Palm vs other smart phones/PDAs

[Tom Buskey]

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Ben Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 9:28 AM, Brian Chabot <brian at datasquire.net> wrote:
> > Palm dropped the ball IMO when they split their hardware and software
> > groups apart.
>
>   I don't know if that was a cause, or just a symptom of their lack of
> direction, but Palm has certainly been sinking for years and years
> now.  It used to be all the interesting stuff was getting done on or
> with the Palm platform, and then it just kind of... stalled out.  The
> Handspring acquisition has only hurt both groups.  Then they really
> started to come apart, when from one month to the next they were
> either keeping the classic Palm OS, switching to Linux, or switching
> to Windows CE.  Most recently, there has been basically no software


I remember when the 700 came out with CE on it.  Some of the reviews noticed
it took longer to click toitems....


>
> development from Palm in years.  They're still essentially shipping
> the same code they were in 2004, with only very minor updates.  Their
> "Palm Desktop" software still isn't "enterprise friendly", and also


I haven't used it in years.  I sync to Outlook, jpilot, Yahoo.



>
> has issues with Vista.  As near as I can tell, Palm is dead, they just
> seem to be really slow to realize it.
>

I think they'll come down to the Wizards.  Cheap and functional.  If they
can manufacture at that level.



>
>  I think this is a shame, since the best PDA software I've used has
> been on the Palm.  I just paid to update to DateBk6.  I've got a Sony
> Clie PEG-TG50, which has some of the best design in a handheld I've
> ever encountered.  I'm actually on my second unit, which I bought
> new-old-stock via eBay.  But try and find a decent web browser or SSH


I had a Clie too.  Nice display for a reasonable price.  And some innovation
in the platform.


>
> client.  (There's stuff out there, but it's old, slow, crashes a lot
> (and on Palm, crash == reboot), and (for the browsers) has trouble
> with modern sites.)
>

Well, try finding WiFi in a Palm.  Or any smartphone.  iPhone has one that's
a nice boost in speed.  I'm not sure how useful SSH  or other net apps on
the Palm are w/o a wireless network,
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/private/gnhlug-discuss/attachments/20080509/3f6890e4/attachment.html