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Palm Pulls the Plug On Palm OS
BobB-nw writes to tell us that Palm has decided to kill their PalmOS operating system and is instead betting their future on a still mostly unknown Palm webOS. Very little is known about the new Palm webOS, but it will supposedly support HTML5 and enable a local data store so that applications can be used both online and off. All of this is rolled into a Linux framework with a message bus based on JSON. Will be interesting to see where they take it.
I have used palm OS for almost ten years.
Rest in Peace my friend, you will be missed.
I used two Palm Zires (first a 21, then a 72) as ebook readers for the last 8 years.
When my latest one died two weeks ago, I started looking for a replacement, only to find out that PDAs have been dead for years...
Dammit Palm, you had a complete market cornered, why did you have to drop the ball so stupidly?
If you had developed a decent OS (with a f**kin filesystem!) for your devices 5 years ago, you would still be relevant today...
No sig for the moment.
IF they'd kept the original PalmOS model and followed it to cheaper devices you'd be seeing Palms instead of Ti graphing calculators as the standard handheld for schoolkids by now... which would have translated into massive sales as the kids grew up. But Palm decided they HAD to go head to head against the Pocket PC, and threw away most of the advantages of the small, tight, lightweight Palm OS while keeping most of its disadvantages with PalmOS 5.
As a couple of others at this thread level, I'm a devout Palm user. Actually, I've just bought a Treo 680 (competently refurbished of course) -- "just" as in "it it's still in the mail".
I've been using Palm PDAs for most of a decade, starting with a Palm III. My two beloved T3's are currently on their last legs; these things are nothing short of fantastic, keeping my mind and life functioning, but no matter how one cares for them they can only be expected to last for so long (which is why I'm upgrading to a Treo).
On a related note, my brother has been using Psion Series5's for 13 years -- and he still thinks they're the best things out there, although he recently threw in the towel and bought an iPhone.
It's such a shame that consumer electronics seems to be so ephemeral, it always has been. It means that the junk piles up on the landfill quickly, and it also means that the quality stuff is simply out of support long before the hardware is worn out.
I say "seems to be", because few people realise --truly, consciously-- that one's gear does not need to change if one's needs don't. Granted, for most (young) people it's at least as much about the fashion statement as the functionality, and so they buy into the ephemerality. Meanwhile, the stalwarts who cherish their devices for their usefulness quickly appear to be dinosaurs, as not keeping with the times.
I know that this Mac-like OS transition was necessary for Palm in order to be truly free to innovate, and I wish them luck, if for nothing else the market players need diversity to keep each other on their toes. I'm sure they're nervous about this gamble of leaving behind literally tens of thousands of 3rd-party applications; I know we are still many, many users out there who are -- even if we're being drowned out by others who don't feel the same.
What am I trying to say? I wish Palm luck with their new OS and device, and I hope they get to survive on that account. But I also hope that the PalmOS community survives, for one does not rule out the other, and the old tools will not suddenly, lose their usefulness.
"Good news, everyone!"
They should have kept to standard designs, dropped the price, and made Palms as common and cheap as pocket calculators.
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