Posted by
Hemos
on from the but-i-just-got-my-palm-five! dept.
Bartmoss writes "According to the german computer magazine C'T, 3Com will release two updates to the PalmOS and, as 3Com-president Alan Kessler told The Business Journal, a "Palm Organizer with a color display." The article is in German; learn German or use Babelfish. "
Oh my God, they've killed PalmPilot. You bastards!
by
jabber
·
· Score: 4
I think, with Jeff Hawkins gone, that the whole Palm division of 3Com has been floundering for a vision.
Dead right! It sounds like 3Com is marketing a Good Thing into oblivion. The PalmPilot has always been a cut above the other PDA offerings. WinCE, with all it's marketting couldn't squash the good design and excellent performance AND spirit of (true) innovation... Hell, they got my money (bought a Nino, and am regretting not choosing the Palm)...
Now 3Com sees just how ubiquitous and popular is PURCHASED PRODUCT is, and they're pulling a Microsoft. Fracturing the market and customer base, alienating faithful Palm users by versioning and offering replacement upgrades... Yes, the Palm costs as much as a M$ Word Pro, but that doesn't mean we want a new version every other month.
Clue to 3Com: Commit to good engineering. Keep the interfaces standard. Take a lesson from the PC revolution and make the PIECES upgradable.
I'd gladly buy a PV if I could upgrade the SCREEN to a color one. Or if I could replace one of the two stylus barrels with a wireless comm module, or if I could use lithiun or NiCad or OTS batteries. I'd make the investment if I could swap processors, add RAM, plug in a PC card for hard storage... I'd gladly buy a new titanium case to replace the aluminum one, if the guts fit. But for chrissakes, don't force me to buy a new modem and cradle every six months.
--
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Somebody please give me just one reason why my pilot needs color? Just one? I'll always remember the person who said to me "I don't want a pilot until it has 8Meg of memory. I don't know why I want it, I just do." Sounds like color is the same sort of reasoning. Saying you need a color pilot is like saying you're incapable of drawing a diagram on the back of a napkin unless you have one of those goofy fat pens that writes in 4 different colors.
Games? Isn't this the crowd that would hail Space Invaders and Pacman, two games that can be played in monochrome, as two of the best games ever written?
Aren't there enough Lynx users in this audience to understand that it's the *information*, not the *presentation* that is important? Maybe, maybe there's an argument that color can be used to get more information onto a screen (such as showing a red number instead of a number in parentheses to signify a negative on a spreadsheet). But do I really want to deal with higher price and lower battery life to get that?
Things I'd rather see in the next pilot:
Sound recording/playback. Voice reco.
More natural handwriting reco.
More resolution.
Built in wireless connectivity.
JavaVM in ROM (yes, I know it's coming:))
Not changing the form factor of the device every other generation. (I have a PalmPro, PIIIx and a PalmV and all use different cradles.)
I like my Pilot. I don't want color. I won't upgrade in order to get color. I think, with Jeff Hawkins gone, that the whole Palm division of 3Com has been floundering for a vision. The PalmIV, "Razor", was shelved (is this new color one the second coming? I didn't read the article). We all hated that they came out with the IIIx and the V simultaneously. Nobody things the VII is a good idea (too expensive). The IIIe is a stupid way to make more money. So does anybody really think that, just by saying "color", 3Com suddenly has a long term plan in place that will benefit the consumer? Or will they simply scrap that idea 6 months from now and decide that wireless is the way to go, and make a new wireless model based on one of the old monochrome pilots?
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I think, with Jeff Hawkins gone, that the whole Palm division of 3Com has been floundering for a vision.
Dead right! It sounds like 3Com is marketing a Good Thing into oblivion. The PalmPilot has always been a cut above the other PDA offerings. WinCE, with all it's marketting couldn't squash the good design and excellent performance AND spirit of (true) innovation... Hell, they got my money (bought a Nino, and am regretting not choosing the Palm)...
Now 3Com sees just how ubiquitous and popular is PURCHASED PRODUCT is, and they're pulling a Microsoft. Fracturing the market and customer base, alienating faithful Palm users by versioning and offering replacement upgrades... Yes, the Palm costs as much as a M$ Word Pro, but that doesn't mean we want a new version every other month.
Clue to 3Com: Commit to good engineering. Keep the interfaces standard. Take a lesson from the PC revolution and make the PIECES upgradable.
I'd gladly buy a PV if I could upgrade the SCREEN to a color one. Or if I could replace one of the two stylus barrels with a wireless comm module, or if I could use lithiun or NiCad or OTS batteries.
I'd make the investment if I could swap processors, add RAM, plug in a PC card for hard storage... I'd gladly buy a new titanium case to replace the aluminum one, if the guts fit. But for chrissakes, don't force me to buy a new modem and cradle every six months.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Games? Isn't this the crowd that would hail Space Invaders and Pacman, two games that can be played in monochrome, as two of the best games ever written?
Aren't there enough Lynx users in this audience to understand that it's the *information*, not the *presentation* that is important? Maybe, maybe there's an argument that color can be used to get more information onto a screen (such as showing a red number instead of a number in parentheses to signify a negative on a spreadsheet). But do I really want to deal with higher price and lower battery life to get that?
Things I'd rather see in the next pilot:
- Sound recording/playback. Voice reco.
- More natural handwriting reco.
- More resolution.
- Built in wireless connectivity.
- JavaVM in ROM (yes, I know it's coming
:)) - Not changing the form factor of the device every other generation. (I have a PalmPro, PIIIx and a PalmV and all use different cradles.)
I like my Pilot. I don't want color. I won't upgrade in order to get color. I think, with Jeff Hawkins gone, that the whole Palm division of 3Com has been floundering for a vision. The PalmIV, "Razor", was shelved (is this new color one the second coming? I didn't read the article). We all hated that they came out with the IIIx and the V simultaneously. Nobody things the VII is a good idea (too expensive). The IIIe is a stupid way to make more money. So does anybody really think that, just by saying "color", 3Com suddenly has a long term plan in place that will benefit the consumer? Or will they simply scrap that idea 6 months from now and decide that wireless is the way to go, and make a new wireless model based on one of the old monochrome pilots?d
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