A.NET frontend could mean VB.NET just as easily as it could mean C#. Nothing special about C# as far as.NET. By the guys example, it didn't look anything like VB or C#- more like shell or awk or perl, but they're both derived from shell language. I suppose we can't really judge until we see some real examples- the guy's example is likely partially incorrect, he even said ti was the best he could remember. the get/process thing in particular looks like bunk, but who knows.
For me, this sounds great, especially having access to the whole.NET API. On my mac and linux machine I use the Perl shell, psh. I'm not a huge perl fan, but I'd rather have the power of something resembling a real programming language when dealing with the shell. Yes, bash can be made to do some whacky things, but it's usually more work than doing it in perl. This looks neat because it's at the next level- you have a real-ish language behind it, but also a real (real big, huh huh) API to use as well. You could write shell scripts that do quite literally anything.
Again, the iPod comes with a remote, case and mp3 recording as well. The iPod is also a HD without drivers. The only thing you get get for that $30-100 is an FM radio, of little to no value to a lot of us, who haven't listened to the crappy commercial radio available most places for a long time. There are better college stations around here as well, but why listen to the radio (esp if there are lots of annoying ads) when you can listen to your own tunes?
In the case of the iPod, they're not making the (percieved) huge profits, as they are with some of their other products. Buying just the HD that goes in the iPod can cost more than buying an iPod and yanking it out. Mind you, in both cases, we're dealing with retail prices- I'm sure Apple gets a swell discount in buying in bulk, but that's normal.
Dell's unit manages to be cheaper, at least in part, because the HD is bigger and cheaper.
Just FYI- the iPods come with a remote control, although without an LCD. They can also do mp3 (or AAC?) recording. Used to be only in the debug mode, but it's in the regular menu with the latest update.
And who the hell wants or needs an FM radio? Not me! Although, if I were in the UK I might dig it, radio seems a lot less shitty there.
Why would I get an iPod? Because the 10 GB iPod is $80-100 cheaper than 10 GB iRiver iHP-100. Sees like a pretty big motivator to me- lower price, higher quality. But to each his own.
Heh. I work at the university helpdesk. I had some to-be-frosh's mom call in- she wanted to know what kind of computer to get. So, the conversation went on and on about what the kid needed, etc. And we get to the end of it, and she's like: "Oh, and he said he needs something called an 'iPod.' It's a neccesary computer accessory." And I cracked up, wishing I had a dumb, rich mom (or just doubly dumb, willing to go into debt, which is more likely) to try something like that out on. But not really, I prefer my non-dumb mom. I don't know if he got an iPod after sending his mom my way.
But even so, it is hard to ignore the bar that the iPod set. It certainly doesn't look like it topped the iPod in any area but price- which is enough for most Americans, who are used to low quality. Not that the Dell DJ is neccesarily low quality, but there's a good chance of it considering the price.
While holding 'command' one can mouse over the application switcher and select, quit, and hide applications.
Huh? Not sure I follow what you meant to say. Do you mean you can do a cmd-mouse over, and you're given a menu- select, quit and hide? What would this have over, say, right-clicking an icon in the dock and picking one of these actions?
Cmd-tabbing in general has been around for a long time. OS 9, and in older Mac OSes with add-ons. What is being questioned here isn't Apple's addition of Cmd-tab to switch apps, but that it shows a little bar in the middle of the screen with the icons of the apps you're running, the selected one highlighted. This is what Windows does, rather than select items in the dock (or analog, the taskbar; though, Win-Tab does that). Proteron sells a product that shows the icons in the middle of the screen, just like windows- rather than relying on the Dock.
But meh. Whether the "bar with icons" is my dock (makes sense) or a new, redundant graphic in the middle of my screen is pretty irrelevant to me.
Could this be learned for generalized learning? Could I load "Mathematical Ecology I" into the device controlling the glasses and learn something from it? Perhaps equations? Probably not learn, but memorize, drill?
Basing off of what little I know about the way human being learn, I can't imagine these could be used for learning of a subject not already known, but I bet they could be used for review or memorization. Neato.
Like you said, the Zaurus hardware may be powerful, but it doesn't go beyond anything you can get in the world of WinCE/PPC or Palm hardware. These days, everyone has a device with a 400 MHz XScale or something very close. The Zaurus models all have a 100 MHz bus, which is still faster than most in the PPC/PalmOS world, but it's not like you really get to take advantage of this- it's a required part of the design to get the Zaurus apps to launch in under 30 seconds. Most apps take 2-7 seconds on my highest-end C760 as it is, I hate to imagine what it'd be like with a more average 50 MHz memory bus.
Yeah, when I had a 5500 I had the same thing happen with the power being on all day in my pocket. More than once I pulled it out to find all of the batter drained. Especially easy when the full batter life of the thing is so pitiful, just a couple hours. And with the battery completely drained, all of my data was lost. There were other problems, like the issues with rebooting cleaing all of your memory. As a result, you pretty much have to make a backup every couple days, just in case.
And, the screen sucks ass. Big, huge ass. What seems to be the saddest thing to me is that Sharp makes good PDA screens- they just didn't put them in their own PDA. The Dell Axim has the best 240x320 screen I've seen in a PDA, and it was made by Sharp. The Zaurus 5x00 line has the worst screen I've seen in any PDA of any size- also made by Sharp. Makes you wonder how serious Sharp could be about their own PDAs if they don't use the good stuff themselves.
Not surprisingly, I sold my 5500 after about three weeks. The SL-C760's hardware is better just about in every way, though the software is still below par.
Trolltech in no way did any of their homework regarding PDA UI design
Oh, I could believe they did a little, but not enough of it. They also didn't do much of their homework on PDA API design- Qt/Embedded and the Qtopia libraries fall short for creating stylus-driven apps. For most apps what they've provided is passable, but they really have nothing in there for others. I mostly am referring to events, getting input, etc. For instance, someone wanted to write a package to allow people to do full screen character recognition, so they can write the characters anywhere on the screen rather than just in the little box. The project was scrapped because it was next to impossible to do using the existing API. A good PDA GUI toolkit will have facilities for applications to get stylus input, deal with gestures, etc.
And as far as the GUI, there are a lot of problems. The least Trollteach could've done is made some tweaks- menus on the bottom would be an easy thing to do and make a lot of sense.
Heh. Comparing the Zaurus to the simplicity of a Palm. Wow. Not sure if I should take that as an enthusiastic exageration on the quality of the Zaurus or the dirty lie of a cheerleader. Likely the former, as you were able to admit the lack of decent apps.
While you didn't ask me, allow me to put my vote in for JustReader+. Works great. Neither it nor any of the other ebook readers do PDFs, just the Qpdf app. There is a newer version called Qpdf that isn't the easiest to find, but it's a lot better tan Qpdf 1.x. Although, I definately would not use it for read ebooks, the PDF reader sucks too much for that. I would look into converting it to HTML or TXT and reading it in an app like opie-reader or JustReader.
I've had two Zaurus models, the SL-5500 and the new and flashy SL-C760. Both have been very disapointing, mostly from the standpoint of software, although the SL-5500 had a lot of problems in the way of hardware.
The SL-5500's hardware was pretty mediocre. It was a good deal when I got it, as it was less than $200. The worst part was the screen, very very dim and not sharp. Worst screen on a PDA in its class (320x240 color). And it's not like Sharp doesn't make good screens- the screen in the Dell Axim X5 is the best screen I've seen in that class, and both screens were made by Sharp.
The keyboard on the SL-5500 was more or less worthless to me. I had to use it for a little while, until I found a better input method for the SL-5500, QwikScript. I was able to enter text quite a bit faster using real HWR on a Newton or CalliGrapher on WinCE/PPC. The character/stroke recognition on the SL-5500 was *really* slow, but in the newer (3.10) ROM, it's speed up a lot, although it is still very innacurate, no matter how much I train it.
A lot of people blab on about the Zaurus because of the things you can do with it- ssh, vnc, etc. All things you can do on Windows CE or PocketPC, so meh. Hell, I've found the Unix-ported/adapted tools for WinCE to be work a lot more on a PDA than what you can get for the Zaurus. It seems to me that people are too lazy to create a proper interface for a PDA, so they just recompile it and put it in an ipk. (Zaurus installer package)
As for the built-in software, it's... well, I'd go so far as to say it's darn near shitty. The PIM apps are a disaster, Linux support for syncing is non-extant (in the newer ROM), and there are few 3rd party apps that are worth using. Oh, you can find a lot of packages listed at the Zaurus Software Index, but most are 2nd rate, worst than what you deal with even on the Linux desktop, and far below what is available for WinCE, PalmOS, or even the Newton.
Why do I still have a Zaurus C760? Because it's incredible hardware to run my own PDA OE on.
Heh. It's funny- it's almost like most folks don't know that you can't do SSH on anything but the Zaurus. You can. Hell, you could do it for a helluva lot cheaper as well.
Just a guess, but based on current prices of the Zaurus line, I imagine it will not be anywhere remotely the price of an Axim. I'm guessing $500 MSRP on release. That's what they're expecting for the SL-5600 (a piece of crapola) right now. I can see them shooting for something lower, but I'd say there's pretty much zero change it'd be below $400.
What project should have the users of Appgen turned to? What project provided everything it did, but was open source? Answer? No project did! Yes, there are projects here and there that provide part of what their software did, or projects that promise they will have the features, but like a lot of OSS projects, there are a lot of false starts and half-assedness going on. Not surprising, it's just human nature. Shelling out $2000 is often far more preferrable to putting your business on the line on an untested, half-baked app. Not for me, not for most individuals, but the vast majority of Appgen users were not individuals.
What choice did they have? Yes, one of these companies could have developed their own suite of software like this, whether it be open source or not, making sure they wouldn't end up a rivier as in this case. But spending $2000 on a product is *nothing* compared to the cost of developing a system like this from scratch.
Furthermore, all is not lost- there are always possibilities that come company could ante up the cash, make some deal with Appgen, and purchase their software, open sourcing it or just continuing to provide support and sales.
I know it's easy to say stuff like "developers lose with proprietary software!" but like most things in life, there is a helluva lot more to it.
aliens is right about this one. Considering what you get with the Tapwave as far as resources go, skipping over the GP32 is a no brainer. I could see preferring a GBA, but the GP32 really has no place in the market as far as I can see.
college textbooks are ass rape. and i'm not the kind of weirdo to use that phrase left and right- but college books are horrifically priced.
I'm poor. Dirt poor. I have to take out larger loans every year to pay for my monthly loan payments. But I've been lucky enough not to buy a textbook for over a year, three semesters worth of books I've not had to buy.
What's my trick? ILL. Inter Library Loan. That's all I will say.:-]
Zodiac will die if they don't maintain compatibility.
How true that statement is depends on how compatible you mean.
It's going to be pretty easy for the Zodiac to maintain backwards compatibility, especially compared to cart consoles like the GBA. The Zodiac has a relatively stable API for a lot of the programming that goes into a game, and if Tapwave was smart, the rest of the APIs, the OpenGL/DirectX analog APIs will be stable as well.
The CPU should remain stable as well, faster ARM-based chips, but an ARM IS all the same.
I don't think Tapwave will have a lot of problems maintaining compatibility- unless they're boneheads, and dumber things have happened. Though I imagine that they chose PalmOS as a platform for a mobile game console is because of the stability that implies.
Do you have any info about this new hardware? How different could it be? Someone replied mentioning backwards compatibility, and frankly, I don't see this being a big problem. If backwards compatibility was lost, yes that would be a problem, but I don't think that's all too likely.
There is a lot less potential for a loss of backwards compatibility with the Zodiac than there is with traditional consoles, handheld or otherwise. Why? The Zodiac is a regular PalmOS device, with an added layer (and some extra hardware) to support gaming. That means a gaming API, for getting input and displaying the game.
This API is likely to stay the same, unlike on most game consoles. The underlying hardware may change, perhaps a different ARM CPU or a different gfx controller, but it shouldn't matter as long as the API is used, and as long as Tapwave was smart enough to have a well throught out API designed to stand the test of time. Think of it as DirectX (or OpenGL+InputSprockets) for the PDA.
Other than the gaming stuff, what else would change? The PalmOS API will stay pretty much the same, even when POS 6 comes the API will be very similar, and emulation stuff is in place for depreciated API calls. The CPU isn't going to change for at least a few years- ARM is the thing now and will be for a while. They may switch to a different ARM CPU, but that won't (shouldn't) effect compatibility.
That being said, I will purchase it as a good PDA, not as a handheld console.
I'm the same way. I own a GBA, and do some gaming, but not that much. However, if I was looking at two different models with similar features, there is a good chance I'd still end up with the Zodiac. Just as a PDA the Zodiac is a pretty nice device for the price. It is pretty expensive, but if you want a $100 or $200 PDA with fewer features, they are available.
I may do minimal gaming, I think I'd consider a Zodiac, the gaming aspects being a small perk rather than a big draw. I think it'd be neat to have a real d-pad and decent buttons for playing general PalmOS games- the buttons on most PDAs suck bad.
It seems like they may be having issues with marketing to the right people, though again I'd rather wait and see what the launch looks like and what kind of advertising comes along once it's available.
I think you've got it there, as evidenced by a lot of the reaction to the Zodiac. Spec-for-spec, the $300 and $400 models aren't overpriced at all, compared to other models by Sony and Palm- as well as PocketPC devices. Considering the gripe about price, the marketing seems to be targeted more at gamers who are already happy with their $100 GPA or are fine without a mobile console.
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A .NET frontend could mean VB.NET just as easily as it could mean C#. Nothing special about C# as far as .NET. By the guys example, it didn't look anything like VB or C#- more like shell or awk or perl, but they're both derived from shell language. I suppose we can't really judge until we see some real examples- the guy's example is likely partially incorrect, he even said ti was the best he could remember. the get/process thing in particular looks like bunk, but who knows.
.NET API. On my mac and linux machine I use the Perl shell, psh. I'm not a huge perl fan, but I'd rather have the power of something resembling a real programming language when dealing with the shell. Yes, bash can be made to do some whacky things, but it's usually more work than doing it in perl. This looks neat because it's at the next level- you have a real-ish language behind it, but also a real (real big, huh huh) API to use as well. You could write shell scripts that do quite literally anything.
For me, this sounds great, especially having access to the whole
OK, then why not pay $329 - the same price or cheaper than the 10 GB iRivir- and get all of that stuff, including 5 GB more HD space?
Doesn't seem like all that much bang to me.
Again, the iPod comes with a remote, case and mp3 recording as well. The iPod is also a HD without drivers. The only thing you get get for that $30-100 is an FM radio, of little to no value to a lot of us, who haven't listened to the crappy commercial radio available most places for a long time. There are better college stations around here as well, but why listen to the radio (esp if there are lots of annoying ads) when you can listen to your own tunes?
In the case of the iPod, they're not making the (percieved) huge profits, as they are with some of their other products. Buying just the HD that goes in the iPod can cost more than buying an iPod and yanking it out. Mind you, in both cases, we're dealing with retail prices- I'm sure Apple gets a swell discount in buying in bulk, but that's normal.
Dell's unit manages to be cheaper, at least in part, because the HD is bigger and cheaper.
Some folks also say that the Zaurus has a great UI, an easy to use and reliable OS/environment- huh.
Just FYI- the iPods come with a remote control, although without an LCD. They can also do mp3 (or AAC?) recording. Used to be only in the debug mode, but it's in the regular menu with the latest update.
And who the hell wants or needs an FM radio? Not me! Although, if I were in the UK I might dig it, radio seems a lot less shitty there.
Why would I get an iPod? Because the 10 GB iPod is $80-100 cheaper than 10 GB iRiver iHP-100. Sees like a pretty big motivator to me- lower price, higher quality. But to each his own.
Heh. I work at the university helpdesk. I had some to-be-frosh's mom call in- she wanted to know what kind of computer to get. So, the conversation went on and on about what the kid needed, etc. And we get to the end of it, and she's like: "Oh, and he said he needs something called an 'iPod.' It's a neccesary computer accessory." And I cracked up, wishing I had a dumb, rich mom (or just doubly dumb, willing to go into debt, which is more likely) to try something like that out on. But not really, I prefer my non-dumb mom. I don't know if he got an iPod after sending his mom my way.
But even so, it is hard to ignore the bar that the iPod set. It certainly doesn't look like it topped the iPod in any area but price- which is enough for most Americans, who are used to low quality. Not that the Dell DJ is neccesarily low quality, but there's a good chance of it considering the price.
While holding 'command' one can mouse over the application switcher and select, quit, and hide applications.
Huh? Not sure I follow what you meant to say. Do you mean you can do a cmd-mouse over, and you're given a menu- select, quit and hide? What would this have over, say, right-clicking an icon in the dock and picking one of these actions?
Cmd-tabbing in general has been around for a long time. OS 9, and in older Mac OSes with add-ons. What is being questioned here isn't Apple's addition of Cmd-tab to switch apps, but that it shows a little bar in the middle of the screen with the icons of the apps you're running, the selected one highlighted. This is what Windows does, rather than select items in the dock (or analog, the taskbar; though, Win-Tab does that). Proteron sells a product that shows the icons in the middle of the screen, just like windows- rather than relying on the Dock.
But meh. Whether the "bar with icons" is my dock (makes sense) or a new, redundant graphic in the middle of my screen is pretty irrelevant to me.
Could this be learned for generalized learning? Could I load "Mathematical Ecology I" into the device controlling the glasses and learn something from it? Perhaps equations? Probably not learn, but memorize, drill?
Basing off of what little I know about the way human being learn, I can't imagine these could be used for learning of a subject not already known, but I bet they could be used for review or memorization. Neato.
Yeah, wow. It's like Microsoft invented hype.
Like you said, the Zaurus hardware may be powerful, but it doesn't go beyond anything you can get in the world of WinCE/PPC or Palm hardware. These days, everyone has a device with a 400 MHz XScale or something very close. The Zaurus models all have a 100 MHz bus, which is still faster than most in the PPC/PalmOS world, but it's not like you really get to take advantage of this- it's a required part of the design to get the Zaurus apps to launch in under 30 seconds. Most apps take 2-7 seconds on my highest-end C760 as it is, I hate to imagine what it'd be like with a more average 50 MHz memory bus.
Yeah, when I had a 5500 I had the same thing happen with the power being on all day in my pocket. More than once I pulled it out to find all of the batter drained. Especially easy when the full batter life of the thing is so pitiful, just a couple hours. And with the battery completely drained, all of my data was lost. There were other problems, like the issues with rebooting cleaing all of your memory. As a result, you pretty much have to make a backup every couple days, just in case.
And, the screen sucks ass. Big, huge ass. What seems to be the saddest thing to me is that Sharp makes good PDA screens- they just didn't put them in their own PDA. The Dell Axim has the best 240x320 screen I've seen in a PDA, and it was made by Sharp. The Zaurus 5x00 line has the worst screen I've seen in any PDA of any size- also made by Sharp. Makes you wonder how serious Sharp could be about their own PDAs if they don't use the good stuff themselves.
Not surprisingly, I sold my 5500 after about three weeks. The SL-C760's hardware is better just about in every way, though the software is still below par.
Trolltech in no way did any of their homework regarding PDA UI design
Oh, I could believe they did a little, but not enough of it. They also didn't do much of their homework on PDA API design- Qt/Embedded and the Qtopia libraries fall short for creating stylus-driven apps. For most apps what they've provided is passable, but they really have nothing in there for others. I mostly am referring to events, getting input, etc. For instance, someone wanted to write a package to allow people to do full screen character recognition, so they can write the characters anywhere on the screen rather than just in the little box. The project was scrapped because it was next to impossible to do using the existing API. A good PDA GUI toolkit will have facilities for applications to get stylus input, deal with gestures, etc.
And as far as the GUI, there are a lot of problems. The least Trollteach could've done is made some tweaks- menus on the bottom would be an easy thing to do and make a lot of sense.
Heh. Comparing the Zaurus to the simplicity of a Palm. Wow. Not sure if I should take that as an enthusiastic exageration on the quality of the Zaurus or the dirty lie of a cheerleader. Likely the former, as you were able to admit the lack of decent apps.
While you didn't ask me, allow me to put my vote in for JustReader+. Works great. Neither it nor any of the other ebook readers do PDFs, just the Qpdf app. There is a newer version called Qpdf that isn't the easiest to find, but it's a lot better tan Qpdf 1.x. Although, I definately would not use it for read ebooks, the PDF reader sucks too much for that. I would look into converting it to HTML or TXT and reading it in an app like opie-reader or JustReader.
I've had two Zaurus models, the SL-5500 and the new and flashy SL-C760. Both have been very disapointing, mostly from the standpoint of software, although the SL-5500 had a lot of problems in the way of hardware.
... well, I'd go so far as to say it's darn near shitty. The PIM apps are a disaster, Linux support for syncing is non-extant (in the newer ROM), and there are few 3rd party apps that are worth using. Oh, you can find a lot of packages listed at the Zaurus Software Index, but most are 2nd rate, worst than what you deal with even on the Linux desktop, and far below what is available for WinCE, PalmOS, or even the Newton.
The SL-5500's hardware was pretty mediocre. It was a good deal when I got it, as it was less than $200. The worst part was the screen, very very dim and not sharp. Worst screen on a PDA in its class (320x240 color). And it's not like Sharp doesn't make good screens- the screen in the Dell Axim X5 is the best screen I've seen in that class, and both screens were made by Sharp.
The keyboard on the SL-5500 was more or less worthless to me. I had to use it for a little while, until I found a better input method for the SL-5500, QwikScript. I was able to enter text quite a bit faster using real HWR on a Newton or CalliGrapher on WinCE/PPC. The character/stroke recognition on the SL-5500 was *really* slow, but in the newer (3.10) ROM, it's speed up a lot, although it is still very innacurate, no matter how much I train it.
A lot of people blab on about the Zaurus because of the things you can do with it- ssh, vnc, etc. All things you can do on Windows CE or PocketPC, so meh. Hell, I've found the Unix-ported/adapted tools for WinCE to be work a lot more on a PDA than what you can get for the Zaurus. It seems to me that people are too lazy to create a proper interface for a PDA, so they just recompile it and put it in an ipk. (Zaurus installer package)
As for the built-in software, it's
Why do I still have a Zaurus C760? Because it's incredible hardware to run my own PDA OE on.
Heh. It's funny- it's almost like most folks don't know that you can't do SSH on anything but the Zaurus. You can. Hell, you could do it for a helluva lot cheaper as well.
Just a guess, but based on current prices of the Zaurus line, I imagine it will not be anywhere remotely the price of an Axim. I'm guessing $500 MSRP on release. That's what they're expecting for the SL-5600 (a piece of crapola) right now. I can see them shooting for something lower, but I'd say there's pretty much zero change it'd be below $400.
No, the world is not perfect. Damn shame, that.
What project should have the users of Appgen turned to? What project provided everything it did, but was open source? Answer? No project did! Yes, there are projects here and there that provide part of what their software did, or projects that promise they will have the features, but like a lot of OSS projects, there are a lot of false starts and half-assedness going on. Not surprising, it's just human nature. Shelling out $2000 is often far more preferrable to putting your business on the line on an untested, half-baked app. Not for me, not for most individuals, but the vast majority of Appgen users were not individuals.
What choice did they have? Yes, one of these companies could have developed their own suite of software like this, whether it be open source or not, making sure they wouldn't end up a rivier as in this case. But spending $2000 on a product is *nothing* compared to the cost of developing a system like this from scratch.
Furthermore, all is not lost- there are always possibilities that come company could ante up the cash, make some deal with Appgen, and purchase their software, open sourcing it or just continuing to provide support and sales.
I know it's easy to say stuff like "developers lose with proprietary software!" but like most things in life, there is a helluva lot more to it.
aliens is right about this one. Considering what you get with the Tapwave as far as resources go, skipping over the GP32 is a no brainer. I could see preferring a GBA, but the GP32 really has no place in the market as far as I can see.
college textbooks are ass rape. and i'm not the kind of weirdo to use that phrase left and right- but college books are horrifically priced.
:-]
I'm poor. Dirt poor. I have to take out larger loans every year to pay for my monthly loan payments. But I've been lucky enough not to buy a textbook for over a year, three semesters worth of books I've not had to buy.
What's my trick? ILL. Inter Library Loan. That's all I will say.
Zodiac will die if they don't maintain compatibility.
How true that statement is depends on how compatible you mean.
It's going to be pretty easy for the Zodiac to maintain backwards compatibility, especially compared to cart consoles like the GBA. The Zodiac has a relatively stable API for a lot of the programming that goes into a game, and if Tapwave was smart, the rest of the APIs, the OpenGL/DirectX analog APIs will be stable as well.
The CPU should remain stable as well, faster ARM-based chips, but an ARM IS all the same.
I don't think Tapwave will have a lot of problems maintaining compatibility- unless they're boneheads, and dumber things have happened. Though I imagine that they chose PalmOS as a platform for a mobile game console is because of the stability that implies.
Do you have any info about this new hardware? How different could it be? Someone replied mentioning backwards compatibility, and frankly, I don't see this being a big problem. If backwards compatibility was lost, yes that would be a problem, but I don't think that's all too likely.
There is a lot less potential for a loss of backwards compatibility with the Zodiac than there is with traditional consoles, handheld or otherwise. Why? The Zodiac is a regular PalmOS device, with an added layer (and some extra hardware) to support gaming. That means a gaming API, for getting input and displaying the game.
This API is likely to stay the same, unlike on most game consoles. The underlying hardware may change, perhaps a different ARM CPU or a different gfx controller, but it shouldn't matter as long as the API is used, and as long as Tapwave was smart enough to have a well throught out API designed to stand the test of time. Think of it as DirectX (or OpenGL+InputSprockets) for the PDA.
Other than the gaming stuff, what else would change? The PalmOS API will stay pretty much the same, even when POS 6 comes the API will be very similar, and emulation stuff is in place for depreciated API calls. The CPU isn't going to change for at least a few years- ARM is the thing now and will be for a while. They may switch to a different ARM CPU, but that won't (shouldn't) effect compatibility.
That being said, I will purchase it as a good PDA, not as a handheld console.
I'm the same way. I own a GBA, and do some gaming, but not that much. However, if I was looking at two different models with similar features, there is a good chance I'd still end up with the Zodiac. Just as a PDA the Zodiac is a pretty nice device for the price. It is pretty expensive, but if you want a $100 or $200 PDA with fewer features, they are available.
I may do minimal gaming, I think I'd consider a Zodiac, the gaming aspects being a small perk rather than a big draw. I think it'd be neat to have a real d-pad and decent buttons for playing general PalmOS games- the buttons on most PDAs suck bad.
It seems like they may be having issues with marketing to the right people, though again I'd rather wait and see what the launch looks like and what kind of advertising comes along once it's available.
I think you've got it there, as evidenced by a lot of the reaction to the Zodiac. Spec-for-spec, the $300 and $400 models aren't overpriced at all, compared to other models by Sony and Palm- as well as PocketPC devices. Considering the gripe about price, the marketing seems to be targeted more at gamers who are already happy with their $100 GPA or are fine without a mobile console.