“They say it’s never polite to point out a woman’s age, or make note of her wrinkles and liver spots. It’s just not mannerly, and besides you never know when the old gal may thrash you over the head with her cane in backlash. But enough about my grandmother.” More here.
Reinventing the Palm OS: a How-To Guide
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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..did laugh though, haha.
I think the iPhone will kill any hope Palm had (with the Treo 680) of breaking into the consumer market. Palm always had a ease-of-use advantage over Windows Mobile competitors that made it popular with suits (and inertia will keep it popular with suits), and gave it some potential in the consumer arena as smartphone usage ramped up there, but the iPhone destroys that possibility completely. It’s far too late for them to field a competitor now. Maybe if Palm had followed through during the BeOS acquisition times, but trying to beat Apple after coming to the game even later? Not a chance in hell.
Edited 2007-01-31 22:23
yeah, but, as far as we can tell, you cannot install 3rd party apps on the iPhone. I’ll stick with my treo with VNC, SSH2, FTP etc etc…
I have a small shareware program for the PalmOS, and the current state of the Palm leaves me totally confused. I have a hard time figuring out the difference between the comapny Access (who I think owns the source to Palm) and PalmSource (who I think licensed it back). In addition, what is the next version of the Palm OS, is Cobalt dead? Garnett? I think I am going to rewrite my app in SuperWaba, because them it will run on whatever, including possibly whatever comes from Access.
Darn that Sony for abandoning the Palm!
I have a small shareware program for the PalmOS, and the current state of the Palm leaves me totally confused. I have a hard time figuring out the difference between the comapny Access (who I think owns the source to Palm) and PalmSource (who I think licensed it back).
It is difficult to distinguish Access from PalmSource because Access bought PalmSource last year. They’re the same company.
In addition, what is the next version of the Palm OS, is Cobalt dead? Garnett?
Cobalt’s dead. Garnet’s still shipping and Palm just spent $40 million for the rights to use it, so I suspect it won’t be going away terribly soon.
Palm bought the name “Palm” back from PalmSource about two years ago. PalmSource (now a part of Access) had four years from that date to remove “Palm” from their name and the name of all of their products. So “PalmOS 5, Garnet” has become “Garnet” and “PalmSource” has become “Access US”
Access has promised, and is late on, a Linux based replacement they’re currently calling ALP (Access Linux Platform) but are unlikely to put much of PalmOS in.
Palm, itself, meanwhile, having spent $30 million to get the name back and $44 million to get rights to the source code, has said nothing about what they’re going to do with it.
Pundits proclaim that they will force their TREO version of Garnet onto Linux and that will be the new “PalmOS”. Cynics suggest they’ll do that to WinMobile instead.
I think I am going to rewrite my app in SuperWaba, because them it will run on whatever, including possibly whatever comes from Access.
best luck with that.
“Darn that Sony for abandoning the Palm!”
Actually, Palm have abandoned themselves. I wouldn’t blame Sony for that at all, I would have done the same thing. I own a Treo 650 and even though it’s been an excellent tool for me for 1.5-2yrs, it will be the last device from Palm that I will ever own, as their later models have just been more of the same.
wasn’t cobalt supposed to be the big rewrite with all these great features. whatever happened to it?
It was released, used by mabye one device, then buried.
Pity. Access Linux will not, at least anytime soon, be able to match the speed and simplicity of Palm(dw) Garnet OS on the same hardware. I think it needs 64mb of ram where PalmOS5 needed 16. Palm3 and Palm4 needed 2 (like my Samsung i500).
[i]wasn’t cobalt supposed to be the big rewrite with all these great features. whatever happened to it?[i]
Yes it was supposed to be that. PalmSource spent four years getting it ready, only to find out that no company was interested in using it. They more-or-less abandoned it at the start of ’05 to work on a Linux product that has morphed into “ALP” now that PalmSource is owned by Access. “ALP” is not a PalmOS variant, but rather a Linux phone OS written around Access’ NetFront browser, which happens to have an old PalmOS emulator added on as a wart.