Does PalmOS Risk Losing Developers?

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://news.com.com/With+OS+development+stalled%2C+Palm+risks+defections/2100-1045_3-6065542.html?tag=nefd.lede">http://news.com.com/With+OS+development+stalled%2C+Palm+risks+defections/2100-1045_3-6065542.html?tag=nefd.lede</a><br /><br /><i>"It's been two years since the release of the last major upgrade to the Palm operating system for mobile devices, not counting the upgrade </i>[Cobalt/PalmOS6]<i> that never appeared in public. The Palm OS still enjoys a loyal following, but it'll have to get up to speed sooner rather than later--or risk an exodus to competing platforms such as Windows Mobile and Symbian. With a brand-new version of the pioneer mobile OS not expected to appear for at least another year, some larger developers of mobile applications are looking elsewhere when launching their new multimedia applications. Windows Mobile and Symbian are emerging as the operating systems of choice as large companies bring multimedia applications down to phones and handhelds."</i><br /><br />PalmOS has seemingly always had the problem with OEMs looking at the core product and deciding it wasn't enough, so it got hacked up with custom hardware and APIs. I think the TRG Pro with its bolted on CF slot (later renamed the Handera 330) was the first. Then Handspring added a proprietary Springboard slot that essentially accepted mini-computers that could give you multimedia and other key features that used the host PDA as an input screen, then Sony went all out with custom drivers for their non-standard displays. It was enough to drive the average software developers batty trying to customize their app for dozens of devices.<br /><br />At some point though, the OS itself must progress enough to allow some apps to work without ginormous efforts on the part of the software developer. Skype has yet to be released for PalmOS because Garnet simply can't handle it. I am sure PalmSource/Access is trying to get the new high-speed EVDO networks working on their OS, but they are probably more focused on getting it to work on the next generation OS, due in 12-18 months, something that shouldn't be a problem for a device with a Linux kernel. In the mean time, developers are working on Windows Mobile and Symbian solutions. The operating system does all of the heavy lifting leaving the developer to focus on the user interface and custom features of their application, not making custom radio stacks or trying to write directly to the hardware in order to make the performance of their application acceptable.

[fierywater]

I think the TRG Pro with its bolted on CF slot (later renamed the Handera 330) was the first. I should note that the Handera 330 was a completely different device from the TRGPro. Where the TRGPro was for the most part simply a Palm III with a CF slot attached, the Handera 330 has both CF/SD slots and a QVGA screen that represented the first use of a soft Graffiti area on a Palm OS device.

Good article, however. It's sad to see how Palm has declined; Fitaly's another great example of how the mess that is Garnet has dissuaded developers from the platform.

[ADBrown]

Two years? Where has CNET been? It's been four years. Unless you count going from 5.2 to 5.4 to be a "major upgrade."

[applejosh]

Two years? Where has CNET been? It's been four years. Unless you count going from 5.2 to 5.4 to be a "major upgrade."

Well, Garnet is 5.4. 5.2 was just 5.2 I think. (At least my T3 didn't have "Garnet," but my T5 did. Not that I'd consider 5.2 to 5.4 a major upgrade, but that's probably where the confusion set it. ("Hey, I'm writing an in-depth article on PalmOS. When did Garnet come out?")

[Timothy Rapson]

I just gave up waiting for a nice new Palm OS PDA. I got a Toshiba e800. I would have been fine with a TX, but it won't run FITALY and that was a deal breaker. It wasn't FITALY's fault, Palm did something to their implementation of the OS between the Palm T5 and the TX that broke FITALY and the developer just was not willing to rewrite it again.
I have a Zire 72 I could have kept using, but it won't run Documents To Go reliably and I really wanted native format documents for a big writing project.
I would have liked a standard set of fonts as is built in to WinMob, but had one set of fonts for WordSmith (which is apparently completely out of development. Hasn't been updated in forever.)
Many MANY programs don't work from one POS device to another. So much so, that even when I started one of the biggest developers (TealPoint) had all but suspended development of all it's projects to do a kind of filter that would allow them to write each program once and run it through the filter so that it would run on a Sony with and without full screen, a model with a true keypad (like the Treos) and several other output versions to run on all different possible feature sets.
I guess TealPoint got this working, but of course Palm has kept fiddling without informing TealPoint of anyone else so their software keeps breaking apps.
It is too sad. I would have so liked a Zire 73+ with a VGA screen, true fonts, real graphics standards, etc. I had to learn a whole new way of using a PDA with my Toshiba and I am still carrying both my Zire 72 and my e800 as I simply can't get the Toshiba to do some things reliably and quickly. Other things are really dreamy. Oh well.
It really is stupifying that the world can't produce decent PDAs when Sony was so close to perfect years ago.