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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."
It is not you, http://treocentral.com/ is a much better website and has way more information.
See this thread for more information about WiFi drivers on the 650.
Also this thread has some useful information on a patch that was obtained by someone that fixes problems with the sound quality of the Treo 650 microphone.
Pressed to your ear, this would be the most innocent looking wireless sniffer yet (if someone can get it to run as one).
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
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.
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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.
http://www.uneasysilence.com/index.php?p=1719 Skip the digging and get it now...
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!"
"Ask me about Loom"
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.)
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Vocera makes them, but if you have to ask, you really can't afford it.
Palm is VERY quickly losing my respect with the way they treat their customers.
I started out with a Handspring Visor, my girlfriend has a Palm 3 series PDA. Almost all my friends and family uses Palm PDAs. That said, my Palm T3 will most likely be the last Palm PDA that I'll buy.
Started out with me purchasing my Nokia 6820 video phone in Asia - naively thinking that, "Hey, it's bluetooth, it'll be supported". It took almost half year after that phone's release before Palm would release drivers for it in their phone update - but, the drive only works as a modem driver. SMS and remote dialer apps for the phone isn't support. It *is* supported fully for the Palm T5 though.
Side by side comparison the T5 really isn't that much different from the T3 - minor tweaks in OS, faster processor and more memory. But what if I were to upgrade to the T5?
Forget it. I'd be ditching the "Collapsing PDA" feature that makes the T3 small and compact to carry, the silent, vibrating alarm for when you don't want to be obnoxious, the voice recorder functionality. I gain the ability to use the PDA as a flash drive, which I already own a few, and can add into the PDA via 3rd party software. They tossed out the Palm Universal Port which up till now most accessories use, as a standardized interface to the PDA - and for a top of the line product, the damn thing doesn't even come with a cradle.
What the hell are they thinking?
With the improvement of Pocket PC handhelds - and more vendors resulting in more selections - I'd have a hard time justifying purchasing another Palm PDA.
-=- Terence
We've been discussing this hack over at treocentral for quite a while now. Shadowmite's most impressive accomplishments are the custom roms he developed, stripping much of the crap out and adding a few critical apps (like notepad and DUN support- so you can use the treo as a modem). It's no secret the 650 has some major memory issues and by flashing his bare bones roms you can get rid of buggy apps like versamail and realplayer and instead run 3rd party apps like snapper mail on your sd card. Shadowmite deserves alot of credit for helping make the treo650 a decent product. -BT
Why buy subsidized crap phones?
In Finland carriers can't subsidize phones, as by law it's illegal to tie the phone and the subscription. If you offer a phone, the price and terms of sale must be same with or without subscription to any service, so you can't tie the two.
So phone manufacturers sell their phones. More features = more sales. They don't have to bend over for the carriers - they are not their customers. So if carrier would prefer that the phone doesn't have WiFi... well, tough, they don't have a say in it.
And we have pretty damn cheap airtime, as the only way carriers can compete for customers is by offering a good cheap product - they can't just toss a cooler phone free, tied to some stupid package that appears cheap, but ties you to one operator for x months (or years).
Sure, phones cost money. Shocker. Feature rich phones cost a lot of money. Double shocker. At the same time your phonebill isn't used to subsidize someone elses shiny new phone used to lure him to the crappy service that you are stuck with.
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.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas