Palm OS Apps on Linux Mobile Phones

An anonymous reader writes "PalmSource revealed details of its Linux-based mobile phone operating system, Tuesday at 3GSM in Barcelona. Codenamed ALP (Access Linux Platform), the architecture supports Palm OS application binaries, Java apps, and native Linux apps. ALP includes a 68K emulation layer capable of running 'properly written' Palm 68K or 'Garnet' application binaries without modification, PalmSource claims. However, devices based on ALP are not expected until next year -- will it be too late for PalmSource and it's parent company ACCESS to gain a foothold in the mobile phone market?"

Comments

why not years ago?

[penguin-collective]

They could have done this 3-5 years ago (using a Linux, BSD, or other POSIX-like kernel).

One might ask why they didn't do that. Well, for the answer look to the article on Shuttleworth: Palm's engineers had so much more fun designing a new operating system from scratch that the obvious answer eluded them, and because Palm was flying high, they had the money and resources to waste on their hare-brained project of developing their own new operating system.

Unfortunately, Palm's idiocy probably condemns us all to using PocketPC or Qt/Embedded at some point.

Re:why not years ago?

[penguin-collective]

Don't forget, the first Palms were released in 1996.

That's why I said "3-5 years ago", not "10 years ago". The original PalmOS was a reasonable business decision

But as soon as they switched to ARM, they should have moved to Linux or BSD. They could have done so with less effort than it took them to produce PalmOS 5, and they could have preserved full backwards compatibility. They missed the boat again (and wasted even more money) when they developed Cobalt. PalmOS 5 and Cobalt were both big business blunders.

PalmOS was designed around its hardware limitations to offer acceptable to superior performance,

Frankly, even the first Palm Pilot hardware would have been perfectly capable of running a multitasking POSIX-compliant operating system. But there's no point complaining about that because the first Palm Pilot was commercially successful and did what it was supposed to do. But around PalmOS 3, it became clear that PalmOS was in deep trouble, and the failure to act decisively back then is what will have killed Palm. Palm screwed up and they only have themselves to blame for their predicament.

YaY (Yet another Yawn)?

[otis wildflower]

This whole 'Linux phone' thing has, to date, sucked for hobbyists. Motorola? Suck.

At least SonyEricsson has released free toolchains... For Symbian.

Where oh where is the phone vendor that will release a smartphone with the ability to load custom-written Linux apps ala .SIS files for Symbian, without a great deal of reverse engineering? Pick a toolset and run with it, preferably something that allows for easy porting from existing OSS apps?

But of course, normal people don't buy smartphones, cell companies do. So it won't happen. Oh well.

Re:YaY (Yet another Yawn)?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where oh where is the phone vendor that will release a smartphone with the ability to load custom-written Linux apps ala .SIS files for Symbian, without a great deal of reverse engineering? Pick a toolset and run with it, preferably something that allows for easy porting from existing OSS apps?

It is not possible to get FCC type approval for mobile phones if the software can be modified by the user. So as long as Linux is not safely separated from the communication software, just as an application running inside an Java/MIDP sandbox is unable to affect the behavior of the host system, there won't be any genuine 'open source' access to the phones running Linux.

Windows Mobile has won

[abelikoff]

This is for all those idealists, who were saying that Treo 700w was actually a good move for PalmOS. Unfortunately it was not. Rather it was a beginning of PalmOS's end.

I say, good riddance. As much as I loved my Palm III, those days are gone and Palm has been wandering aimlessly chasing one target after another and making all kinds of ridiculous mistakes.

As much as I disagree, the market has chosen features over minimalism (it always does, BTW). No matter how ridiculous it is to watch movies on a 4" screen, this is what consumers want and Microsoft answered a call while Palm actually tried to tell consumers that they actually would not want to do that.

Overall it's a damn shame. Palm was a good (not great) platform and it could continue eating Microsoft's lunch. Instead, they literally sat and watched Microsoft learning from their mistakes and stealing their market. Just imagine the humiliation of pushing Windows Mobile on Treos!
On to Linux. I am yet to see a practical PDA running embedded Linux. No, Zaurus doesn't count - those are more like exotic geek gadgets rather than consumer devices. I would love it PalmSource actually pulled this off and managed to finally create one, but I know better. I predict that whatever_this_company_is_now_called will be off the market before the device hits the shelves. In about 1-2 years the PDA market will be 100% Windows Mobile. The battle will shift into the smartphone space with Symbian and Windows Mobile being the biggest players and everyone else feeding off the table crumbs.

won again? ha ha ha.

[twitter]

In about 1-2 years the PDA market will be 100% Windows Mobile. The battle will shift into the smartphone space with Symbian and Windows Mobile being the biggest players and everyone else feeding off the table crumbs.

Steve, just promise me you won't break any chairs of fucking kill anyone when your little wet dream does not work any better than Xbox or tablet PCs.

the market has chosen features over minimalism (it always does, BTW). No matter how ridiculous it is to watch movies on a 4" screen, this is what consumers want and Microsoft answered a call while Palm actually tried to tell consumers that they actually would not want to do that.

PDA sales are in the dirt right now. I suspect it has something to do with a planned lack of choices outside expensive but underperforming WinCE machines and constantly breaking Windoze syncs. Those losers can't even get handwriting recognition right. Saying that Windoze mobile has won in a market like that is not saying much. They might have "won" but they did it by killing the market and it's not going to get any better till choice comes back.

Oh yeah, one more reason for poor sales is good devices. I'm still happily syncing my handspring visor with Kontact and KPilot and those programs continue to improve it's capabilities. Here's three cheers for marking contact birthdays in my calendar.

Wrong reasons, but some chances for PalmSource

[spage]

People want to push the ON button and be able to make calls, check emails, text each other and just have it work.

Then PalmSource is doomed. You can do all that with a generic closed handset.

PalmOS's value is the strong PDA integration and available third-party apps. You're right that a lot of users don't care about those benefits: Sanyo and Samsung sell better high-end multimedia phones that don't use PalmOS (or WinCE, or Symbian).

Get cell providers and manufacturers, etc on board and you're set.

But U.S. cell providers don't want rich extensible devices, they want to sell you $2 ringtones, $3 music downloads, $10/month online photo albums, and address book backup for $2/month. An extensible smart phone with PC syncing works against their business model. As WebCowboy wrote,"it circumvents their revenue-generating content-delivery system, and furthermore they would lose control over the environment".

I really wish PalmSource/Access well. I'm using and loving a Samsung sph-i500 PDA phone, with the included Chapura PocketMirror syncing my Outlook contacts, the excellent Novii Remote acting as an infrared A/V control, and GNU Keyring to secure my passwords. It's over three years old, and no other flip phone comes close to meeting my needs. There are PalmOS-based phones (GSPDA, Xplore M68) available elsewhere in the world, but the market in the US has shrunk to the fine Treo 650.