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Color Palms to Debut in February?
Kevin writes "There's a story over at CNET talking about the future release of color Palms in February. Palm Computing's IPO is expected to coincide with the release. The article states that simplicity is a major part of the PalmPilot's design and that the implementation of color screens may not correspond with the '
so-called Zen of Palm principle,' keeping devices as simple as possible. "
How many batteries will I go thru a month with one of these? :)
;)
Should be nice to see...
Maybe someone can port X to it now
-C
Web browsing is a logical direction for any PDA to take. Try shrinking your browser down to postage stamp size and finding your way around a web page. Tell me differentiating by color doesn't help you here...
Ya got yer III, IIIx, IIIe. The VII is based on the III form factor. Soon you'll have the IIIc which I can only presume will be like a III (if not bigger!), and there's no reason not to think that the IIIxe won't be the same as the III sizewise.
I'm reminded of a device company I used to work for. A scientist sat in our weekly meeting and announced that the device would only produce acceptable results if measurement X was within something like 10 microns. Upon which the manufacturing manager demonstrated to him that by the time you got to measurement X you had to put together measurements A,B,C, each of which had a tolerance of 15 microns in the first place, so there's no way he could get what he asked for. He shrugged, apparently oblivious to the reality of the physical universe, and said that in that case, just wouldn't work.
Seems to me like people want it to be small (PalmV sized sounds nice), with a bigger screen and bigger writing area (huh?). More memory, please (16M would sound like lots now, but I'm sure it won't in a year), but I want to stuff a few MP3s on there so I'm going to fill it up quick anyway. Please add color and voice recognition, but don't make the batteries any thicker. Make them last longer.
I like my IIIx. I am hoping that, unlike the V/Vx, the IIIx will have an upgrade for that 8meg.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
With color it will help make my meeting go faster as I play IR Battleship with another person. Although the PHB's don't like it when we yell 'You sunk my battleship you TWIT!"
GIHM -The light at the end of the tunnel is only the oncoming train.
The one thing that having a color lcd would do to confuse the "zen of Palm" would be having two different versions of programs, one color and one monochrome. Hopefully Palm would be able to figure out how to incorporate "old" app support with new color apps.
The second concern of mine, besides the fact that my Palm III will be obsolete, is that currently Palms can run for almost a month on 2 AAA batteries. That is not going to be true for Palms with color screens.
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
... I love my Palm V and I could care less about color, but they have to do this to compete. Sooner or later the Wince devices are going to catch up in price, battery life and form factor/weight.
It's good that Palm is keeping up, and don't forget, this doesn't mean all new Palm models will be in color. I'm sure they'll still provide the old black & white Palms until color has been proven to be cheap enough.
- sigs are for wimps.
A full 80% of the Palm spinoff from 3Com will be going to 3Com shareholders.
That is your best way of getting some if you want to take part in Palm's IPO.
Did you just say voice recognition ???
...
Just why would you expect voice recognition to work well in a PDA when it barely works on a fully loaded PC ?!?!
Now this type of feature is obviously contradictory to the aforementioned Palm "Zen" philosophy
- sigs are for wimps.
"If you look at most users today, they love the Palm V," which has a black-and-white display, Dulaney said. "It's got everything
they need. You never hear anyone complain about no color."
somebody remember
"Nobody ever needs more the 640 kb ram."
The correct form of the KISS principle is:
Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.
I think Palm is becoming too simple. Palm made a virtue out of necessity -- they are using at least three-year-old technology without any major changes (I tend to view the wireless connection as overpriced gimmick). Thus they HAVE to be simple -- they cannot manage intelligent complexity. That is OK as long as their target market is suits -- suits, after all, have never been known for the ability to deal with sophisticated devices. But for me Palm is like Microsoft's DOS -- very simple, but not necessarily up-to-date. I'd rather play with flashier toys and tinker with more complicated things.
Three years ago Palms were great. Now they look more and more older. Leaving aside the horrible user interface of WinCE, look at the latest Casio model (E-100/105) -- it is color, it plays stereo sound, its accessories include a digital camera, a hard drive (340Mb in your handheld -- how about it?) and a ton of other goodies.
I think that Palm is outdated and only the deficiencies of WinCE keep it at the top.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
... is maps. I recently downloaded a map of NY subway and they routes where coded in greyscale. It was very difficult to distinguish between them, so I think color conveys a lot of information in this particular case.
There are other minor things like charts and games but I don't think they're that important (at least not to me), but maps is kind of hard to work around right now unless you heavily edit the map.
- sigs are for wimps.
I currently have a Palm Pro with a 2M upgrade. I am looking at moving to a 8 M memory module. The reason I have not done so yet is that I am waiting to see if Palm will release a colour version.
I believe that if the Palm is to continue to be successful that they MUST have a colour version, and possibly (hopefully) a larger screen area. If they hope to compete with the various CE (and other Palm OS) devices hitting the market they have to stay ahead of the technology curve.
The existing Palm products are great but they also need to be useful and fun. When you start to look at what HandSpring is offering with the Visors, what Philips has with the Nino or the slick PDA's coming out of PSION I would seriously start considering switching PDA's.
I think they also need to be very careful when addressing "backwards compatability" look what Intel and Microsoft have done to destroy that concept!
Moving to a new/better/bigger/more-colourful platform is not a bad thing if it encourages innovation and brings more people into the Palm Computing world.
Entrepreneur, Triathlete, Yogi, Geek
When they can do it without taking a massive hit on battery life, and when they can do it without the price jumping way up, yeah, color would be nice. Until then, it's just flash, and they risk shooting themselves in the foot.
Yeah, when they get to the point of real wireless web access, color might be useful. (Though that reflects more on the ubiquity of bad web design than it does on the usefulness of color on the web.) But I'd much rather have real wireless connectivity without color, than color without wireless connectivity.
I just had an argument (well a discussion) the other day with one of my friends. He bought I think a Casseopia that runs on WinCE and has color. He says he chose it over the Palm because he likes the color. He says it runs for 8 hours on the battery, and he sticks it in its cradle every night.
The cradle thing is the reason that I opted for a Palm IIIx (well cost was another factor) over a Palm V. I have enough problems trying to remember to take my cell phone out of my purse to plug it into the wall to charge it, and end up plugging it in at work during the day. I know that I would forget to take the Palm V out of my purse and plug it in at night, and if I did, then I'd forget to take it with me in the morning.
I think that the Palm going color is more like the Game boy phenomenon. You note that you can play the b/w games on the color one, and the color ones on the b/w Game boy. I think they'll make the programs compatible with both, as the color Palm gets more popularity.
Personally, I do think that since I can't browse the web on my Palm, there really is no need for me to have color. The batteries on my Palm last a helluva long time, and make it more convenient than the silly cradle. (stop at a gas station or keep a couple on me if I'm that paranoid).
Of course I'm usually one of the last people to upgrade (read Aug 99 when upgraded Win95B to Win98, and refused to try Win95 until around 96) so YMMV.
I honestly believe that the driving force behind the decision to add color is the marketing power that it brings. The presumption is that the lack of color support is bad. I have also seen many WinCE (Windows powered) comparsions that always bring up the lack of color on Palm Pilots.
However, in regards to actually doing "work", I don't believe that color would be much of an asset. As for games, I believe that it is a necessary step. My only fear is that the addition of color may start to turn Palm Pilots into expensive Gameboys.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
Too true
- sigs are for wimps.
WinCE 2 on an SH3
... please wait
.oO0Oo.
slooooooowwwwww
Would :
Page rendering
look good in any colour?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
A number of posts here suggest that adding color will reduce battery life to that of WinCE machines. Unlikely, now that reflective color LCDs are available (and in more than the color gameboy). I know it's already in use in digital cameras, with tons of help on battery life because you don't backlight unless you're in the dark.
Palm's going to use them... I can't see them using anything else.
Overheard near Sand Hill Road :-)
"Why can't we put a little uranium inside our new FootSpring PDA prototype? We would be offering the first nuclear-powered pocket gadget that would go for three years with no batteries, could include a color screen, a flashlight and would double as a nice source of heat in your pocket when it's cold outside. We'll crush Palm!"
"Marketing told us this is exactly what consumers want, the potential market is huge..."
"Yeah, please put a little cutting laser in it, we could compete against Swiss Army knives!. I've already contacted Darth Maul for the advertising campaign..."
"Good, we have enough for our IPO. Stop writing!"
Besides, it's a natural progression. B&W > Grayscale > Color. Do you really need that 17" monitor for email and word processing? Of course not. It is the same thing as that color printer commercial that shows two identical proposals -- one in B/W and another in color. Which is going to catch your eye?
---------
James Hromadka
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
Speaking of color PDA, did anybody tried the Casio Cassiopea E105 ? It is a killer hardware (65536 color TFT backlit screen, Audio out, 32 MB + CompactFlash slot, MP3, etc...) but it runs Wince... I would prefer to buy a Palm but the idea of playing MP3 on my PDA is more than tempting...
whats really important is :
[1] Memory protection for the pilot in the OS - paperclips suck, resetting sucks.
[2] Better security for the databases - one application can rewrite *all* data right now 0- that sucks.
[3] Easier API's, more access to documentation and better testing
[4] A full web browser
[5] Faster CPU, better battery, slightly larger screen (and less reflective), less scratchy screen, more rugged construction.
Adding color is just a waste of resources - improvements need to be made elsewhere.
I think they should work and better connectivity and making 4 or 8 megs of RAM standard on the new models before they delve into color.
Because it feels like something I've done before, yeah I could fake it but I'd still want more...
As it stands now, the month-view is basically useless. Color would change that.
Bright red in the todo or memo list is a quick visual cue that something is important. Or, toxic yellow could indicate work-related items, without wasting screen real-estate.
And of course there's things like maps, which barely work at all in black and white. The added information conveyed by color can fix that.
(Note that UI elements shouldn't _depend_ on color, since a lot of people are color blind to one extent or another. But that doesn't mean it can't be useful to others.)
--
Color is something that is much more immediately visible and discernable than words or numbers. Consider, for instance, someone that regularly uses the task list. Perhaps this person prefers to prioritize their list by importance. With a black and white screen, she would have to look carefully at the numbers to the left to determine what priority certain items were, even if the list were sorted by priority. (Perhaps she has them sorted alphabetically, with a certain code at the beginning to categorize them differently)
In this case, color -- even 16 colors, would be very useful. She'd press her todo key on her pilot, notice that there were two red items above several blue ones, and know that those red items were of high importance immediately. She'd be able to read them quicker if they were colorized than if she had to look at the priority number assigned to each item.
Something similar could be done with categories. Assign different colors to categories in your addressbook, and now you could view your entire address book but still be able to rapidly discern between different types of contacts. This would make it easier to use your Palm's address book quickly. Instead of using two hands and tapping the corner twice to get to the right category, you can leave it set on "All". Just use one hand to press the address book button and then use the hardware buttons to scroll through your list. Green for clients, red for suppliers, purple for personal contacts.
Color web browsing on a Palm would be neatonifty, but remember, the Palm is supposed to be simple. The examples above show why adding color will keep it simple, and perhaps make it even simpler, at least for data-retrieval tasks, which is what I (and the people I know who use Palms) mainly use them for after the "wow" factor wears off.
I ordered a couple of color Visors--one yellow and one blue--when they were announced several months ago, but so far they are completely invisible.
The company did contact me last month to confirm the order and promised delivery "within a week" but I didn't think to ask which week.
it's amazing that no one here has mentioned
:) makes me feel like i havent
having color cases yet!!!
I dont care about a color screen, but it would
be nice if they would powder-coat the case and
make Palms available in a few nice colors...
It's kinda like cell-phones in my office--everyone
has their nokia 6120/6160 in black... its nice
to be the only one in the office with a forest
green nokia
completely conformed
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
Handspring seems to be cannibalizing(sp?) the Palm's market with the Visor. The Visor is priced well below comparable offerings from Palm. So Palm needs to do something to justify their higher prices, and to keep their position as a leader.
True, Handspring is having delivery problems, but this is because the demand for their product is so *huge*.
If Palm does not get its act together, it will lose its position as a leader in the PDA market.
--
Expert Java EE Consulting
One thing to remember is that Cnet and Zdnet are horribly unreliable sources for information regarding new Palms and their release dates. If it doesn't come from the mouth of 3Com, and worse, instead claims, "sources say" then pay it no mind. Remember the Razor? That only existed in the mind of ZDnet. (Well, it appeared as the PalmV, but it wasn't nearly as cool as ZDNet made it sound and they were about a year off the release date).
Granted, we now know that we have a (somewhat) color PalmOS (developer release that runs on an emulator), so we at least know Cnet is half right. There will be Color Palm. Do not rely on these online magazines to tell you when you can buy one though...
Scheduling absolutely *requires* color in order to get a graphic representation of the week or month ahead. I'll be in line for the color version so that my palm will be truly indispensible.
Any sleight-of-hand, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from technology.
I was pretty amazed a while back when I learned that the new Gameboy Color not only supports old Gameboy games, but displays them in full color!
What I haven't found out is if Nintendo had the foresight to include color information in the original cartridges or if they have the colors for the most popular b&w games in the system ROM.
Nevertheless, the Gameboy is clearly a good demonstration of a successful migration from black&white to color. And by the way, their reflective color LCD doesn't use that much juice either.
Marko Karppinen
This may seem to be off topic, but stick with it, it applies.
The other day I walked into my bank. They had just replaced their old ATM machines with new ones. I thought "Great! now they'll be faster! and ooo, look, a pretty color touch screen!"
Well, the truth is, the new machines are slower on two counts.
1. more proccessing required for color screen == slower transactions
2. it is harder to discriminate the information that matters ( how much money do I want ) from the information I don't care about ( look, We have this new loan you can get and you only have to give us your third borne child! ) which also == slower transactions
the basic conclusion here is that there are places where color is a sensible useful thing and other situations where it is just plain harmful.
the key with the upcoming palms will be to:
1. ensure that the old, B&W apps don't run any slower on the new machines.
2. color is only used where it makes SENSE.
3. new apps still run on B&W palm pilots, without a performance/memory penalty for being compatible with the new machines.
so, the basic conclusion is that
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
No Palm has ever had a black-and white display: they're all 4-level grayscale, which is a huge difference.
It's not like I expected anything else from Cnet, but I'm getting really sick and tired of everybody saying this, when it just isn't the case.
Yes, there are more Wince devices coming, just check this.
Why would anybody bet the farm on a loosing product , I have no idea. Sometimes I think some companies would do anything (like loose money) just to partern with MS. This might just be an example of monopoly power in action, who knows ?
- sigs are for wimps.
Since you seem to know a bit about the topic, do you know how much more the batteries are drained by color displays? I think it never was mentioned (or I overlooked it)... Thanks!
1) The form factor was no bigger.
2) Color does not slow-down the device.
3) Battery life is not unacceptably less.
For me number 1 is the most important; I got a Vx because it fits comfortably in my front pocket. believe if Palm could make a color device that small they'd sell millions of them!
Number 2 is also very important; the whole point of having a PDA is to have fast access to imformaton. If color slows the device down too much then people won't use them.
Personally, I could live with a somewhat lessened battery life to long as it's not as bad as some of the WinCE devices. So long as I could go away for a weekend without having to worry about bringing a charger, then that would be acceptable enough.
Just a slight clarification:
The Palm IIIx, V and Vx use the Dragonball EZ processor which supports 16-level grayscale; older Palms with the original Dragonball support 4-level grayscale.
The Palm VII actually uses the older processor so it also only supports 4-level grayscale, but there are rumors that 3com will ship a model soon that uses the EZ processor (maybe it will be called the VIIx).
First we had the Palm III, then the IIIe, and now the IIIc? Where's the IIIgs?
(BTW, I'm a longtime Palm user, and I know there have been a ton of other names and models as well.)
For more information, click here.
1) to stay on top of WinCE. While it's true that suits don't _need_ color, a lot of suits (the ones with expense accounts) are also PHBs, and when they look at a Palm device and then a WinCE device, they say, "Wow, the screen is so much better." They don't see the Palm's better usability, more productive apps, longer battery life, etc. Yes, I effectively just said "Executives are distracted by brightly colored objects." I'm right, and Palm Computing knows it. In addition, the same sort of thing goes for the home user that knows nothing about computers, especially parents buying gifts for little Tommy to go off to college. "Wow, the screen is so bright and colorful; Tommy can surf the Web right from this device." Of course, the screens aren't big enough to actually do this, but parents/other consumers don't know this.
2) because color adds subtle, but important benefits. If an item on my ToDo list is overdue, I'm much more likely to notice it if its highlighted in red than the current setup (an exclmation point on the right side of the due date, which is normally obscured by my Targus carrying case). And color in the month and week views of the Date Book could be used to denote the priority of events, etc. The benefits of color screens may be subtle, but they can be very important, and can add even more productivity to and already productive experience. Of course, one can look at WinCE and see color can also complicate an already over-complicated experience, but Palm Computing *did* make the Palm in the first place; surely they can integrate color in a way to add, rather than subtract, to their already wonderful user experience. Can't they?
These things are greyscale for a reason. Battery life.
A palmtop or PDA is no blooming good if the batteries are always dead. One of the reasons I like my Psion is the 30 hour battery life; I can pull it out and use it without worrying that the battery is going to fail any minute.
Deleted
marking a major milestone for the company and the latest salvo in its ongoing battle with Microsoft for the minds and wallets of gadget lovers.
The move could present challenges for Palm....
since when is Palm directly up against microsoft. and is there really so much doubt in the community that Palm will totally screw everything up? It's a bit suspicious
sky
Color is good. If things works out well, the other non-color Palms will get cheaper, and maybe I'll be able to afford one then...
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
Have you read the Fantastic Five ? Pretty cool comic, but is going to be canceled :(
- sigs are for wimps.
(Disclaimer: I'm buying a Palmpilot pretty much when my paycheck clears. Merry Christmas.)
;-)
First of all, Palmpilots don't have a black and white screen. They have a black and light greenish screen--not "Spinach Green Color" as the old Game Gear ads chastized Gameboy for(but guess which system is still around!)--but greenish nonetheless.
You can't implement a color display without implementing the color white, and that's an readability increase.
The problem is, LCDs don't glow, they block. So most color screens have a consistent white light source behind the display, called a Backlight. Whereas Palmpilots can presently function just fine by reflecting the light surrounding the Palmpilot(with a very optional backlight for low light operation), Color WinCE machines generally need to tote around their light supply in order to meet the functionality expected by their users.
So that's where the battery problems come from. Of course, if a color screen can be developed that *also* operates based upon surrounding light levels, you're only talking about an increased memory/bus transfer load on the system, as it moves from animating and displaying 4 bit black and white color to various degrees of red, green, and blue. Nintendo's Color Gameboy--really a well executed piece of work--is quite small but is definite proof that a color display can be fabricated that operates on ambient light. (While I doubt it has anything to do with power usage, Color Gameboy restricts the color gamut--the range of addressable colors--to 56 specific colors, thus solving much of the speed problems inherent when you're throwing around much more data. Some crazy hackers managed to get a very high color display mode out of the color gameboy though--4096 colors, if I remember right.)
Regarding the usefulness of color, portable web browsing, photograph display, and most forms of advanced context are heavily assisted by the presence of color. We've developed color vision for a reason, and not just to tell whether fruits on the vine are ripe yet
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I'm willing to bet all the colour bashers I've read so far don't use a GUI on their regular boxes - they are green-screen commandline-cowboys. That's fine. If you don't want a colour Palm, don't buy one...stick to the greyscale. But don't tell me or anyone else who wishes to buy a colour version we are somehow wrong, or wasting our battery money. It's our choice. And I'd much rather have the choice of colour Palm vs colour WinCE vs LinCE with X in colour (please SANTA, please!). Humans have evolved the ability to see in colour for a reason, why shouldn't any device which offers a graphical interface take advantage of it (hell you can even do colour in curses, but I don't hear people complaining that coloured text takes up too much memory!).
Then, leave it to the market, if no-one buys colour Palms, I'm fairly certain they will stop making them.
Me, I find it intriguing and interesting that I can do my notes, appointments, scheduling, play MP3s and video games as well as view pictures on one handled device...
PS North of the 49th, that is how you spell colour.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
The Sharp Tripad has a color screen (tablet sized) and runs Windows CE. Color displays consume a lot of power I've heard. Certainly to obtain the brightness they need to be readable they suck back the batteries. Color screens aren't very readable except in the best lighting circumstances, and reading from them in the dark (though they have brightness) is actually painful (literally causes slight pain).
On the other hand, the screen of the Pilot IIIx is fantastic! I can read it in all but the most extreme bright lights. It is the best "read in the dark" screen I've encountered to date. Glare is minimized and the images are crisp and clear.
Color could be useful, but I'd rather have long battery life, and easy to read screens. Palm has already delivered this. In a tablet sized device color might be acceptable (obviously I have mixed feelings about the color screen on the Sharp Tripad).
The bottom line is that choice is a good thing. I think I'll choose to stick with what works. The great green-screen of the Palm IIIx.
Onsale.com, now Egghead.com sold a 21" 256 grayscale monitor (with high res and low dot)the other day for $11. ELEVEN BUCKS!!
"Please do not reply if you're an evil alien! Thanks"
Okay slightly off topic (color)
:-)
What I really want is, a device that has the following
- a Palm (color would be nice) : including PC sync
- cell phone
- Mp3 player
- affordable (bah!
The closest thing I can find is a cell phone from Sprint. IT is Palm III + Cell phone. Only available from GoodGuys only. Price..a whopping US $700!!!!!
Anyways, does anyone know if such device exists?
Thanks
linuxlover
I don't know about anybody else, but I'd much rather have a monochrome screen with a higher resolution (the 240x320 of WinCE devices would be good) than a new, improved 160x160 screen with full colour.
160x160 is prohibitively small; there is only so much information you can show on such a screen. Increase the resolution, and the amount you can see at once increases. You might even be able to see a whole datebook page without scrolling, or more than a short paragraph of text. And once wireless networking arrives (which it will), a bigger screen would be better for accessing web pages over WAP.
In contrast, colour would be merely a superficial gimmick. Though maybe Palm's marketing department has taken over and the new Palms are being optimised to be primarily executive status symbols with usability taking second place.
Sure, it sounds good in theory, but unfortunately is not practical in social contexts. Can you imagine someone talking into their handheld at a bus stop? They'd look like a complete moron. I know some of you might not mind looking completely stupid in public, but these devices are aimed at a mass-market you know...
Oh well, m$: take your time figuring out... palm will just continue to clobber you in the meantime
... or, more precisely, a paper white screen. Black on light-grey is really hard on my eyes, and I use my Newton to read books while on the train, in a car, etc..
AFAIK the only way to really get paper white is to have a color screen and/or a white backlight..
Plus, color can be a valuable GUI element, if used correctly..
Your Working Boy,
The only reason we want color displays on our Palms is so that we can view our Pr0n in 256 colors.
Screw the web, screw additional functionality, give me PR0N in COLOR, damnit! I can't EVEN tell what that IS in 4-shade greyscale. [squint, squint]
der dee der.
I love the size and sleekness of my V and though it only has 2 megs it can do a ton. I dont know how important color is (would be nice for web) but what I really would like is a slightly increased screen size. Color would just add a tremendous cool factor for me at least (color games!!) but I just dont like the bulkiness of the non-V models. Maybe its because I never owned a Palm before the V. Now if they decided to implement the color version with a better OS (Penguins and Xs floating in my head).........
I'd like to see the Palm come out with one that has a USB port... so I don't have to reboot my computer to plug the huge cradle into it. Also a USB wire would be a lot lighter to lug around with my laptop. With a USB port I could plug a scanner, printer, or a host of other things into my palm too. Ahhh the possibilities... :)
DGregory wrote about wanting a Palm that used USB instead of serial ... he's right!
....
;)
...
3 months ago, I thought I would never want / need a Palm (OS / format) computer. Since then, there have been quite a few situations in my work (copy editor / proofreader / copywriter / etc) when I said "Boy, I wish I had a little Palm-type thingie!"
After that, the tempation has grown and grown, and I find myself in the bookstore wishing I could look at the notes that I scrawled to myself about a certain author the night before, but on a napkin in my other pants
Then the Happy Hacker Palm Cradle comes out, removing the other major problem I had with the design of Palms, which is lack of a keyboard interface, which for me is much faster than writing by hand.
But I too want USB and not serial interface. So I've decided to wait for a Visor, and the Visor Happy Hacking Cradle, and (I guess) Linux kernel 2.4.3 or something.
Now this color stuff comes out, clouding the mix again
But for DGregory, a (better) Palm is available, with USB, unless you've got something against Visor. Better because the price is good, because an 8MB visor is cheaper than an 8MB palm, and because of the springboard modules. I have only played with others' of either variety, so take as many grains of salt as you'd like, but
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Just look around for the "Palm USB Kit". It's made by Palm and cost about $35-$45. I bought it online (don't remember which site tought).
:(
Basically , it's an adapter for serial cradles that converts from serial to USB. It also has the software to upgrade the Palm Desktop to understand USB.
The only complaint I have about it is that the Palm Emulator (POSE) doesn't understand USB so I can't upload the freaking ROM from my Palm V !!!
Aside from that, it's a great product and works very well. I'm still waiting for better USB in Linux so I never have to boot Win98 (gack) anymore.
- sigs are for wimps.
I was out of town recently on buisness and my boss picked up a car from Hertz with their 'neverlost' (or some such name) system.
:)
Basically it combines a small control device in between the front seats, with a laptop sized box in the trunk and an antenna.
The device allows you to enter in the street address you are going to and then, using both GPS and internal gyros to track itself, provides you with both visual (via an LCD on the control box) and auditory (as in "Left turn coming up.") directions throughout your trip.
It got so that, the next time we went out there we had to ask directions from the customer since we didn't actually know how we had gotten to/from the airport, we had just followed the computers directions.
Given the general trend of miniaturaziation I wouldn't be surprised at all to find systems like this much more portable (say palm sized maybe?) in the not so distant future (10-20yrs). I think the biggest hurdle actually is battery life. Of course getting in to that would REALLY be off-topic
- Reunite Gondwana-land
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
How dare you post something on Slashdot from the evil capitalist bastards! They should be free! People should be chained in basements all day right next to the 'gimp' developers forced to make the product for me, the User, the Ubermench in the computing world! Or have I been lied to by Slashdot?
And I was very impressed at some of the features. The quality of the voice / sound output is not bad. And it is thiner and more lightweight than any other Wince device I've seen. However, it's still not as thin as my Palm V and is kindof longish for most pocket IMHO.
... the possibilities ...
My biggest gripe as somebody mentioned before, is the darn Wince interface. The START menu has to go. The device I previewed had so many things in that menu it was very confusing.
The other thing I tough was neat was the scroller thingy on the side of it, very usefull. The problem I see with that is that in my Palm V there are no little gadgets on the sides, and that space is reserved for covers, pens and the likes. I really need this since I store my pen there and also I have a special cover for my Palm.
Another big problem is the speed of the thing. It just seem to draw very slow sometimes. Specially when running an app and popping up the darned START menu. Very , very slow.
Now imagine if this device was running another OS
- sigs are for wimps.
They're going to be using a Gameboy-like reflective color LCD. The part (from Motorola, as part of an announcement of new Dragnoball chips) went into production a couple of months ago. Battery life may not be 2 months, but it'll still be comfortably several weeks.
Again, reflective LCD. This is not going to be a bright, active-matrix, high-color, video-capabale battery guzzler like the color WinCE devices. Palm waited until the right technology was on hand, and now they're making their move.
Don't expect gorgeous thusands-of-colors displays. Not having the specs on hand, I'm taking an unnecessary gues that it will support a limited palette of 16-64 simultaneous colors from a total of maybe 256.
Spot color. Good enough for nice visual cues throughout and some stripped-down web access. More than good enough for me. They'll sell a zillion of 'em. I'd expect no size increase either.. certainly they'll be able to keep it in the form factor of the III-series, and maybe they'll get it down to the size of the VII. We'll have to see. They're not dumb.
Here's the link for this product : Palm USB Kit.
But look around, you can get a better deal elsewhere.
- sigs are for wimps.
A palm pilot in color.. Well, there are certainly worse fates, but this brings to mind the downward spiraling fate of that poor peice of electronic gameware called the Nintindo Gameboy. First it was in monotone, and sold well. Then, as other systems were introduced, it fell into disfavor. So they decided to spice it up with more games. Then a special carrying case to go with it. Then a ton of new gadgets to plug into it, and still then neon colors for the cases. Only when all of this failed to make that poor Gameboy as popular as it used to be, did they bother with color in the screens. Perhaps the people behind this can forsee this happening, but I think that color is just a desperate move.
You know, sometimes I wonder what I would do with my spare time if I didn't have so many handy distractions.
I just couldn't resist the pun!
Color is a no-brainer. With color, you get a higher resolution (in effect) screen without increased size. That's a lot more functionality just being able to display more information (in the same area) as before. No-brainer.
There is a cost: battery. I hope the software and GUI doesn't become a cost (complexity wise).
I do believe other factors could be improved, but the color screen is an obvious one which is relatively simple (people already know how to deal with color).
I actually was going to wait until color was available to get my first Palm, but I impulse bought one at JavaOne (good price) and now it's an essential organizer for me.
A color palm will be my first palm upgrade.
= Joe =
I'm all for the *idea* of the Visor - USB-speed syncing, handpring-module expandability, cool [case] colors :^)
:^) to try and spur someone into looking into my problem - last time I called, they just told me to keep checking my credit card balance to find out if it shipped yet. ([By law] they don't charge your CC until they ship)
But I have been waiting exactly *10 weeks* for Handspring to ship me the Visor I ordered in mid-October, and my patience is wearing thin.
For all you smart guys out there who think all you have to do is come up with a great product design to get rich, take note -- if you want to succeed, you need the whole package: online ordering (with adequate horsepower/bandwidth,) integrated online order tracking/shipping system, sufficient manufacturing capacity for best-case (worst-case!) customer response, etc.
No matter how much I like the Visor when (if?) I finally get it, it will be a long time before I recommend it to anyone I like, just because of the sheer frustration of dealing with these clowns...
p.s. As I type this, I have been on hold for over 90 minutes (gotta love speakerphones!
Witness how long Nintendo's Game Boy system went without supporting color, and how many of its "applications" (games) even today don't care that much about color. Granted, a PDA has some differences from a portable game system, but the point is that it is the functionality of the device which drives market share. Bells and whistles like color only affect competitiveness by affecting functionality. Color, in and of itself, is not required to compete.
Because Sony wants to use the Palm OS for their ultimate remotes. And let's face it, color sells.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Because Sony wants to use the Palm OS for their ultimate remotes. And let's face it, color sells.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
...And the porn will follow ;)
Handspring, now being paralleled by Palm, seems to understand already that color is not king. It's the applications. Palm III's and V's (especially) are fairly difficult to extend, in a physical sense, without disrupting their sleek form factor. Handspring's Springboards (which even Jeff Hawkins admits was inspired by the Game Boy's cartridge slot) and, now, Palm's future use of Sony's Memory Stick are the next step. The ability to modify the capabilities of your handheld/PDA - specifically, to add in plug in communications capability is just the first step.
The answer is Oxygen or something like the "Globals" that appear on the television program Earth: Final Conflict. Look at all of the two-in-one PDA/cellphones on the market already: Nokia, Ericson, Motorola (well, sort of, anyway), etc. Sure, color is nice, but communication is king. Just my (sort of) humble opinion
My cellular phone can do as much as some of the early Palm Pilots. I can store tons of numbers, personal information, and even play a few games (the "snake" one is my fave). A color Palm would be nice if 3com is trying to move away from "PDAs" and into the WinCE market. But unfortunately they'll have to change a lot more than the screen to make it attractive. A color LCD is a start... I'd love to see a Palm with an active-matrix notebook-type display. But it's not too useful on something that many people regard as a "gameboy for suits"... they have to design a New Palm.
The New Palms should keep the familiar interface, but add an HDD with a few hundred megs, and at least 16MB RAM.
I'd like to see a better e-mail interface.
I'd like a simple web-browser. Opera is a good candidate - very quick, and extremely tiny install file.
I'd like a spiffy text editor. Did you know that those Happy Hacker keyboards can be hooked up to Palms (with a cradle) for direct text entry? Those keyboards are sweet. You could have one of them, with the Palm in the cradle, on an airplane and take up much less space than a laptop.
My dream for the Palm is actual decent UN*X support, and maybe even a few apps... Hey, Linux for Palms! I can be sitting there, coding via the Happy Hacking Keyboard into Palm-Emacs running under Palm Hat Linux!
But I too want USB and not serial interface. So I've decided to wait for a Visor...
The Visor is a real neat device. The "Springboard" is one step removed from PCMCIA in a Palm Pilot, and I think that is great.
However, the Visor does have one problem, what I consider a fatal flaw: It uses regular ROM to store the OS. Not flash ROM. This means you are locked into the version of PalmOS that ships with the Visor. 3.1, I think. This really sucks.
You may not care, but it is definiately something to be aware of.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
(agravaine wrote about the frustration of having a Visor 10-weeks-on-order)
;)
...
Agravaine is right -- the idea is cool, but the company is behind on shipping. I guess I can add that to the reasons that I haven't ordered a Visor yet
But here's hoping that a) you get yours in particular soon and b) that Handspring gets their gears ungummed. They ought to have expected the avalanche of orders when they came out with a cheaper, fuller-featured palm! (I'm glad they actually did come out with a cheaper, fuller-featured palm, though!)
Of course, similarly, if someone came out with a ultra-safe, ultra-roomy, ultra-beautiful, ultra-efficient, reasonably-priced automobile, you'd expect demand to outstrip supply, wouldn't you?
And on that front, can someone explain the licensing deal that lets Handspring make Palm OS machines? Is there anything preventing me and a few millionaire friends from forming WannHoldYourPalm Computing? What's to explain that *more* companies aren't (yet?) following HandSpring's lead? I guess the fact that so many ex-Palm brains are at HandSpring is one good reason, but
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Both of my regular boxes run full GUIs. I still don't think a color Palm Pilot is useful & that's just based on batter life. One of the nicest things about the Palm pilot, and the reason why those color PDAs are basically flops in comparison, is that it just works. You change batteries every month or two and it's there when you need it. The color devices have much shorter battery life because of the displays. Color is nice and as soon as color devices perform as well as greyscale, I'll buy one (Not Wince unless they realize it's not a desktop & design a PDA GUI). The concern is that color will be used as a gimmick. I don't want color if it comes at the expense of making the device less useful than my current Visor and Palm IIIe. Personally, I find wireless networking far more useful, even if it is (to some) less cool. That said, I quite agree with your last point - let them make whatever they want. If it's worth the money, I'll buy it...
I don't know about other devices, but I know that for my camera (a Leica Digilux, same as a Fuji MX700), you can use the Rio's flash memory, but only BEFORE you intialize it in a Rio, after which it is impossible to use in the camera.
So, please for your sake make sure you don't count on automatically being able to exhange SmartMedia. They're my favorite, too -- cool form factor.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Actually, the reason Mac b/w apps died out was because Apple introduced a new QuickDraw API that only ran on 68020 and better processors.
Color on the Mac degrades very well, and I had no problem running 'color' apps on a b/w SE/30 and a IIfx with a 4-bit grayscale monitor. This included quite a bit of game software like RoboSport and Civilization.
There happens to be an ego that must be massaged at 3Com... so they pulled out a COLOR PALM. Ohh - what a total waste of resources. The Palm has maintained leadership by being LEAN and MEAN, not GLUTTONOUS like Microsoft Co. and it's OS. A FAT OS WILL DIE IN THE MARKETPLACE - just like a FAT HOOSIER WHITEMAN will die on the PLAINS OF AFRICA left to his own DEVICES. Its all about EVOLUTION, not PEP RALLY 101! Dump the color, and add FUNCTION instead! If you want "FEEL GOOD" - then have SEX!
STOP ALL THE HYPE
NOW
That is funny;
I ordered one on December 10th (the deluxe) and it arrived today (the 23rd) in time for christmas,
Funny thing is I canceled the order on the 11th because I didn't think it would be here in time for christmas.