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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.
I take it your development team never went on a 7-day cocaine/hooker orgy and deleted all the source code?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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.
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.
No worries; just replace it with a Congo!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"How, exactly, does software go out with a bang? Doesn't "bang" imply success, and therefore, not going out?"
I think the editors may have been a bit too literary this time. It's from a T. S. Elliot poem called "The Hollow Men." The last two lines are:
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
The meaning of the poem is subject to interpretation, but it's clear that the bang/whimper comparison very much refers to an end to the world.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
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.
I started with a Visor Platinum, went to a Tungsten E, then rolled all the way back to a Palm III, because it:
1. Does everything I want a PDA to accomplish.
and
2. Is one HECK of a lot more durable than the Visor, or the pitiful flimsy Tungsten E (which failed a few weeks out of warranty)
and
3. I have found Palm IIIs in almost new condition sell on eBay for under $10 at this point in time.
and
4. I have Code Warrior for PalmOS, so I can code up any practical PDA-scaled application that I need for classic PalmOS and will be able to forever.
Maybe I have taken a 'survivalist' approach, but I'm hunkering down and buying Palm III devices for my stockpile. They're 'good enough' and it's wonderful to still have a PDA that I don't have to charge, and that runs for several months on each battery change (two AAA's, mind you.)
It's sort of ironic that one can be luddite these days and an active user of a Palm Pilot at the same time.
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
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?