Is Price of Creativity Too High? Sandisk Describes Difficulty in Making WiFi Drivers for Palm PDAs

[Jason Dunn]

We've had a lot of discussion on this site lately about the desire to see Pocket PC OEMs be more creative, and much railing about Microsoft's restrictions on what OEMs can and can't do. Microsoft has always maintained that they will not allow OEMs to break the platform that they've created, which has caused some of us to feel that means "no innovation". After reading this email message from Mike Wong at Sandisk, and seeing what the price of creativity is (at the expense of the platform), suddenly I'm ok with the slower rate of creativity among Pocket PC OEMs - I'd be furious if I bought a new device like the Treo 600 and found out I couldn't use a new accessory. I'm not posting this with an attitude of "nyah, nyah, Palm users lose out!", but rather this is good food for thought on how creativity must be balanced with the need to maintain a fully functional platform and not a series of "micro platforms". <br /><br />I'd be interested to know what Pocket PC Thoughts readers think of this - is it worth the risk, getting a more creative hardware design at the risk of breaking the platform, or is it better to maintain the integrity of the platform and have devices that are more similar than they are different?<br /><br />Here's Mike's message in full:<br /><br />"SanDisk has been shipping its SD Wi-Fi card for several months now and many people have wondered about whether we would have drivers for the Palm OS. As you may know, the driver has been delayed several times so I'd like to explain some of the issues that are causing the delays. SanDisk’s SD Wi-Fi card currently supports Pocket PC for Windows devices. SanDisk originally stated that it would provide free driver support for Palm OS (operating system) 4.1 and 5.X in the Fall of 2003. Due to a variety of technical and business issues, SanDisk has dropped its plans for Palm OS 4.x support and restated the availability of support for certain Palm OS 5.x drivers for Q1 2004.<!><br /><br />SanDisk understands the level of demand and frustration by the Palm OS user community who clearly wants this wireless product. We believe it is important for this tight-knit community to understand the underlying challenges as we work to resolve the issues in order to deliver a reliable, high quality product.<br /><br /><b>When Will SanDisk Offer Drivers for Palm OS?</b> <br />SyChip Inc., the company that is primarily responsible for writing the drivers for SanDisk, has Palm OS 5.x drivers in Alpha stage and is working on a schedule to complete and deliver these drivers. <br /><br />In order to move forward, however, SyChip and PalmSource, the owner of Palm OS, must complete required legal documents before SyChip can continue its development of device-specific drivers. This is a necessary step now that Palm Inc. has transitioned into separate companies (palmOne and PalmSource). Both companies are working towards this goal and expect to conclude this agreement imminently. If this occurs by early January, then SyChip can complete the development of the drivers for certain viable devices and SanDisk will release these drivers in Q1 2004.<br /><br /><span><b>SanDisk Position</b></span><br /><br /><b>Palm OS 4.1 Drivers</b><br />SanDisk and its development partner, SyChip, Inc., have invested a considerable amount of time and resources into developing Palm OS 4.1 drivers. With more than five million Palm devices that use this OS version, there is tremendous demand for an SD Wi-Fi card that supports this platform. Unfortunately, after reviewing Alpha stage software a number of issues became apparent and made further development unfeasible.<br /><br />Challenges to developing Palm OS 4.1 drivers involve the hardware itself. The m500 series did not originally include network files and upgrading the hardware to add these requires technical expertise that is beyond what can be reasonably expected from most users. Furthermore, the processor itself is another hurdle. It is too slow to take advantage of Wi-Fi access speeds and results in performance that is near dial-up speeds. Obviously, this would not be an acceptable outcome.<br /><br /><b>Palm OS 5.x Drivers</b><br />A key issue of developing working SD Wi-Fi drivers is the way Palm (and now PalmSource) manages its OS. Hardware OEMs who license Palm OS are allowed to customize the operating system for their particular application. This often results in a growing number of proprietary, device-specific, Palm OS variations. Software driver developers are tasked with device specific development, which takes considerable time and resources.<br /><br />SanDisk’s development partner SyChip, has a beta version of its Palm OS 5.x driver in development that currently works on certain Palm Powered devices but must resolve two key issues before it can proceed. <br /><br />The first issue surrounds the rights to Palm OS IP for development of WiFi drivers. As mentioned, due to the transition of Palm Inc. into two separate companies, the negotiation and acquisition of these rights has not proceeded as quickly as SanDisk and SyChip anticipated. SyChip has now reached an understanding with PalmSource for the rights and support required to develop Palm OS drivers but the Legal Agreement needs to be finalized and signed.<br /><br />The second issue involves the electrical design of some Palm Powered devices such as the Treo 600. Since Wi-Fi capabilities were not an original design requirement for these devices, the majority of them use components with maximum power specifications below Wi-Fi needs. It is technically possible to use the SD Wi-Fi card but its usage may damage the device and void the warranty. A number of handheld computer manufacturers have assured SanDisk that they will modify the designs of their SDIO devices to correct this problem. <br /><br />SanDisk remains fully committed to offering the widest support for its SD Wi-Fi cards and is looking forward to resolving these issues as quickly as possible in order to provide the products that meet the company’s strict requirements for quality, reliability and performance. We sincerely regret any inconvenience that this delay may cause.<br /><br />Hope you're doing well. Take care,<br /><br />Mike Wong<br />SanDisk"

[Janak Parekh]

Yup, this has always been my fear, from the days when Handera and Sony designed proprietary high-resolution and multimedia APIs. You can search on Pocket PC Thoughts for those exact comments. ;) If you check out AeroPlayer, a free music player for Palm devices, they have similar challenges.

When I first got a Pocket PC Phone, I was afraid some stuff wouldn't work, but almost every program has worked perfectly out-of-the-box; only those that need four buttons have had slight issues. Overall, I'm very glad we have that consistency.

Now, Microsoft, just fix ActiveSync, add 480x640 as a standard and we'll be happy. :)

--janak

[PhatCohiba]

Sometimes this business is full of FUD and made-up convient stories that are used to cover up the truth. I really appriciate the efforts to communicate honestly about this.

That this rings true is telling of what Palm will need to do in the upcoming years to keep its platform viable. It will have to create some standardization in both the hardware and os to reign in this problem.

[SandersP]

I think Sandisk has enough of "blame Sandisk' rap from Palm news sites. They finally speak out.

[Ed Hansberry]

There is a difference between hardware creativity and having to hack the heck out of the OS to get it to do what you want. With the exception of screen resolution, there is very little that the Windows CE kernel cannot do, and those that it can't are already being worked into the next version.

PalmOS was great when it came out in 1996, but it stayed with the limited single-task mentality, shunned "files" in favor of "everything is a database" and kept telling people to keep it simple and that means no multitasking. That is all well and good for a PIM solution. The problem is, no one wants a PIM solution anymore and really hasn't since 1999. So, Handspring starts hacking it up to support Springboards and the Handspring OS was always on major rev behind PalmOS. Handera does its own hacks to allow CF cards and alternate screen resolutions. Sony butchered it beyond what anyone else had done with their screen APIs and simulated multitasking media player, which was really a DSP on board since the Palm OS Kadak kernel truly couldn't do it on its own.

And all of those issues are there through OS4.x. OS5 started to move away from it but it was too late. You had OS4 devices being sold in early 2003 and most of 2002. There are bound to be a lot of ticked off OS4 users with very expensive devices (M515 was $450?) that now are looking at sub$200 recoveries on ebay and having to buy a new device to get WiFi capabilities.

Palm caused this problem by not listening to their customers and licensees. The latter took matter into their own hands to deliver solutions the customers wanted and now manufacturers like Sandisk can't handle it. OS5 and OS6 will go a long way toward fixing that, but I feel bad for people with devices less than a year old.

Microsoft isn't immune to this logic. To this day, MS insists you don't need the ability to switch and kill tasks. So, inadvertently, they have introduced a number of different and inconsistent methods to accomplish this (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13460) because third party developers and OEMs themselves are putting task switchers on devices. HP has iTASK, Dell has their own as do many (all?) of the others. At least this mistake isn't causing driver issues and Palm's mistake did, but it does make it frustrating for the end user to get used to one way of doing things then get a new device 18-24 months later and the way changes, or disappears entirely and have to find a third party solution.

There. I think now I can successfully relate any topic back to the close button issue. :lol: :)

[Paragon]

There is a very fine line to be walked when trying to be consistent yet innovative. One of the biggest positive factors of Pocket PC is it's consistency. I have applications I used on my 3600 Ipaq that I can still use on my XDA II. That is very important. Without that ability many people would be much more reluctant to upgrade.

Innovation is what drives the computer industry. Without it where would the industry be? This is where walking the fine line becomes very difficult. Personally I think OEMs need to have a great deal of room to innovate. Perhaps MS should look at widening their requirements for the platform if the OEM is willing to commit to continued support for any new features they may come up with that may be outside the present platform requirements. If I knew that I could buy a new PPC with some new and very cool feature that wasn't available on other PPCs, but knew that the OEM was going to continue to support it allowing me to upgrade and still have that feature even if it narrowed my future choices I think I would do it, if I felt the feature was worth it. All the while knowing that this was a product feature, not a platform feature.

Consistency is good for the core product, but it has to allow for innovation by individual OEMs otherwise the platform becomes stale. Which we are already beginning to see. I think MS needs to be very careful here. Otherwise they are going to have a a very flat uninteresting product on their hands. You can be as critical as you want about Palm but as of late they have done a lot of catching up. Not so much because of their innovating but because of the lack of it in Pocket PC.



Dave

[Thinkingmandavid]

It is unfortunate that palm users will be bothered with this. I know there have been many palm users wanting to get wi fi on their palm so have either waited to update their palm or bought the Tungsten e believing they would have the wi fi soon.
After reading the letter, no one can be for sure how long it will take for the legalities to be taken care of. This means the palms users wanting wi fi are held out on a limb. For those who are Tungsten C users it is all good, but then we are still back to needing a universal standard.
PPc or Palm user, wi fi should always be available and a standard of choice of all pdas.
I think the article was well written and insightful to what is going on behind the scenes with Sandisk, Sychip and Palm.
Thanks to Mike Wong for placing sharing the information and doing it in such an effective way. :)

[Jimmy Dodd]

With the exception of screen resolution, there is very little that the Windows CE kernel cannot do, and those that it can't are already being worked into the next version.


Not to split hairs or anything, but the Windopws CE kernel doesn't have a screen resolution limitation. That limit is imposed by the Pocket PC/Windows Mobile platform itself, not CE. There are plenty of CE devices out there with greater than 320x240 resolution, they just aren't Pocket PCs.

[joelevi]

&lt;sarcasm>
In other news, Franklin Covey has announced an SDIO slot on their upcoming paper-day planner. "It seems people want to get email and send Instant Messages on their day planners," said Mr. Covey in a press release earlier today. "The addition of an industry standard SDIO slot will allow devices such as cameras and WiFi cards to be plugged into your Frankin Planner." This statement came on the heals of SanDisk's annoucement of trouble creating drivers for the Palm OS.

Mr Covery further stated "Just look at what they're trying to do with Palm devices... and they're just a digital version of our paper-based planner system."

This should really hit Pocket PC and Palm devices hard, all they need to do is put an MP3 player in there and both platforms and there will be no reason to use any sort of Digital Assistant.
&lt;/sarcasm>

[Ed Hansberry]

Not to split hairs or anything, but the Windopws CE kernel doesn't have a screen resolution limitation. That limit is imposed by the Pocket PC/Windows Mobile platform itself, not CE. There are plenty of CE devices out there with greater than 320x240 resolution, they just aren't Pocket PCs.
That is a HUGE duh! :duh: Thanks for clarifying. That is a PPC limitation. Of course CE has been supporting just about any resolution imaginable since 1.0. :)

[Felix Torres]

Actually MS *already* allows developers all the necessary latitude they need to innovate.

Witness the SAMSUNG NeXIO and all the many WinCE devices out there.
The key, of course, is that they can't call their device a PocketPC unless compatibility is assured.

So, in reality, you have both scenarios covered; if a developer *wants* to produce a device that diverges enough to break compatibility, they are free to do so. And many do.
But once compatibility is broken, it can't be called a PocketPC because customers expect a Pocket PC to do certain things and run certain software and if it can't, then it really isn't a pocket PC, is it?

PALM's problem isn't so much that they allow too much latitude to their developers; its just that they have no mechanism that ensures consumers are getting what they think they're getting.

The best example of how well this works on the Pocket PC side is how the Toshiba e800-series handles the VGA display. Namely, the fact that pretty much all the MS-supplied apps run fine in VGA-mode, even though they're not supposed to. And many (a majority?) of third party apps also work fine at vga res.

But, since *all* apps don't, and there is no mechanism in place to help users tell which apps do and which don't, the e800 defaults to the QVGA resolution and only runs vga on the apps Toshiba is sure will work.
If nothing else, this tempers user expectations and reduces lawsuits. ;-)

There is a fine line between what a system can do and what a system can be *claimed* to do.
Toshiba (and MS) are simply being conservative in their claims of what the platform can and cannot do, unlike other vendors, who over-promise and under-deliver, leading to the situation now faced by those palm users whose devices have sdio but can't use the sandisk wifi card because the product was not held to the same *branding-requirement* rigors as Pocket PCs.

Much as we like cute toys, it is generally helpful if the toys actually perform as advertised, no?

[Ramin]

I think if Palm had chosen to use BSQUARE's SDIO Now! (http://www.bsquare.com/products/sdionow/default.asp) solution instead of opting for a proprietary SDIO implementation, life would have been easier for their partners. SanDisk/Socket wouldn't have to struggle to obtain IP from pa1m0ne (http://palmOne.com) and PalmSource (http://PalmSource.com) to develop SDIO products when they could just work with BSQUARE.

[Jonathan1]

OS6, whenever it decides to make an appearance, is supposedly geared more towards WIFI interoperability and is supposedly going to have an updated GUI , and is supposedly (Notice a trend here?) going to have better multitasking/threading capabilities, and is supposedly going to be available by 1st quarter of 2004.

With that many supposeds god only knows what the heck is going on at Palm. Either they have a major Ace up the sleeve, They HAVE to be doing something with those BEOS developers other then having them do janitorial work!, or a lame duck. In any case Palm dang well better get on the ball because PPC2004 looks to be a bombshell and if Palm keeps playing these dang games that remaining 50% of the market is going to be shrinking big time in 2004.

[Jonathan1]

Actually MS *already* allows developers all the necessary latitude they need to innovate. Witness the SAMSUNG NeXIO and all the many WinCE devices out there.



Those devices are not Pocket PC devices and as such can't run any PPC software and can't be defined as a Pocket PC. They are some offshoot mobile device that is doing "their own thing" There are still restraints on what OEM’s are allowed to do with the PPC OS, yes yes its basically CE underneath split hairs. As to how much latitude Microsoft is giving OEM's now a days. *shrugs* I'm not an industry insider so who knows.

[yslee]

I'd wait for the dust to settle down first before making any judgement. There seems to be a lot of blaming going around here, from Palm users to Sandisk and back, and back again.

[Tom W.M.]

Those devices are not Pocket PC devices and as such can't run any PPC software...
If just half of the workarounds and hacks available for the Casio BE-300 were available for ARM, you might be surprised. Heck, I would have loved this stuff on my Clio. See http://bee.zmoz.com/ http://www.ppx3k.com/ and http://abfnet.com/

[mcsouth]

It sure seems ironic that Palm was the first manufacturer to put an SD slot in a PDA (at least, as far as I remember - the Casio EM-500 was debated to have SD-compatible hardware, but only supported MMC), but yet, they are the ones who are having compatibility issues with SDIO devices. The hardware can't supply the power necessary to run the WiFi card? Either there is a big variation in the SDIO spec, and Palm went to the bottom end, or perhaps someone isn't playing by the rules....

I still have a fondness for some Palm OS features, and some Palm-compatible apps (ShadowPlan, for one), but I have to admit that the overall experience with PPC just seems better right now....

Incidently, I've heard a few people make reference to the PPC2004 OS with awe and reverence - when is it due, and what is so special about it?

[Ed Hansberry]

It sure seems ironic that Palm was the first manufacturer to put an SD slot in a PDA (at least, as far as I remember - the Casio EM-500 was debated to have SD-compatible hardware, but only supported MMC), but yet, they are the ones who are having compatibility issues with SDIO devices. The hardware can't supply the power necessary to run the WiFi card? Either there is a big variation in the SDIO spec, and Palm went to the bottom end, or perhaps someone isn't playing by the rules....
I've read nothing about it being the slot. It is the OS itself. Sandisk gave up on OS4 and the anemic processors of that OS family and there are so many OEM specific flavors of OS5/5.1/5.2, it is just taking them longer to do it.

No clue on PPC 2004 availablilty or even the real name of the product. Announcements from MS in developer conferences though have made it clear that screen resolutions other than 240X320 will be supported natively and on the fly in the Pocket PC.

[k_kirk]

Side rant...

Microsoft has always maintained that they will not allow OEMs to break the platform that they've created

Frankly, I think thats only because MS delivers a pre-broken platform to the OEMs and can't really afford OEMs taking a second shot at it...

Signed,...
An XDA user who is still peeved about the 32 process at a time limitation , the BT stack test of patience + numerous bugs (errr feature) in an off the shelf product ...