Handheld operating system showdown

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2870297,00.html">http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2870297,00.html</a><br /><br />ZDNET has a matrix showing the Pocket PC OS vs. the Palm OS, and a comparison of how each OS stacks up. For the love of all things holy, <i>who writes these things?</i> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif" /> They arrived at the correct conclusion that the Pocket PC wipes the floor with the Palm OS, but the chart is riddled with inaccuracies. Download.com only has 386 Pocket PC apps? Who the hell uses Download.com to look for Pocket PC apps? They even say that Palm only has 1840 apps. It's not the 20,000 that Palm quotes, but it's certainly more than 1840. The problems continue - they show Palm at 33 MHz and Pocket PC at 206 MHz. Palm should be at 66 MHz and Pocket PC at 400 MHz (yeah yeah, I know). The Pocket PC may have a strong power-on password and Excel security, but the Palm OS supports file-level security, which the Pocket PC does not. And how exactly does the Palm operating system "work with more operating systems"? They might be referring to licensees, but unless I'm mistaken, the Pocket PC now has more partners. Maybe this article was written on June 11, <b>2001</b>.<br /><br />"With all the flash of Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system, one might easily assume that it's the far superior handheld OS. But we wanted to really compare the features of Pocket PC 2002 and Palm OS 4.0 to see exactly what you get with each. The contest isn't quite as one-sided as you might suspect. Pocket PC has the clear lead in multimedia, but Palm's OS works with more operating systems and PIMs and has a giant library of third-party software to supplement many of its shortcomings. As with many things, your particular priorities will ultimately determine which OS is a better match for you." Source: Peter West

[JonnoB]

The lead-in narative has the feeling of an anti-PocketPC / pro Palm gist, but when I read the specifics in the chart, it is clear to me that the PocketPC is much more functional than the Palm OS. For many of the reasons listed, are the reasons I went from a Palm zealot to a PocketPC faithful.... PocketPC could just do more of what I wanted from my PDA.

[chris234]

And how exactly does the Palm operating system "work with more operating systems"?

Syncing with MacOS?

[Jason Dunn]

Syncing with MacOS?

Ah... :oops: I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right. What a silly way of saying that though - there are only two major OS players. "More"?

[[Cruzer]]

Also they quote that PC Connectivity, with Mac "NO"... Hrmmm.. they could have at least said 3rd party... there is PocketMac you know.

RC

[spursdude]

check this out: http://computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-1087-8-7798870-1.html?tag=st.cn.sr1.ssr.cn_pocketpc

written by cnet (zdnet's partner) on 11/14/01. zdnet basically takes cnet's old stuff and puts new dates on them (dumb, dumb, dumb)

[klinux]

Palm can sync with linux as well. And to be picky, since OS X is really unix based, one can say that Palm syncs with *nix. :roll:

[Robotbeat]

Yeah, the major distros of Linux have support for syncing with Palms built-in (by default, even). Heck, i don't even think Microsoft (yes, that's right, I said Microsoft, not Micro$h*t, or something else like that. No 1337 crap from me...) includes ActiveSync on their Windows installation CDs.

I wish built-in support for some clone of ActiveSync (not Activesync itself... yukkk! :x ) was available for Linux so that you could... oh, never mind. I never use ActiveSync. I just transfer files to my CF card over USB anyways...

[Pony99CA]

Syncing with MacOS?
Ah... :oops: I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right. What a silly way of saying that though - there are only two major OS players. "More"?

It seemed perfectly clear to me what was meant, even before I read the actual quotation: "Palm's OS works with more operating systems and PIMs." How else could the Palm OS work with an OS?

Maybe the "PIMs" in there made you think they were talking about 3rd party PIMs that ran on the devices, and therefore made you think the OS part referred to OEM builds of the Palm OS? It still doesn't seem like that silly of a way of saying it, although "Palm OS can sync with more operating systems and PIMs" would be better.

And two is more than one. :-) (Not including Linux, of course.)

Steve

[Jason Dunn]

written by cnet (zdnet's partner) on 11/14/01. zdnet basically takes cnet's old stuff and puts new dates on them (dumb, dumb, dumb)

That is so incredibly lame. How can a site like that have ANY credibility if they re-publish old content and say it's new??

[TQBrady]

You Canadians . . .

You ARE kidding, right? I mean, it's a fine line between what you do here at Pocket PC Thoughts and what they have done between ZDNet and CNet. That's not a dig. I see what you do as extremely useful and informative - why else would I be here?

Unless, of course, you are criticizing the date-stamp change. That IS lame, but quickly becoming typical of the Internet news sources. Undocumented rewrites and the like are becoming the norm.

[Jason Dunn]

Unless, of course, you are criticizing the date-stamp change. That IS lame, but quickly becoming typical of the Internet news sources. Undocumented rewrites and the like are becoming the norm.

Yes, that's what I'm criticising - if I published a review six months ago, then re-published it with a current date and gave no indication that it was an older review, I should be flogged. In this case, it's worse because it's an OS comparison. It only makes them look incompotent for not comparing the CURRENT features.

[TQBrady]

Flogged is good. I like flogged. I wish we really could do that!

By the way . . . I was kidding about Canadians. Canadia is like my favorite country.