[TriLUG] Maybe OT: PDAs

[John Franklin]

On Tuesday, September 3, 2002, at 09:04  PM, Ben Pitzer wrote:
> My thought is this:  Handspring Visors and Treos used the Palm OS.
> While Palm may be the oldest that's still on the block, I disagree with
> my old friend Mark's assessment that it's 'showing it's age'.

No, it is showing it's age.  The 33MHz processor (66MHz if you shell out 
for it) is having problems with some larger apps.  By all means, there 
are lots of things that it can do, and does very well.  I compare the 
Palm Pilot to Sean Connery.   He's no spring chicken, but still quite 
capable of making you believe he can break you in half with his left 
thumb, mount you on a pole as a battle standard which he rides into 
battle to kill the villain, save the girl, and leave you -- or what's 
left after being used as a battering ram -- to the dingos.  Ok.  So 
maybe the Palm Pilot can't do that.

Then again, Palm OS is about to get a major upgrade.  Support for ARM 
processors.  http://www.palmsource.com/palmos/intro_os5.html  You know, 
like the ones in the old Newtons, the iPAQ and Journada.  These are much 
faster processors, which should breath new life into the Palm platform.  
What old hardware will you be able to cram it into?  Dunno.  Will Apple 
bring back the Newton concept, merged with the iPod and Palm OS 5?  
Would be neat, but not likely.  Apple doesn't like to sell hardware with 
software platforms it doesn't control, or vise-versa.

> OS.  Windows CE is......well, it's Windows.  Don't expect any better

Which is (supposedly) a benefit in that you don't have to learn a new 
API, and in fact should be able to share code with Win32 apps.  I 
haven't tried this, so I don't know how successful it is.  My guess is 
that it technically works, but not quite as you expected.

> As for graffiti vs. a keyboard, it's going to be your comfort level that

The problem I've had with graffiti -- and this comes back to the age 
thing -- is that I can easily outpace my ex-Palm Pilot[1].  The 
keyboards/thumboards I haven't had much experience with, but I would 
hope it is more able to keep up.  'Course half of that maybe that you're 
restricted to your thumbs for typing, and like QWERTY before it, it's 
designed to slow you down.

> Well, there's my take.  YMMV, of course.

I'm waiting for Christmas to see what Palm releases with the Palm OS 5 
upgrade.  IIRC, Palm has a conference every year near the beginning of 
the year, so it may not be until 1Q03 that we see these new toys.

jf
[1]  'E's a stiff!  Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace!  If I hadn't 
nailed 'im to the cradle 'e'd be pushing up the daisies!
--
John Franklin
franklin at elfie.org
ICBM: 35°43'56"N 78°53'27"W