Slashdot Mirror
The Palm OS Ends With a Whimper
PetManimal writes "Computerworld reviews the Palm Treo 755p, the last Palm device with the Palm OS, and concludes that the OS is going out not with a bang but with a whimper. The article says there are some useful improvements (better integration with Exchange and IM, limited speech recognition, etc.) but 'nothing that will make you sit back and say "wow."' Palm already has at least one device with Windows Mobile (the 700w) and soon will make a big push to Linux devices, maybe by the end of the year. But the Palm OS, which was top dog for a while back in the 1990s, and is still used by many people who own Palm Pilots or Treos, is going to quickly fade, it seems."
Palm already has at least one device with Windows Mobile (the 700w) and soon will make a big push to Linux devices, maybe by the end of the year. But the Palm OS, which was top dog for a while back in the 1990s, and is still used by many people who own Palm Pilots or Treos, is going to quickly fade, it seems.
Ok, but what will the interface for those Linux devices look like?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
PalmOS is just changing the kernel. It's anything but dead.
How, exactly, does software go out with a bang?
Doesn't "bang" imply success, and therefore, not going out?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
To anyone who owns a modern PDA, how fast can you write? I've went through two Palms (no pun intended) and two handspring visors back in the late 90's and I loved them - but more importantly, I could enter text at least twice as fast as anyone I knew who had a WinCE device.
Has that changed?
The whole point of palm OS was that it delivered what was needed with simplicity, and no bloat, like it's rival at the time Windows CE.
A simple to do list, contacts, calendar, a memo pad was the core of the experience, and allthat you needed a PDA to do.
This news is somewhat depressing, I have to say. Though not at all surprising.
I've been using Palm devices for over ten years, and while it's been pretty apparent for a while now that Windows Mobile (or Pocket PC) has quickly grown to include more features and better integration with computer software, I personally don't like it at all. I think it's sluggish and poorly laid out. It can take several seconds to open the simply calendar, or the media player (during which time parts of the screen update before others, which is tacky), while the Palm is almost always instant. While that's obviously because the Palm OS is simpler and less graphically intensive, I have no problem with that. I like things to open the very instant that I tap on them, and this is always the case with my trusty Treo. My iPAQ, my friend's Dopod, and the various other Windows Mobile devices we have at work are all the same... slow and frustrating. They also crash a lot, which the Palm rarely does without the help of poorly written third-party applications.
I will mourn this unfortunate change.
I recently had my Zaire die and tried to find a replacement but nothing availible came close. Instead of getting better the line has largely stagnated. I loved my Zaire so I guess the next move is iPhone. I just hope they add in more desktop apps soon. I have high hopes on the second generation. The Palm OS was a landmark OS and for many years it was the best. For the people that loved the devices it's definitely a time to mourn it's passing.
Honestly, should anyone really care? If the next-generation Palm operating system is based on a Linux kernel but has the capability of running Palm OS apps in an emulation mode, should we care about what code base it runs on?
OS's aren't like people or pets. They're tools. When you've outgrown them, you can either upgrade them or find a new one. Obviously Access has no interest in updating the PalmOS, so Palm has to go its own way. I personally hope that they deliver new capabilities on Linux while retaining the simplicity of the Palm interface.
I have owned various PalmOS devices for over a decade, and still use my Treo 650 daily, but I'll be happy to see the old OS go. It's unstable (a null pointer access will reboot the whole device), has no OS-level support for multitasking (applications have to hook into timer interrupts to run in the background), the memory management system is a monstrosity to code for, it has no ability to launch apps directly from a removable memory card, and even its strong suit, the UI, has some serious problems (try replying to an SMS message when you're in the middle of doing something else; when you're done sending the message it will take you back to the app launcher rather than to what you were doing.)
A new Linux-based core will solve many of those problems inherently. Plus, one hopes, it will be even more hackable. So I say good riddance to the old OS.
First sentence should have read "Palm OS would've died sooner if Windows Mobile supported 320x320 prior to the just-released Windows Mobile 6." The Treo 720p is 320x320, which Windows Mobile 5 did not support. I have the Sprint/Audiovox 6700 from December 2005, which is 320x240 and Windows Mobile 5.
I started with a Pilot, moved to a III. I flirted with wince devices for a while and have now come back home to the IIIxe. When it breaks, I'll buy another one, they're cheap and plentiful.
It doesn't play movies, mp3s or emulators but that's what computers are for.
--- Do you believe in the day?
I'm a palm user of over 10 years as well and happily keep my phone and PDA separate for a variety of reasons.
The biggest problem I've had with it is the lack of a Linux Palm Desktop. I really miss it having moved to Ubuntu and while I'm getting by with Jpilot I have lost a lot of functionality (specific to my behavior) having switched. Not to much joy with wine (due to a lack of knowledge on my part no doubt) either.
I hope that if/when they finally (2nd/3rd time lucky?) go linux we'll see a desktop released for that OS, or at least enough published to enable Jpilot and others to jump on board better.
While they're at it, perhaps they'll realize that wiki-fying their base menu system (address/memo/to-do/calendar) apps will make for a simple and enormously useful improvement in functionality.
--- I've completed diagnosis of your problem and can classify it as a YOYO...You're On Your Own
The treo 700p was great when it didn't have much data on it. However, when you load it up with a few hundred contacts, appointments and about 8000 emails ... it fails apart. Switching between applications results in a white screen for 7 - 10 seconds. Common lock ups, at least once a week. To top it all off, Palm didn't respond to any of these problems. Numerous support requests and calls got ignored. That pissed me off more then anything. The only answer I ever got was to do a hard reset.
Needless to say, I am done with Palm. I will not purchase another phone from them. Even if they solve the software issues, they have a very serious problem with their support that they need to tend to first.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
All I can say is, I hope their linux systems run better than some of the nokia linux-based hardware I've seen, such as the N800 that you can brick by installing software on or looking at wrong.... you can recover them, but only by using linux commandline-only software on a desktop (that was a good waste of an afternoon).
I love linux, but just running linux doesn't automatically make things perfect. (awesome, sure, but not perfect. this is slashdot afterall).
ìì!
Great: Windows Mobile can handle screen resolutions my Commodore could handle 20-something years ago. Ah, progress. Seriously, has anyone tried using Windows Mobile for anything serious without wanting to send their device to an untimely death? I tried a VX6700, replaced it with a Treo 700w, and replaced that with a Motorola Q, all within the past year. I eventually paid (or, in all honesty, my employer paid) Verizon's termination fee just so I could get out of the contract so I could get something else. If you want to experience Windows Mobile, take a ten-penny nail and drive it into your crotch... it's about the same feeling. I now have a BlackBerry Pearl, and - I can't believe I'm saying this - I quite like it. It's responsive, doesn't crash if you look at it, actually knows that it's supposed to charge when the power cord is attached, syncs with my mail, and just plain works. All the things a WM5 device does not.
I have found that many people do not share my point-of-view with regards to Palm OS, but I must personally say that I hated it. The interface was easy enough to deal with as a user, but as a developer, it was a nightmare. I am so glad to see Palm OS go and be replaced with Linux.
There were so many problems with the OS design. I could not understand why you would build an OS that lacked any sort of filesystem. Instead, they had a very crappy database-esque system from which you could retrieve data. You couldn't simply load a file onto the system, it had to be loaded into the database and accessed using their bass-akwards method of database access. Be aware, we're not talking SQL here.
Another thing that was horrible was their lack of long-jumps. I had previously never had to specifically arrange the order of my object files in a link statement to avoid jumps further than 64k. There were times where I actually had to create functions that did nothing but call a later function so that I could make code jumps to functions further than 64k away. That made using the STL basically impossible (some would not consider this a loss, I do).
Then you add in the ridiculousness of having to define UUIDs for programs. So, anytime you wanted to write any sort of small application, you had to register a 32-bit number (less actually) with Palm. There are better ways to do this. We don't live in the 70s anymore.
Ugh! There are so many other problems. I just had to get this off my chest. Once they do this, maybe I'll go get a new Palm. I was never able to bring myself to buy a Windows CE device, but I have longed to have another PDA. Hopefully, these new Linux systems will be what I am looking for.
Of course, it has been years since I programmed anything on Palm OS (version 5, I believe). So, for all I know, they fixed all of these problems and I will be the recipient of a massive amount of flame.
Open source PalmOS.
Seriously.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Windows CE/Windows Mobile was running at a huge loss, but has now broken even. Tactics like that do tend to allow you to destroy traditional competition in the long run. Linux-kerneled devices are growing faster than ever and MS does not have a recipe to destroy them.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
After a couple of Palm PDA's and now on my second Treo, I have a different perspective. First - the Palm OS is stable - I took a Treo 600 on vacation through Turkey, a cruise, Greece, and Italy for a month. Never had a crash or had to reset once - rock solid using the phone everyday, sending emails, messaging, reading books, listening to MP3s, completing crosswords. Telephone worked great everywhere - even 10 miles off a barren Turkish coast. Swapped to a Treo 680 late last year. It works perfectly - I picked it up, loaded old familiar applications and started using immediately. Last time I did a reset was probably six weeks ago. Palm OS at an end - I don't think so - it does everything an average user wants, has had for years all the functionality others are just now crowing about. Yup, the camera sucks - that's why I carry a pocket Canon. Yup, no wireless, but a cheap unlimited data plan with Cingular sorta makes that a non-issue. So what's not to like about Palm OS? Windows Mobile may be great for a developer but it stinks from a user's view. There's absolutely nothing intuitive about the user interface. Now would anyone really like to say that it's reliable. Some tell me that it's improved a lot - they only have to reset once a day now. May be great when crunching code but what about us poor button pushers. I'll stick with Palm OS.
PalmLinux will be fully backward compatible, so you can use all your old apps with no problems. They will include a 68K emulation layer just for the purpose.
After 27 years of computing, I got stuck in a town without any serious computer jobs, waiting for Mom to die. So I'm a security guard, and MAN, is that little old 10 YEAR OLD palm 5 a big help. I can take notes without looking, send emails that are legible instead of written reports that aren't, and it's a single sync and the night's paperwork is done and archived.
It was a good idea; branching out into hundreds of alternatives (and keeping their handwriting recognition sacred) limited the span. And just like SCO learned, charging $1,100 for a development system to create more software for your platform, there are worse things to lose than your money.
If they could just be talked into licensing their handwriting analysis code to other businesses, they just might save theirs...
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Got my only Palm device, an IBM rebranded III (C20) for free in 1999. After dutifully messing with it, flashing an OS upgrade or two all the way up to PalmOS 3.5 and then back down to 3.3, after installing 3rd party hacks up the wazoo and an application that allowed me to use unused flash for applications, speeding up the system clock and EasySync versions from 2.0 up to 4.3 all of which failed, broke or could not work with Lotus Notes then using Notes export functions to clone data to the Palm Desktop app then moving that to the Palm, I finally gave up on it last year when at one point the batteries conked out (old models had AAA batteries) and I just couldn't find a good enough reason to put another $3 in batteries into my paperweight.
Palm always seemed to be progressing about half the speed the marketplace wanted them to. They split off hardware from software, bought BeOS and wandered around doing silly pointless things for years. Ultimately their vaunted stability and battery life over PocketPC just wasn't enough. Palm always remained a work in progress, a lab experiment really in search of a stable suite of business apps and a good business model. The idea that apps generally to be workable needed big chunks of RAM, that Palm never seemed to be able to deliver on the hardware in time, or, if they did it cost a fantastic amount of money was inane. Does anyone remember that the first 2MB -> 8MB customer RAM upgrades required you to take apart the motherboard and spend more than $200 for the chip?
Yeah so I not glad or angry Palm is dead. I gave up on it years ago. I think the next thing I''ll get is a Moto-Q or whatever is roughly a Moto-Q next year when Sprint gives me a discount. The idea of a standalone PDA is over. And the idea of a PDA/Phone without good enough data entry is over too. I have the first and the last version of T9 for Palm which was great until T9 decided they only wanted the phone market and abandoned Palm. I had a portable keyboard and found it clunky too. Better to have a small built in hardware keyboard on the device. In retrospect the commonsense product decisions that would have made the Palm platform a viable handheld communicator, PDA, Phone, computer, whatever always seemed to elude Palm executives.
Palm is such a great OS for what it's designed to do. Plus it's always been programmer friendly (gcc m68k toolchain + the Palm SDK) which they distributed for free. Plus there was POSE for development and you could legally download roms for the different system from their development site for testing. Does MS do that?
So for me, this is a sad day. It was fun while it lasted and I just hope mine doesn't break anytime soon.
As far as I'm concerned, when Palm dropped Moto's Dragonball processor for the ARM, it was all over. About that same time they got rid of the original Graffiti for something that didn't use one stroke per letter. (Admittedly, this was due to a lawsuit, but the patent was eventually overturned; Palm did not return to Graffiti, however.) There's still a thriving market on eBay for the old Palm devices. I still use my m150, and have a couple of spares that are still shrink-wrapped. The battery life is still incredible. I can take it with me on week-long hikes without any worries.
Actually, there's a Palm III emulator that's been ported all over the place, including handheld versions of Windows. There's no reason why it couldn't run on a Linux-based PDA. Maybe I should change my subject: "PalmOS will never die!"
Nothing for 6-digit uids?