Tapwave, the third most popular Palmsource licensee behind Palm (and Sony in the past) and makers of the Zodiac PDA/gaming device, has gone out of business.
Tapwave Out of Business
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Well… if they used OS without multitasking etc… That’s not strange. Good hardware must come with high quality, modern software. And Palm noticed that already – they are switching to Linux. It was too late for Tapwave, it may be too late for Palm… But I wish them the best!
>And Palm noticed that already – they are switching to Linux.
This has nothing to do with this. Palmsource DOES have a good a OS with PalmOS 6. Tapwave used PalmOS 5, which has nothing to do with OS6. As for the reasons Palmsource switched to Linux, don’t get me started on this.
> As for the reasons Palmsource
> switched to Linux, don’t get me started on this.
Elaborate, please.
Yes, please elaborate. You’ve peaked my interest.
This has nothing to do with this. Palmsource DOES have a good a OS with PalmOS 6. Tapwave used PalmOS 5, which has nothing to do with OS6. As for the reasons Palmsource switched to Linux, don’t get me started on this.
Please do contiune. And by the way i thought you announced that you were leaving OSNEWS.
Atari, Sega, NEC, Tiger, SNK, Bandai, Game Park and Tapwave all they have in common?
They’ve all been obliterated in the handheld market by Nintendo.
It takes an enormous amount of resources to take on a company that size, so you have to wonder why some of these companies even bother.
The reason small startup companies like Tapwave bother to take on Nintendo is because we live in a free market society. If you have a product, that you believe performs a task better than an already existing product you can market that product to the people. If you’re right, and your product is better, then the people will let you know by buying your product. Let’s remember that a loooong time ago, Nintendo was a small startup company too. So was Sony, as far as video gaming and computers were concerned. Even Apple computer was a start-up who decided to take on IBM. Depending on who you talk to Apple is kicking IBM’s ass.
Tapwave’s main problem was marketing. They never figured out how to reach their target audience. I’m not sure they even knew who their target audience was. They weren’t gonna get the people that buy mainly video games, we have PSP and DS for those people. They could have easily gotten the PDA buyers though. Let’s face it, the LifeDrive from Palm is not the huge hit it was supposed to be. For $500 I can get a better handheld from a Pocket PC manufacturer. The T5 from Palm is a huge step backwards, and there are just too many hardware issues to go into there. The last decent handheld from Palm was the T3.
The Zodiac is the handheld that Palm should have made as their T5. Two expansion slots instead of one. Rotatable screen. Awesome gaming capabilities. Bluetooth, if they had included Wi-Fi with the right marketing, Zodiac would have been the handheld to have.
Another interesting pda company goes down the drain…
The tapwave zodiac was the most interesting PalmOS device I ever saw. The zodiac-enabled games were very nice, the dual-sd was unique, and the launcher very useful.
Here’s to a company ahead of it’s time.
I fail to see how an average launcher, an extra SD slot and a few average games make the Zodiac ahead of its time…
Because when the zodiac started selling, it had the fastest and best graphics processor available that I know of, and there were more than a few games that took advantage of it. Also, some big-name companies pledged games (not all delivered though).
The problem is, it had to live under the shadow of nintendo’s ds and sony’s psp, although those only came out maybe a year or two after the zodiac…
That was sudden. I was expecting this unfortunately. It’s a nice PDA but with how low the price had been quickly dropped and how utterly pathetic the professional titles had turned out, well. I bought my Zodiac primarily with the assumption I wasn’t going to count on commercial success but this still is quite a bit of a disappointment.
I use it for work rather then games. But this is the first PDA I picked up that 6 months down the road I was still utterly satisfied with.
I got a really good deal on a used Zodiac, and it really is an excellent PDA. Using TCPMP, I can play videos smoothly in fullscreen mode without problems, and I found an enhanced calendar app that works quite well.
Now admittedly, I probably would have brought a PocketPC if I hadn’t gotten such a good deal on the Zodiac.
Gimme a break folks.
You’re cruel
“This has nothing to do with this. Palmsource DOES have a good a OS with PalmOS 6. Tapwave used PalmOS 5, which has nothing to do with OS6. As for the reasons Palmsource switched to Linux, don’t get me started on this.
Please do contiune. And by the way i thought you announced that you were leaving OSNEWS.”
That’s hardly inflammatory… wrong, but hardly inflammatory enough to justify -5. Were the moderators the ones who did this?
Another victim of the proprietary Microseft shit.
Just to clairify here, Tapwave is not out of business. They have stopped selling Zodiacs and are now concentrating on the next big thing(tm). I loved my zodiac and sold it when I got my Treo. It looks like I moved on at the right time.
It was a real nice PDA though.
Any idea what “the next big thing” is?
I have a Zire 72 and I was considering upgrading to a Zodiac but that is probably out now.
I have no clue. but whatever it is, I hope they have better marketing behind it…
Damn that was fast. I am not surprised that it happened, just THIS FAST. This sucks.
And I just encouraged a faculty member to buy one.
I now own ANOTHER orphaned product.
Palm will die and with it the last OS and computer product that was designed for a specific purpose and did that well.
I hate this industry.
This could have been done more gracefully and without the lies and implications of “good things to come” from the marketing people. I am very displeased.