Why Palm Still Covets Palm OS

munchola wrote in with news that Palm has just announced a one-time payment for perpetual, royalty-free use of Palm OS. In 2005 Palm spun off PalmSource to an outside company, Access Systems Americas, and since that time has been paying out royalties for its use. At the same time Palm announced products based on Windows Mobile. Palm's latest announcement reduces the uncertainty among Palm OS developers. From the article: "In an unsurprising but symbolically important move, handheld and smartphone maker Palm this month signed a perpetual license with Access Systems Americas, which gives Palm the right to use Access' Palm OS operating system in whole or in part in any Palm device forever more. It sounds like a no-brainer, but the context is interesting, in particular what it means for the army of Palm OS developers out there. Believe it or not there are at least 160,000 Palm OS developers — and they're just the ones that Palm knows about."

Comments

Good tools and source code count a lot

[juanfe]

PalmOS developers tend to be amongst the most loyal out there -- not quite fanatical about the platform, but very pragmatically into it. I guess something has to come out of the fact that applications written for Palm IIIx devices are still running, even on the latest devices, without any rework. Which, come to think of it, is strange -- you have an OS where native applications have to be written in C (with a plathora of inconsistent although good C++ frameworks), with a somewhat quirky event handling model.

I think that Palm's early-days decisions of releasing the source code to all their native apps as examples of well-coded applications, and of having really good testing tools (Gremlins are brilliant! I wish we had them in the Java ME world for non-palm mobile phones) played a huge role in creating folks who, well, still like writing for the PalmOS despite the massive changes everywhere else in the PDA world...

Re:Good tools and source code count a lot

[jj00]

I would have to expand on this and say PalmOS users tend to be the most loyal too. I started out with a Palm III and used it until it died a couple years ago. My one big wish that I wanted was to get my contacts from it to my phone, so I naturally went to the Treo 650. Now I find myself wanting more - I want my Palm contacts accessible in my email (and I don't use Outlook).

Honestly, when I see a WinCE user using their device I find myself wondering how they use something that small with a Start button. I'm being honest here, I'm not even sure if the newer Win devices even have a start button anymore, but I still won't make the jump because of those beliefs.

Personally, I'd be happy if Palm just kept the general design the same and upgraded the screen, GUI, and added some flexible features to the contacts and date book. Maybe loose the stupid camera and make the thing slimmer. I would say the lowest lying fruit for them would be to just open the Palm Desktop platform so that developers could easily access the data and contact information via a nice api (script based or otherwise). It's been a huge pet peeve of mine for the past couple years.

Palm is dieing

[ZahnRosen]

I've been a Palm supporter for years and I think its a shame whats happened. Years of fighting have distracted from the products? Where's the innovation? Personally, I switched to Windows Mobile 5.0 and I'm happy.

Re:Lying with numbers

[ran-o-matic]

Truest statement I've read on Slashdot in a long time. I am sure I am counted as one of the 160,000 since I downloaded the SDK once (to get the emulator). I have written ZERO PalmOS apps and don't plan to ever start.

But Does It Run Linux?

[Doc Ruby]

When Access bought PalmOS last year, they announced they were rewriting it into a PalmOS GUI layer for backwards compatibility, and putting that on top of a Linux distro (from the China Mobilesoft company they'd also bought). They said they'd release it by the end of this year, on a new Palm phone. There's a new Treo750 out: does it run Linux? If not, there's a newish Treo700W that runs Windows - can that phone's full functions run some other Linux that runs on "Windows" mobile PCs?

Why Palm still covets PalmOS

[ArcherB]

Because it's better. Or at least that's my HO. I have very few problems with my Treo 650 that show up very rarely. Everyone I say that to that runs Windows Mobile says, "really? I just thought it was part of the whole experience to have stuff not work or have the whole thing reboot in the middle of that phone job interview."

Maybe Windows Mobile has gotten better in the past 6 months or so, but I have not really found anyone who likes it. Of course, there is the possibility that they are just MS Bashing, but I don't think that is the case.

I have been bought by microsoft.

[WarlockD]

I used to think Palm was great. The ability to sync with my desktop and get my contacts from Outlook was a nice feature. It was even better with the Treo, as I was able to keep everything in one device that I could run applications without having to "buy" it though Cingular. Sure the Treo crashed several times a week, but I was willing to pay that price for a somewhat open OS with sync.

But ever since the phone died and I picked up this windows mobile phone, its hard for me to want to go back. I know Microsoft is a big evil company that locks people down to their OS, but they offer a flawless sync to your desktop with USB. While the Palm Treo offers this, the main problem is that I just see some better apps for the Microsoft one.

It also doesn't help things that I can fire up VC.NET and write a quick app for my phone.

Treo 700 makes both versions

[gelfling]

Treo 700 phones come in Palm and Windows. But they're not exactly the same hardware. The Palm based unit has a higher res screen; 320x320 vs 240x240. The Palm unit has less talktime; 4.5hrs vs 5. Other than that and the apps that come with them, they are the same. Comes down to personal preference I guess.

Where is my Linux PDA?

[vhogemann]

Acess has a Linux PDA platform ready, using X11, GTK and GStreamer... Yet, on their site there's not ONE device running it!

Nokia makes a sweet PDA/Webpad... but they don't market it worldwide. And it's almost impossible to get one here at Brazil.

Sharp had the Zaurus, but they never quite leaved the asian market.

And there were other short-lived Linux based PDAs, and yet none lasted :-(

Come on Palm! PalmOS should be dead and burried by now... How hard can it be to move to a better OS? Access has it, Trolltech has it, just pick one dammit!!!

Re:Lying with numbers

[Monkelectric]

Um yes. This is utter bullshit :) I have owned *EVERY* major palm since the original Pilot 1000, and I am a software engineer and I work at a company that develops software for CE. Let me give you a little insight into palm programming.

The original palm was made possible by the Motorola Dragonball processor which IIRC was a 16mhz 68k variant with and LCD driver and memory controller, it was one of the first SOC's (System on a Chip) that I can recall. Programming these things was hideous. It was all C/C++ and the API sucked hardcore.

Flash forward 10 years, Palms now have 300 - 400 mhz ARM processors, WHICH THEY USE TO EMULATE THAT ORIGINAL DRAGONBALL PROCESSOR! If you want access to the ARM processor you can write an "applet" which runs directly on the real hardware. These are *VERY* difficult to get right and stable. This programming model is simply wrong.

Compare this to WinCE 5 which gives you a stripped down CLR, or CE6 which gives you almost a full CLR. You can write code that works on both a PC and CE with a few #defines here and there. The CE OS is that modern.

Compare that to BlackBerry which has J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) which is also a very decent programming model.

So long story short -- Palm sucks because their dev tools suck. They have been talking about this Palm OS 6 for a few years now that is supposed to correct all this stuff, but it never seems to come out, and frankly I don't think Palm has the engineers to pull it off. They've shown only the ability to produce sub-standard buggy software. My Treo is definitely the last palm I care to own.

Re:PalmOS 5 is different from Access lInux

[Doc Ruby]

Well, there might not be a need by Palm for a Linux-based OS, if they're going to become a Windows platform with PalmOS extras. And thence to oblivion, as PalmOS development will just rot, especially with the pathetic support Palm offers to Palm developers.

But mobile developers have a need for a Linux-based OS. Especially if it can run legacy PalmOS apps, and its familiar GUI that millions of enthusiastic customers already know. And if it can run the many existing Linux apps, even as components, under a PalmOS GUI layer. That is a great architecture, especially if GNOME or KDE is also an option, which is the plan. Because Linux is the best developer environment going, the main reason Microsoft is afraid of the platform. And Linux is a much better OS for mobile devices than power-hungry Windows or moribund PalmOS. Access has got one.

So there's plenty of reasons Access should deliver the product whose announcement was so warmly received. Where's the release?

Re:Ordinary People still use PDA's?

[0xdeadbeef]

Why does sticking a cell transmitter inside a PDA somehow make it not a PDA? Does putting an ethernet card in your computer make it a "network appliance"? Just call it a "smartphone" or a "mobile device" if you're so hung up on terminology. Remember, these things are general purpose computers, and many of them exceed the performance of PCs ten years ago. They are "phones" the same way your desktop computer is a "document editor" and a "web browser". Even the freebies you get for signing a contract is still a computer, only one that underpowered and locked down by the network operator.

And BlackBerries are every bit as programmable as Palm devices, though you don't have direct access to the hardware.

PalmOS good because it works

[James McP]

I've used multiple Palms, starting with a handmedown USR Pilot. I moved to the PalmIIIx, then to the Handspring Visor for the expansion port (CF & SD card reading goodness). I switched from a pager to a cellphone sometime during the Visor era and when my Visor started dying at the same time ATT fell into the Cingularity I went for the Treo650 and a new phone carrier. My Treo runs virtually all my old apps. I added Grafitti-1 to it and enabled shortcuts. It is, from a UI standpoint, identical to my Pilot.

My Treo650 is pretty stable, with the occassional long pause when I manage to do a major memory swap (close/open an ebook on the SD card) at the same moment the email auto-download occurs. I get a crash or hard freeze maybe once every 2-3 months, usually when I manage to have the above happen when listening to MP3s or when an alarm is set to go off, or when I turn on the internet at the exact moment a call is coming in (CDMA doesn't let you do both).

I don't know anyone with a WinMobile device that has half the stability I do, let alone with the same degree of customization. It works, it's reliable, and it's pretty (PalmOS supports higher res screens than WinMoble).

Palm has 2 hurdles: 1) the carriers have so many special requirements some of them destabilize the Treos (I'm looking at you Cingular!) and 2) they need mindshare. Palm doesn't have any buzz anymore. They need to advertise the Treo. Mine plays MP3s, videos, takes acceptable pictures, reads office docs, etc. They almost need the PC/Mac commercial but with "Mobile Office" on one side of Treo, "Rock'r" on the other.

Re:Ordinary People still use PDA's?

[bigbigbison]

I just bought a Dell Axim and I like it. I got tired of carrying around my laptop and with a stowaway keyboard the axim does everything my laptop does but doesn't kill my back when I carry it around. I can even plug it into a projector for presentations. If I had a cell phone that did that, then I might use that instead, but I have an old phone.

Re:Lying with numbers

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

There is one way to create a button...

This is just plain wrong as I discovered when I decided to upgrade a couple of games I originally wrote for 160x160 Palms for modern Palms. My attention span eventually ran out before I could get to the bottom of what exactly I had to do to make my trivial little apps work on a Tungsten T|3 (other than in 160x160 emulation mode). (Just so you know, I have experience writing code for a wide variety of devices from pure functional languages on high end graphics workstations down to assembler on embedded systems with a few bytes of RAM, so I don't need no lecture on not being able to adapt to a new environment.) PalmOS is just plain crap though it was tolerably decent when Palm devices first appeared.

I also take issue with the whole "feature rich" thing. A modern Palm device, in terms of pure computing power, could blow the socks off the desktop machines I used a decade ago, and yet the desktop machine had a real OS and Palms come only with a toy OS that struggles to manage with a modern features like phone networking, bluetooth and so on. Those real OSes that were created decades ago could deal with these kinds of hardware issues in their stride. The whole "Zen of application design" philosophy is nothing but a cover for the PalmOS developers not bothering to get off their lazy asses and write a quality operating system.

History has played out exactly as I expected. Years ago people complained that Windows CE was a bloated overcomplicated OS that was a stripped down desktop OS, inappropriate for a handheld. I think the people who said this were the same people who thought that nobody would ever need more than 640k. Palm had a good solution for a window of opportunity of a few years while handheld CPUs were in their infancy. But that's no way to plan a long term business.

I still love my Palm Z22. But that's because it's prettier than any other PDA, cheap, and I don't write code for Palms any more.

The Test

[Kennon]

A few months ago we started a pilot project testing Groupwise Mobile at work which runs on both Windows mobile and PalmOS. So we ordered several Verizon devices, a few Treo700W's a few 700P's and 2 motorola Q phones running WinMobile. Most of these devices went to users who had either previously been using Blackberrys or did not have a smart phone. As of today, all of the users who received WinMobile based devices except one (who previously owned a WinMobile device) have complained incessantly about their performance or pretty much stopped carrying them and either gone back to their blackberry (if they had one to go back to) or just stopped using the devices all together. The main complaint I hear is in regards to the device locking up and becoming unresponsive 5-6 times per day and/or just spontaneously rebooting in the middle of use and/or when it is just sitting there apparently doing nothing. Our site director got one of the Q phones and she positively despised it after a week. She was the first to switch back to her Blackberry.

The few of us who got a 700P refuse to give them up. That is not to say that there haven't been some issues with them. Personally mine has rebooted like twice when I was doing a lot of multimedia stuff like watching a movie. Occasionally during an over-the-air sync with GWMobile my phone will become unresponsive for a few seconds. The only reproducible bug I have with this 700P is if I go into the multimedia player with my 2GB memory card inserted the phone will reboot every time. If I eject it, enter the app, then reinsert it it comes up just fine and then reads in the memory card.

I think the fact that we handed these devices out to mostly novice users and almost all the WinMobile devices have been abandoned while the PalmOS based devices are still in use speaks volumes on the points made in earlier posts regarding usability.