I'm upset that PalmOne is the biggest POS licensee now. They haven't made exciting handhelds in years. As was mentioned before, the Clies offer more bang for the buck, and they're older models.
But I really P1 can get their act together soon. The last thing I want is 1 PDA OS to choose from. Maybe if Symbian can step up to the plate soon. . .
Personally, I've always preferred Palm, but that's because I require less from my PDA than most of you. That and I really find the PPC UI to be horrible.
It's like windows. And for some people that's great, but those gray scrollbars and ugly text fields drive me nuuts. At least on POS I can get a change from the windows world for a bit.
So, hey, why doesn't MS hire some great designers to overhaul the widgets?
Palm's OS 6 looks pretty. Too bad it exists only on the desktop as a sim right now. I was very intrigued by the new UI elements. Looked nice. Like Mac OS X does.
Snoopsoft's ColourMe has been available for more than 4 years, for $5. With that you can choose ANY colour scheme you like on any Pocket PC... but remember to first save the default scheme under a unique name, and back that up along with a device backup. Mistakes made in colour choices can result in a pretty much unusable device after a sort reset. White text on white backgrounds could be bad. Black on black, worse. So there's one tool for getting rid of ugly Microsoft colours. Even one of the listed pre-fabricated schemes, the old MS 'Maple' is pretty nice, tweaked a little to get rid of the greys. I like that one on my notebook. Dark but warm.
There are other tools for modifying the GUI. I use Dashboard and GigaBar, enabling both improved looks and a massive increase in utility per pixel when navigating around the device. Dashboard's still $13, and GigaBar's still free. Taskbar and Today replacements abound, and some tools even modify the whole device interface. So that seems not really a valid complaint, the appearance being ugly.
(on a somewhat bent aside; POS and PieceO'S#¡t - coincidence? sorry, couldn't resist. let the tomato hurling commence...)
Ed, I do some dev work on Palms. Here's my take on this, and a few other things...
There is every indication now that the T5 was really meant to be a PalmOS6 device. (Info from pre-production units. There's also indications that calling it the T5 was also a last minute change.) Everything is pointing to PalmOS 6.0 not being up to snuff, so P1 had to do a last minute change to 5.4. (6.1 does look good enough, but that just came out. A change to 5.4 would also likely kill having internal wifi, since 5.x is hell to write drivers for.)
PalmSource has been stating that 11 6.x devices are expected in '05. They don't say who is releasing what, but it's known that Samsung is one of them.
Now the rant: about 6mo ago P1 was reversing marketshare losses, and seemed to be on the comeback track. Since that time, they've let the low-end stagnate, released the T5, are late with the Treo650, don't understand that they must have a low-end smartphone, and pretty much stopped being responsive to people.
Compounding those problems, they've also stuck like glue to 2 really stupid corporate decisions.
The first is "keeping their options open as regards to OS's". Even if they are, they definitely shouldn't say it. All that it does is cause PPC buyers to go "Palm is dead", and go on buying PPCs from HP & Dell, and Palm buyers to go "Palm is dead" and start looking for alternatives. It gains the company nothing, while definitely hurting sales.
The second is not releasing any info about future products until they are actually released. This is meant to protect current product sales from people waiting for better future products. However this is now backfiring by causing customers to jump ship because of rumors like in this article.
Being blunt, this is a massive failure of management. PalmOS still has a lot of strength in the market, but has a good chance of not surviving these latest stupidities.
Snoopsoft's ColourMe has been available for more than 4 years, for $5. With that you can choose ANY colour scheme you like on any Pocket PC...
The colors aren't what I dislike, it's the whole widget set.
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Taskbar and Today replacements abound, and some tools even modify the whole device interface. So that seems not really a valid complaint, the appearance being ugly.
I think it is. None of those programs change the UI to the degree I'm talking about. And besides, if there were an app out there that did do it, I would be very wary of using it, similar to how I won't touch WindowBlinds to make win2000 look nicer. Too many areas for bugs.
It really isn't about skinning a Today screen, or adding functionality to a taskbar. PPC does thay in spades with 3rd party apps.
I just don't like the look of the UI widgets period. It's not a flaw with the OS. In fact, it's a big plus for many people to see familiar interfaces. I'm just saying, for me, it's ugly. Symbian (both Quartz and Crystal) look more attractive as an alternative.
Right now, since there's nothing I need to do that my Treo can't, there's no reason to have to switch to a PPC. Like with Windows. I think Mac OS X looks much better than any MS UI, but the Mac platform on a whole doesn't offer me all I want like windows does.
But whatever. This is off topic anyhow, sorry. ops:
Thanks for the comments and developer's perspective TWalk. I've seen similar comments on the difficulties with WiFi and Palm OS 4/5 from other developers and SD card makers as well as a general consensus from even many serious Palm fans at Brighthand and Palm Info Center that if PalmOne could do something wrong, they seem to be real keen on doing it right now. I agree - the PR missteps are the worst.
Thanks for the comments and developer's perspective TWalk.
Thanks Ed. However, just so I don't sound too negative about only P1, I feel that all the other major players also have serious problems.
P1 looks actively destructive. HP & Dell are really just throwing products out there and expecting the customer will find a use. They really don't have a clue about marketing PDA devices. MS WM (PPC) looks like something that MS would rather have slowly fade away. MS Smartphone doesn't look like it's getting much traction, and MS doesn't really seem to know much about marketing this except to say "it's a smartphone". Nokia (Symbian) is pretty much in the same boat, not really having a clue about why people buy smartphones, what they use them for, how to target customers, etc. (They know cell phones, but not smartphones.)
PS really does get it, but 6.1 is late, and they can't force anyone to use it. RIM also gets it, but soon every cell phone is going to have easy email, eliminating their big advantage.
As a developer in this area, it pains me to say this, but I find it likely that all the above will likely fade away during the next 5 years. Low end cell phones running java are selling by the truckload, which despite their problems can easily swamp in numbers all the above put together. There are a number of businesses right now that have replaced PDAs and even laptops with these. The high end will be taken out by sub $1000 XP palmtop machines starting late next year. (Heck, I've already ditched my high-end PDAs for a fujitsu P1120, and am much happier for it.) I just don't think that there is enough space between these two for any of the above to have a good chance to survive. This is leading me towards looking seriously at java based cell phones for future projects.
HP & Dell are really just throwing products out there and expecting the customer will find a use. They really don't have a clue about marketing PDA devices.
Although i must say i would appriciate some more clarity on HP's side, they do have a proven track-record. HP has climbed from almost 2% to 37% marketshare in 5 years, that is impressive to say the least, especially with Dell and other players entering the market. I agree with you that a more usage oriented approach would be welcome from all players. Now we as a user have to find out for ourselves, and manufacturers are not especially clear on what target-group is intended for a certain machine. Although i must say in Europe HP is clearer on this than in the States. In Europe we see a Hx3700 being marketed as a multimedia device and a hx4700 (that is a hx4705 without the camera) being marketed as a device for the business.
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Originally Posted by twalk
MS Smartphone doesn't look like it's getting much traction, and MS doesn't really seem to know much about marketing this except to say "it's a smartphone". Nokia (Symbian) is pretty much in the same boat, not really having a clue about why people buy smartphones, what they use them for, how to target customers, etc. (They know cell phones, but not smartphones.)
I must say that Symbian has put forward a good series of phones to react to Microsoft. When i look at the P900 and P910i of SonyEricsson (also Symbian) the marketshare is tremendous, and a lot of businessmen are using them. SonyEricsson does a really good job (especially in combination with Vodaphone and T-Mobile) in marketing this product for the right buyers. Downside is that most users buy a very flexible phone and do not even realize that it is running Symbian: therefor they not really commited to the OS.
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RIM also gets it, but soon every cell phone is going to have easy email, eliminating their big advantage.
LOL! It will have to be easy. My Nokia 3650 has email and darnded if I can figure out how to enable it on the device. I just use the MMS service that allows me to send and receive emails, but it isn't a POP3 account. The dialog boxes for that are bewildering. :confused totally:
I agree the landscape will change dramatically over the next 5 years, but I am not convinced Java will be it, nor that it will even be a major player.
I agree the landscape will change dramatically over the next 5 years, but I am not convinced Java will be it, nor that it will even be a major player.
Ed, I hope you're right, but these java based phones are really cheap and really plentiful. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see programmers working 10X harder on a java phone program than a smartphone (P1/MS/Symbian/RIM) program would take, just to tap into the much larger base. (The only reason I haven't, is all my programs so far have needed a touch screen.) That's the kind of thing that pushes an inferior technology into the winner's circle.
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