sammy at PalmAddict writes "Shadowmite, a Palm enthusiast has managed to hack his Palm One Treo 650 smartphone, enabling it to work with the Palm One WiFi card, despite Palm admitting the Treo was never designed to use WiFi technology. Shadowmite managed to get his hands on the Pa1m One WiFi card and modify it so that his Treo 650 could use it. The experiment was a success, and is causing quite a stir -- putting pressure on Palm One to provide support and fully support the new drivers."

Comments

What?

[mg2]

So, if I somehow shoved a Gamecube network adapter onto my N64, Nintendo would need to provide full support for it?

I don't think so.

Re:What?

[SubTexel]

Why is parent marked Troll? It's true. Just because someone got something to work on a certain device it was never intended to work on DOES NOT mean the Company is obligated to dump resources into supporting it. Be happy it even works.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article - it's not at all that the device wasn't intended to work on the Treo, it was purposefully not supported, even though supporting it was an extremely simple matter.

The article explains it clearly. This isn't really that clever of him, but he's just the first person to do it. The SIDO Wifi card fits into the Treo, just like other Palm products, and it only makes sense that it should work. The software was just lacking. That's all there is to it.

You can just hear the board meeting in your head at Verizon/Other Cell Provider with the Palm Treo Sales guy:

Palm: And not only that... but this thing is practically a mini computer! It's got Bluetooth, and file-transfer, and wifi...
Verizon: Wait. stop right there. What was that last thing you said?
Palm: Wifi. it's awesome, you can just be a part of any nearby network.
Verizon: Isn't that exactly what VoIP handsets do? Those things we don't own, and can't charge for?
Pam: ...
Verizon: Take that out.

Re:What?

[SubTexel]

And? It still does not mean they have to support it just because someone wrote drivers for it. It's still a hack, and not released by the company, so sorry no support.

Re:What?

[a whoabot]

No one said there was a need or entitlement to support it. It was said that there is a "pressure" to support it. Just like if I save your child from a burning building then you pull me over for speeding(your a cop see) there's a pressure for you not to give me a ticket. I have no right not to get a ticket. There's no need for you not to give me a ticket. But there's a pressure, a moral one, a camaraderie.

People involved want support for it. So they pressure the company. Are they going to the courts saying they have an entitlement? No. They use pressure, forces, to try to get what they want. Just like every single person on this entire planet, except for the most depressed.

Re:What?

[timeOday]

Irrelevant, who says they "have to" support it? Customers are pressuring them to do so because they want the added value, and they can see Palm is being needlessly pigheaded. Palm is well within its rights to refuse, in fact it would be surprising if Palm came through for once, since Palm seems so intent on pursuing its downward spiral.

Re:What?

[AK Marc]

I don't support lying about the capabilities of the device like Palm did, but you know what, just because someone figured out how to do something they weren't supposed to, it's absurd to say that Palm should now provide support.

And I disagree. They claimed that it was incapable of working, so they wouldn't provide it or support it that way. They were proven to be liars. Since the only reason given was that of a technical problem, and that technical problem was solved, then they should be required to support it. And by "should be required" I think that if there was a law suit against them, they would lose. They lied in the marketing. They committed an offense called "false advertising." Of course, it is different than the usual case because they lied in claiming that their device was less capable than it really is, but they still lied in order to sell more of their products.

Or, to ask it another way, why do you support people (or corporations) being able to lie with impunity?

Greedy Carriers

[blowhole]

It seems to me that the common thread in mobile device deficiencies is not the hardware or software companies, but rather the cell phone carriers. They are the perennial pessimists when it comes to new technologies, myopic in their fears that a handful of geeks will bring their business crashing down. Instead of embracing and developing them into new and exciting money-making, experience-enriching features, they castrate their own products solely in order to frustrate users. Swap castrate and frustrate freely in the previous sentence.

Imagine 10 years ago if a cell phone carrier told Motorola that their new cell phones were "way too small, anyone could just carry this around in their pocket. What will happen to our public telephone branch?! We have too much invested in the current infrastructure!"

Re:Greedy Carriers

[blamanj]

It's not to frustrate users, it's to gouge users. Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all the time.

For instance, I worked at Intel in the early 80s. Intel invested a lot in development tools, compilers, assemblers, etc. It was the de facto leader in the technology. They sold their tools on their own platform, for which they charged about $25K.

When the IBM PC came out, all the software geeks said, "Hey, let's port this great software to the IBM PC, and think of all the developers we'll get." Intel management said, wait, if we do that we'll only make a couple hundred a shot for a compiler rather than $25K a shot for a development system. No way.

End result, Borland and others (and eventually Microsoft) introduced software that ran on the IBM PC and development system sales crashed anyway. Not only that, but now no one even bought Intel's software.

Moral: You can buy some short-term profit, but screwing your customers is a bad strategy long-term.

Re:Why Linux (Still) Sucks

[datadriven]

Or, you could buy a supported card, put your wep keys in /etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts, and plug it in. It will beep twice and work.

Bitchin about manufacturers who don't support linux doesn't solve any problems, but boycotting their products just might.

Re:Why do wireless carriers not support features?

[Monkelectric]

Sprint is a bunch of dickheads (tm). I bought a nokia 3585 to replace my 3588... The 3588 and 3585 are supposed to be *identical* except for the color screen (which I dont give a crap about).

I get the 3585 home and discover theyve disabled *ALL* the text messaging features, the Java VM, even the ability to select rings for different callers...

Anyone want to go on a killing spree with me?

Re:Although it could be argued they should do this

[GrouchoMarx]

This was a clever hack but I'm sure Palm sells stuff with WiFi for a little more than the Treo 650 goes for.

OK, so you don't know what you're talking about. palmOne (there is no such company as "Palm" anymore, hasn't been for a year) sells exactly ONE model with integrated Wi-Fi, the Tungsten C. They also support Wi-Fi on 3 other models via their Wi-Fi SD card, which is an imperfect solution. (It takes up the card slot.) The Treo 650 price varies with the carrier, but is typically in the $500-$600 rage or up. It's NOT a cheap product.

Meanwhile, most new Dell PPCs and HP PPCs come with Wi-Fi now, and the PPC world is now being inundated with variants on the BlueAngel/Harrier design: Bluetooth, GSM/GPRS, AND Wi-Fi. All three wireless types in one fairly nice handheld. (Still uses Windows Mobile, which bites, and it's not against-the-face-friendly, but it's still a good device.)

Your point about "don't buy cheap and then complain" is valid, but has nothing to do with this issue. The Treo 650 is NOT cheap, it's a top-shelf product. Other products in similar price ranges all have Wi-Fi. You're NOT getting what you paid for here, that's what people are upset about.

(That said, I still want to get a GSM/EDGE Treo 650 when it comes out. The lack of Wi-Fi is just annoyingly stupid.)

How much do you want to bet...

[Windcatcher]

that some hellspaw^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlawyer will come up with some sort of DMCA excuse to go after this person?

Depends on your viewpoint...

[Svartalf]

The ONLY reason why it's not supported is the Telcos don't want you using it- partly because of VoIP capabilities and partly due to the fact that they want you using their expensive data service instead of a potentially cheaper/faster WiFi hotspot.

In this context, they should own up the lie and, at the minimum, come clean on it. This is the same sort of crap about crippled Bluetooth on some Moto models except worse, they came up with a lame-ass lie to cover for the real reasons. In all honesty, they should eat the pain from the Telcos and the Telcos should be revealed for what they are over all of this.

Re:Although it could be argued they should do this

[Cajun Hell]

I'm sure Palm sells stuff with WiFi for a little more than the Treo 650 goes for.

Nope. The fact is, when you get right down to it, the product that everyone wants, simply isn't on the market. At any price.

Restriction of trade

[Anonymous Coward]

You're failing to process this. One of the largest PDA companies in the business has made it so that the only phone-enabled model running their OS will not support a certain feature in order to restrict VOIP trade. The models without phone hardware, simpler models, have the feature enabled. The more expensive model has been deliberately crippled to please another company.

That's illegal restriction of trade. It's a per se violation of the Sherman anti-trust act. You can't collude to prevent the development of a market. Not all anti-trust violations are monopoly based.