pa1mOne Finally Figuring It Out?

[Jeff Kirvin]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

Exactly -- that just summarizes the multithreading capabilities of Cobalt and confirms my suspicions. Again, it's up to the developer to split their program into threads and make sure certain ones have flags set for background operation. While this is a workable solution, it harkens back, in some ways, to the days of cooperative multitasking -- that is, onus on the developer to ensure their program multitasks properly. Most of the rest of the industry has moved on to having the OS provide multitasking services for all applications while allowing applications some finer-grained control when they need to move their priority up and down. This reduces the dependence on the developer.

Okay, it's taken me a few days to figure out what was bugging me about this argument and what I obviously wasn't explaining properly. Here's the thing.

The WM model is much easier for developers. No doubt about this. But who buys the devices? Who uses them on a day to day basis? Who, in fact, do the developers absolutely depend on?

It's all about the user experience. And on a resource-limited handheld, especially since handheld generally don't support the swap file tricks desktops use, the PalmSource style of multitasking is much, much more efficient. More efficient use of memory leads to a snappier, more reliable user experience.

Both systems have their compromises, true. But I'd rather make a little more work for the developer than make a little more frustration for the user.

[Jeff Kirvin]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

Exactly -- that just summarizes the multithreading capabilities of Cobalt and confirms my suspicions. Again, it's up to the developer to split their program into threads and make sure certain ones have flags set for background operation. While this is a workable solution, it harkens back, in some ways, to the days of cooperative multitasking -- that is, onus on the developer to ensure their program multitasks properly. Most of the rest of the industry has moved on to having the OS provide multitasking services for all applications while allowing applications some finer-grained control when they need to move their priority up and down. This reduces the dependence on the developer.

Okay, it's taken me a few days to figure out what was bugging me about this argument and what I obviously wasn't explaining properly. Here's the thing.

The WM model is much easier for developers. No doubt about this. But who buys the devices? Who uses them on a day to day basis? Who, in fact, do the developers absolutely depend on?

It's all about the user experience. And on a resource-limited handheld, especially since handheld generally don't support the swap file tricks desktops use, the PalmSource style of multitasking is much, much more efficient. More efficient use of memory leads to a snappier, more reliable user experience.

Both systems have their compromises, true. But I'd rather make a little more work for the developer than make a little more frustration for the user.

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kirvin

It's all about the user experience.

Yes, but I argue having the OS support more of these features, including multitasking, should in theory improve the user experience. Relying on developers to incorporate multitasking into their product can result in inconsistent applications -- or worse -- some programs won't ever be rewritten to support multitasking.

As to WM being sluggish about it, if MS were to fix the darn Close button (:roll and do some performance optimization, I believe they'd be able to accomplish more than acceptable performance while offering the same multitasking mechanisms that are currently in WM.

And, practically, most recent WM devices are very decent at multitasking despite this. On my Smartphone, I'm always running 5 programs, but almost never notice any performance difference between running one or running 5. Time will tell if new PalmSource releases remain snappier.

--janak

[Gerard]

Making efficient use of limited resources; that's definitely a big part of Palm's (-Source, -One, -whatever -- sorry, but Palm is Palm, regardless of squabbling or re-arranging) past success. Where PPC models have been beefed up with more and more RAM, faster processors, broader expansion potential, more desktop-like flexibility etc., Palm's soft- and hardware have provided a fairly consistent and potent PIM experience. Of course the Palm side has (slowly, kicking and screaming) brought increasing powers (with Palm execs all along telling users how superfluous are the flashy 'extras' of the PPC).

Snappy performance is often the real experience with a PPC as well. It is at times painfully not so, especially when a user gets into several dozen or more third-party installations.

I currently have 64 programs and plugins listed in my installation list, with another 20 or so standalone programs not listed. That's more scaled-down than I used to run, as this X5 is a bit memory leaky under WM2003, but is still a heck of a lot more than many users run. My device responds easily as fast as I can tap, with more than 75% of my use. Slowdowns while running heavier applications such as Pocket Artist or Textmaker can be aggravating, and I hope that moving to a 128MB RAM device before too much longer will resolve this. Otherwise I have very few speed complaints.

The time when the snappiness difference was most recognizable was when a typical PPC ran between 16 and 32MB RAM, and a 133 or 206MHz processor. 33MHz Palms of those few years ago were startlingly faster in typical operations, if lacking in the multi-media department. Hardware and OS refinements have closed the speed gap, even as Palm-based devices have sought to catch up by adding formerly rejected (as being unnecessary) capabilities and have suffered commensurate drops in vaunted battery life. It's close to a level playing field these days, more a matter of user preference or 'flavour' than actual advantage for either. And as we're seeing, with Palm's steady decline and PPC's steady growth, the PPC/WM 'flavour' tastes better to more users. I'd suggest that true multi-tasking accounts for a big part of that. Surely it is not advertising, for such is practically non-existent on the PPC side.

[surur]

On PPC's there's just a more PC like experience. If they actually added a task bar (with icons) they would reduce the learning curve even further.

There was a time when people were scared of computers and had to be molly-coddled by the simplistic Palm UI. That time is now long over.

Surur

[Jeff Kirvin]

All I can say, guys, is that my experience differs from yours. Remember, I used to be a contributing editor here and I used Pocket PCs exclusively for three years. I know how Windows Mobile works.

And this weekend I compared my T5 to an HP hx4700. The HP was much slower to accomplish even simple tasks despite a 624-416 MHz edge.

Windows Mobile is more powerful, Palm OS is more efficient. Which matters more is a personal choice. Neither is inherently better than the other.

[Phillip Dyson]

Jeff,

I have to admire your endurance in this thread. I'm sure you were aware that you were stepping on to PPC holy ground when you started posting.


Besides, in the end its mostly philosophy. Often it turns into bad religion.

In the case of MS' unclosable programs its bad philosophy.

[Jeff Kirvin]

Originally Posted by sojourner753

Jeff,

I have to admire your endurance in this thread. I'm sure you were aware that you were stepping on to PPC holy ground when you started posting.


Besides, in the end its mostly philosophy. Often it turns into bad religion.

In the case of MS' unclosable programs its bad philosophy.

I don't feel too threatened here. I used to be one of you.

Your point about philosophy is what I'm getting at. There are two ways to handle multitasking on a mobile device, and it pretty much comes down to personal preference which one you prefer.

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by sojourner753

I have to admire your endurance in this thread. I'm sure you were aware that you were stepping on to PPC holy ground when you started posting.

In our defense, we're not blind followers of Pocket PCs. We criticize various aspects of them all the time.

In the case of MS' unclosable programs its bad philosophy.

You'll get no debate on this from most of the PPCT editors. But that is a little different than the multitasking discussion being highlighted here.

--janak

[Phillip Dyson]

Originally Posted by Janak Parekh

In our defense, we're not blind followers of Pocket PCs. We criticize various aspects of them all the time.

You'll get no debate on this from most of the PPCT editors. But that is a little different than the multitasking discussion being highlighted here.

--janak

Well, some are blind followers. They live in every kind of group, but intelligent discussion is always good.

I think the close issue is related. Because where Palm seems to discourage it by making it off the beaten path, MS insists on it by not wanting anything to close on its own.

[Gerard]

I'd not place myself in the true believer camp, quite the opposite really. I've plenty of beefs with Microsoft, foremost with the nightmare that is my old PC, but with various versions of the PPC OS as well. Glitchy reminder databases and reliability are right up there around the top of the rants list. But I have enjoyed all the many things which have worked, in spite of all the wasted time fighting the things which haven't in the past 5 years.

I have been trying to stick to the thread subject, which seems to be about whether or not Palm is coming around to doing things 'right' whatever that might mean. The failure to get the more than a year old new OS into even one marketed device and the ridiculously power-consumptive microdrive implementation of the Life Drive are just a couple of the major pointers to the con argument - though perhaps they're patching the drive buffer behavior?

Anyway, in terms of Palm doing things more efficiently, as Jeff keeps stating... seems I must harken back to another users recent comment in this thread. That person (I forget whom) said that they'd recently found the Treo to skip very little when playing music in the background. Hm. I've got GSPlayer, nPOPw, File Explorer, 3 Pocket IE windows, and all my background junk running on this glitchy old Dell X5. There's a serious audio driver bug in Dell's rendition of WM2003 for this device, and Dell's patch just makes it worse so I don't use that. It makes for difficulty adjusting volume, with sharp static unless I adjust up and down a couple or a few times to get it to stop. GSPlayer lets me accomplish that in a second or two. Very device/OS-specific problem, and not my point. But I'm playing tunes as I type into this page, which just loaded while I was listening. I have not heard any pauses or glitches since starting to listen to this Be Good Tanya's album 15 minutes ago. My Belkin keyboard driver is active, GigaBar is running, my Symbol Wi-Fi CF card's two programs are running, so are FontOnStorage, gsGetFile.dll, SystemPath, SuperAlertSE... and probably a thing or two I'm forgetting. Oh yeah, and cLaunch and WeatherPanel on the Today screen. I just opened File Explorer, switched to sort by type (the slowest, most RAM-intensive sort operation of any file manager app I know), and tapped the Windows folder. Took about 10 seconds to gradually load the folder full of junk, but nope, not a trace of interruption in the sweet singing of 'Lonesome Blues'.

Let's see, what could I do to try and make the music skip? How about I load Pocket Artist. That's got to do it! Ah, there's a quarter-second pause, at last. So my PPC is 'human' after all, just like a Treo 650....... only, it's probably doing several times as much work keeping all that stuff running than the Palmish Treo was for the test, right?

So really, how well does Palm multi-task? I'm genuinely, un-sarcastically curious Jeff and others. Could you humour me a little, get a few apps running at once, things which the developers have tailored to multi-thread/multi-task so they're really running all at the same time? Then launch an MP3 file and switch back to a browser and start entering data into a dialogue such as this, see how it runs. If smoothly without interruptions, great, I'd love to know about it.
You see, my little brother is still holding off buying a PDA until he feels fully comfortable with a decision. Taking his sweet time about it. He's a film director/animator, top level sort with a sports car and fancy house and all that crap, but is making do with a phone for now because he wants a really killer PDA that'll do most everything and not be obsolete for at least a year or two. He's had a Palm a few years ago, but it died, cost him all his information. He'd consider a Palm again if I could assure him it'd be great. Frankly I don't know what to say. For his needs, something like the Asus P505 would probably be nice, or maybe a Treo, though he's heard from underlings using them that they're not so hot. A Life Drive won't do, as it has to be a phone too. He's likin' the Jam, but mostly for the iPod aesthetic. What say you; could he get everything phone and PDA-wise out of a Treo or something else Palmish and still listen to tunes, or not? Money is irrelevant. Massive performance and reliability are everything to him. He's got state-of-the-art PC and Mac notebooks with all the bells and whistles, and is comfortable with Unix mainframes, so OS is also irrelevant. If Apple put out a phone/PDA tomorrow he'd probably just buy that. Seems relevant, maybe helping to bring some focus to this subject - any takers?