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The file thing really needed fixing. It is bad, just plain bad. On the other hand it may be that the fact that the Palm OS will not let one install files willy nilly is the reason it is more stable. I may get a PPC device again in Christmas 2003. Then I can compare the stability advances MS may have made. But, I take the bad lack of real files with the good lack of resets and slowdowns.
The guy in the article was 100% wrong about music files. All Clies can play music while reading Ebooks. He was also wrong about multi-tasking. Honestly, I have had a PSion Mako that did multi-task (at least I assume it did as you had to leave the datebook program open when you went to another program if you wanted the alarms to actually alarm you). I had a mono IPaq that surely did multi-task, but I don't know what I cared. I was not downloading pages or printing them while running other programs. You can't even have two pages open in PocketWord, but since you don't have the screen space to do so with any purpose, what difference does it make?
Now, my Clie clearly does not multi-task, but with the cool new launcher at the bottom of my software FITALY screen I can switch from any of 20 programs to any other in one or two taps at least as fast as my Ipaq could switch to programs already running in the multi-tasking PPC OS in background. The bottom line is that my Clie is faster and and easier to get from program to program in and that is what I want to do. (OK, you can probably do this with one of the dashboard-like programs power users add to their PPCs, but my point is that you don't need multitasking if task switching is well implemented)
Overall though, I am disappointed in Palm OS 5. I don't know if the biggest disapointment is the almost total lack of new features, the crashing when old programs run, or the fact that it is a year late. Too little, too late, too poorly done. I had a friend who was a successful entrepeneur and he said the key to his successful sales was that he made sure every customer got all he expected and at least some little thing he did not. What has Palm delivered that was better than expected? Nothing.
I am again happy that I got my NR70V at the end of the OS cycle. Things run very well on it, even a lot of stuff that is as old as the hills like DiddleBug are rock solid.
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