Why Is It Difficult To Write SDIO Drivers For Palm OS Devices?

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.tomsnetworking.com/News_story_676.php' target='_blank'>http://www.tomsnetworking.com/News_story_676.php</a><br /><br /></div>Palm users have been patiently waiting for SDIO Bluetooth and WiFi support. I've got some good news and some bad news for those users: reports are starting to filter out that SanDisk is nearing a driver release for their SDIO WiFi cards for PalmOS devices, but with a few caveats: first, Palm users will have to use a new SDIO card (not the one already on the market)... and second, Palm users will have to use an old Palm. 8O Strange as it may sound, the Zire 71 will be the only initial Palm device supported. The linked article has a very disturbing quote:<br /><br /><i>"The discontinued Zire 71 is the only model that SanDisk has managed to get to work—no thanks to the folks at PalmOne. According to SanDisk, Zire 72's have a driver problem that prevents them from working with pretty much any card requiring true SDIO capability—although memory cards work fine. SanDisk says it would like to support more PalmOS devices, but to date, PalmOne has not released a patch to correct this problem either publically or to SanDisk."</i><br /><br />The Zire 71!? What bothers me is that PalmOne even has to get involved. Windows Mobile has a very standardized driver API, and even further, most Pocket PC devices have centralized around bSquare's <a href="http://www.bsquare.com/products/sdionow/default.asp">SDIO Now</a> standard, which seems to be working pretty well. Why isn't the same thing happening in the Palm camp? Diversity is great, but if you don't have standardized APIs, it'll eventually lead to trouble -- and this is what a number of us have been saying for a long time.<br /><br />In the meantime, a few users have gotten fed up with the slow driver releases for Bluetooth SDIO cards, in particular for the Treo 600, and have <a href="http://treocentral.com/content/Stories/341-1.htm">started a bounty</a> and is hoping to raise $5,000 to create an incentive for a third-party developer to make a driver. (What I don't get is how this would work, even if a driver were to exist -- could the Treo 600 even route audio over the SDIO slot?)<br /><br />I can't help but think this is crazy. If anyone has more details or clarifications on the technical and business underpinnings of this, please post -- it just sounds needlessly complex, and I feel bad for Palm users <a href="http://palmaddicts.blogspot.com/2004/06/user-thought-why-i-have-to-go-to-ppc.html">who have been waiting forever for support</a>.

[Zack Mahdavi]

Yup, this is why I switched to Windows Mobile. I was waiting for the Sandisk WiFi card to be introduced for my m505, which was supposed to come out May 2003! Needless to say, I gave up waiting and switched..

I wonder how many people have been in a similar situation.... :roll:

[c38b2]

Cobalt will help in the future with things like this.

[Gremmie]

Don't forget Pocket PC's may not be equipped with a 4-bit SD port. So even if you have SDIO, you might get bottlenecked at the connection anyways.

[Jason Dunn]

This is the key difference between building great devices, and building a great platform. Palm is quite good at building devices, but they have no clue how to build a platform. :roll:

[Fishie]

Cobalt will help in the future with things like this.

Yeah thats a big help for people who were counting on this for their current machines.

[orol]

unfortunately since the rules for hw under palm os platform are _very_ relaxed (so every licensee can tweak it as he wants) there are only a few standard APIs :-/

[dorelse]

I dunno about the 'Patiently waiting' part...its more of a forced confinement.

The bluetooth headset bit is a very late addition...I'd expect that to really complicate matters.

My T3 is great, but I'm looking forward to the day my new Audiovox 4100 arrives...before Audiovox/UTStarcomm kills it!

[Macguy59]

First it was a hardware issue. Apparently the SD slots on Palm units were underpowered. That's why it requires a "new" card. BT based cards seem to work ok for OS 5.x based units.

[Ed Hansberry]

Cobalt will help in the future with things like this.

Yeah thats a big help for people who were counting on this for their current machines.
And with PalmOS, it is always the next version that gives them something the world has asked for at least 2 years earlier. :roll:

Why is Palm even bothering? Who needs WiFi for WebClipping? They told us browsers were for desktops and webclipping was optimized for the PDA.

[twalk]

The biggest problem really goes back to the very first device Palm brought out, and what I believe was a bad decision then. In order to get the first Pilot out quicker, Palm licensed a 68K OS kernal from another company. Any "driver" must work through that. This had other bad ramifications, such as having a multitasking kernal, but not permitting programs to multitask (that was a kernal licensing issue, $$$). This bad decision was propagated until PalmOS4. With PalmOS5 you in essense have a 68K emulator running on a very early version of the new PalmOS6 kernal, so I'm not surprised that there are problems.

PalmOS6 will fix this stuff. The BeOS guys that did this are some of the best in the industry.

[Janak Parekh]

PalmOS6 will fix this stuff. The BeOS guys that did this are some of the best in the industry.
What bothers me then is that PalmSource is keeping mum about this, as far as I can tell. Why not at least tell your customers that "sorry, it's not going to happen"? A straightforward explanation would be better, in my opinion.

--janak

[mcsouth]

Agreed. Palm has made some pretty innovative units with the latest T Series Tungsten's, with the sliding section - compact units, yet full screen capabilities. I also like the Zire 71/72 designs. I would probably have bought one a year or two back, but they seem to be slipping behind the curve regarding some of the functionality that some users require. What is the point of buying an expensive PDA if I can't buy accessories for it that work? Considering that Palm was one of the pioneers in supporting the 'then-new' SD cards with their M500 Series, it sure seems ironic that they have done such a crappy job of supporting the IO side of the SDIO spec......if I remember correctly, this was a main reason listed as why the M500 Series were equipped with SD slots, instead of just an MMC slot - it provided IO capability that the MMC form didn't offer.

I guess that confirms my decision to move from my M505 to the PPC world - on my third PPC now, and while I'm still waiting for the 'perfect' device, at least I'm confident that I can buy accessories that will work with my current PDA.....

[bigkingfun]

I switched to PPC a few years ago but I've recently had to start using a Tungsten T2 for my work. I actually really like the hardware, but from a purely subjective point of view the Palm OS just doesn't feel as smooth or powerful as the Pocket PC does.

It reminds me of the days of gaming on DOS and Windows 95. I seem to remember there being all kinds of video card driver gotchas with DOS. The moons all had to line up just right to get everything to work properly. With Windows the drivers were more universal and were easier to deal with. My impression of Palm vs PPC is much the same. Palm has a large installed base and a lot of support behind it (as did DOS), but PPC seems to have much more universal support and I think in time we'll see more and more developers and hardware manufacturers migrate to it (as we did Windows).

[bjornkeizers]

If I was them, I wouldn't even bother releasing the card. If it only works with one palm and an obsolete one at that, nobody in their right mind would ever buy the thing.

[omikron.sk]

Palm has a large installed base and a lot of support behind it (as did DOS), but PPC seems to have much more universal support and I think in time we'll see more and more developers and hardware manufacturers migrate to it (as we did Windows).
Correct.

I was wondering for a long while why BT or WiFi SDIO cards weren't released for such a long time. Thanx for the answer.


:D Windows Mobile :D

[Jonathon Watkins]

PalmOS6 will fix this stuff.

That's not a lot of help for folks who need this working now.

Time to switch to a Pocket PC's. :wink: Even if your PPC doesn't have a 4-bit SD port, it will at least work properly!

[Cipr0]

Just put PPC OS on the treo 600 and you have the winner!

:)

[Pony99CA]

This is the key difference between building great devices, and building a great platform. Palm is quite good at building devices, but they have no clue how to build a platform. :roll:
Let's not get too high and mighty. Anybody who still has alarms that don't fire correctly on their Pocket PCs (on Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile 2003), raise your hands. :roll:

Another example is their constant messing around with Connection Manager, which has had at least three different versions but still has people complaining. Ed even wrote about how bad it was yesterday, and he's a Microsoft MVP!

And what about the anemic Pocket Word? In 2001, it might have been OK, but how about some improvements? Is it really asking too much if I want my simple document with a few styles (like headings) to be preserved if I edit it on my iPAQ? And, of course, if I open the document to read and accidentally make a change (which will cause my formatting to be lost), I can't just quit because there's no Cancel button. :evil:

I know about TextMaker, but it's priced too high for most Pocket PC users, I think. I also know about applications that add cancel buttons, but they aren't part of the native OS.

Finally, where's the damn Task Manager? People have requested, begged for and demanded a task manager at least since Pocket PC 2002 (and probably since Pocket PC 2000), but it looks like we still don't have one in Windows Mobile 2003 SE.

I know there are freeware task managers, and my iPAQ 5550 came with iTask (which isn't bad), but this really should be in the OS. How many people have you seen ask about them?

Yes, Microsoft designed a better platform, but that should be expected given who they are. However, the best platform in the world doesn't mean much if there are bugs, the user interface has problems or the applications stink.

Don't get me wrong -- I've been a supporter of Windows CE and the Pocket PC since they came out and I haven't ever seriously considered a Palm. But let's get our own house in order before we criticize Palm too much. :-)

Steve

[hopbot]

yeah, this does suck. and yeah, this will all be different when the new Palm OS comes out. and yeah, PPCs can do this all right now if they have SDIO slots. having a multitude of devices from many "camps" and being a hard core iPaq 2215 user, I started using a treo 600 a few months ago and it reminded me what is good about many PalmOS-based devices that I’m sorry to say I have not seen in a PPC package yet - simplicity and ease of use.

I know I’ll get flamed for this, but I was shocked myself that I would switch back to the PalmOS. I have a lot invested in PPCs - many devices over the years, lots of purchased software - and with my iPaq I get BT, CF and some cool apps I could only dream of on the palm (Textmaker and PocketArtist alone were keeping me on the PPC platform) but I always see the PPC as a more "geeky" device because of its complexity (or perceived complexity) while the Palm is simple and basic (too basic at times).

I did some informal tests with the 2 devices even though they are really not the same type of device (phone vs. pda with bt phone) whenever I handed my iPaq to someone, they just looked at it and said "cool" while with my treo 600 they would actually start dialing and checking out the camera and i would have to ask for it back.

To date, I have not had the kind of positive, simple, easy experience of having a device that can place calls, check email automatically, take pictures, notes, and write SMS and email messages, etc. that I have had with the treo 600. The engineers and Handspring really proved that usability wins out over OS feature set. Of course, this was a hardware + software effort: the phone is smaller than most PPCs and other PalmOS devices and really nicely designed, and the software (mail, sms, camera, and phone apps) is really amazingly easy to use. I would love to see a PPC be that simple and elegant in its design.

I cannot wait to see the BenQ P50 in action since I think that it will really give the treo600 a run for its money. However, I fear that the kind of usability research and the effort to design good apps that handspring put into the treo will not be matched by the BenQ team. Typically, I’ve seen the PPC vendors just slap windows mobile on the device, package it and sell it while PalmOS devices often have custom software written for the specific device itself - of course, this is because the PalmOS offers less to the vender in terms of apps and such, but maybe this is better for the end-user - then the vendor is forced to create apps that work for one specific purpose rather than just using the generic built-in apps.

[omikron.sk]

And, of course, if I open the document to read and accidentally make a change (which will cause my formatting to be lost), I can't just quit because there's no Cancel button. :evil:

There is!

Tools->Revert to Saved

But I don't like PW, too.

Interesting, that almost nobody is complaining about Pocket Excel and I consider it much more usable than PW, too.

[Janak Parekh]

Finally, where's the damn Task Manager? People have requested, begged for and demanded a task manager at least since Pocket PC 2002 (and probably since Pocket PC 2000), but it looks like we still don't have one in Windows Mobile 2003 SE.
We don't. Microsoft is still of the belief that we don't need one, and despite our (MVP) cries they're convinced of that. There's not much more we can do in that regard...

But let's get our own house in order before we criticize Palm too much. :-)
Well, we criticize the Pocket PC platform all the time - but that doesn't mean we can't talk about the aspects of the Pocket PC that are missing in others' platforms. I think a lot of people here would love to see both platforms improve.

--janak

[MikeUnwired]

The biggest issue is a lack of minimum standards coming from PalmSource. Microsoft has a fairly strict set of minimum standards for various Windows Mobile systems, and that has worked to make the Pocket PC platform hardware easier to develop for and easier to standardize. That said, still issues on both sides.

For instance, I would consider my HP iPAQ h2215's CF slot to be under powered. I can plug a CF to PC Card adapter in, let's say a Dell Axim X5 and utilize the PC Card to my heart's content. However, the CF slot on the HP 2215 produces too little power to run the card.

palmOne isn't apparently playing well with those that want to extend the usability of their hanhelds beyond the original design parameters. Is this because they are creating a necessary upgrade path? Or, is it a customer service nightmare for them? Maybe it's because the APIs are "trade secrets"? I tend to think it's just because they don't have a clue about the value of creating a standard benchmark in their units. They rush, yes I said rush, new hardware models to market and leave useful stuff like stereo headphone jacks, Bluetooth support, suitable SDIO supporting power and alike out. Then, they move on to the next thing on the road map and patching the holes only becomes important when it falls under the umbrella of warranty claims. Bluetooth support isn't a warranty claim issue, thus, it's not going to get any resources. Afterall, you can always scrap the $300 palmOne handheld (or the $600 Treo) and buy the next one when it comes out with the features and functions that could have been in the first with a few drivers added in.

Out-of-the-box Pocket PCs are far from perfect as well, but, in many cases, they can be with a few add-ons that can actually be had given the minimum hardware standards. Now, if I could only flash my Treo 600 with Windows Mobile -- that would be a nice unit... 8)

[Prevost]

This is the key difference between building great devices, and building a great platform. Palm is quite good at building devices, but they have no clue how to build a platform. :roll:
Let's not get too high and mighty. Anybody who still has alarms that don't fire correctly on their Pocket PCs (on Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile 2003), raise your hands. :roll:

Another example is their constant messing around with Connection Manager, which has had at least three different versions but still has people complaining. Ed even wrote about how bad it was yesterday, and he's a Microsoft MVP!

...

Steve
Yeah.

Though a VGA Pocket PC is enticing, just thinking it just won't sync every other day frightens me. HotSync WORKS guys. I've been using Palms for two years and the only HotSync failure I remember was due to having just installed RealCrap.

And Palms do not crash, either...unless you run RealCrap on 'em.

Besides the being or not a "power user" point, those bugs on PPC affects BOTH light and power users.

[Fishie]

This is the key difference between building great devices, and building a great platform. Palm is quite good at building devices, but they have no clue how to build a platform. :roll:
Let's not get too high and mighty. Anybody who still has alarms that don't fire correctly on their Pocket PCs (on Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile 2003), raise your hands. :roll:

Another example is their constant messing around with Connection Manager, which has had at least three different versions but still has people complaining. Ed even wrote about how bad it was yesterday, and he's a Microsoft MVP!

...

Steve
Yeah.

Though a VGA Pocket PC is enticing, just thinking it just won't sync every other day frightens me. HotSync WORKS guys. I've been using Palms for two years and the only HotSync failure I remember was due to having just installed RealCrap.

And Palms do not crash, either...unless you run RealCrap on 'em.

Besides the being or not a "power user" point, those bugs on PPC affects BOTH light and power users.

Ive had Hotsync crash my PC several times(one of the only programs that actually managed to crash my PC at all) and have had more problems with it then I ever had with activesync, Clie´s and tungstens I owned as well proved to be far less reliable then any of the PPCs I ever owned forcing me into several hard resets.
i heard similar stories from other people with Palms, they NEVER had a PPC though and assumed PPCs crashed every other day and their palms were more reliable.

Personaly I think the stability isseu is way overblown.

[Prevost]

Ive had Hotsync crash my PC several times(one of the only programs that actually managed to crash my PC at all) and have had more problems with it then I ever had with activesync, Clie´s and tungstens I owned as well proved to be far less reliable then any of the PPCs I ever owned forcing me into several hard resets.
i heard similar stories from other people with Palms, they NEVER had a PPC though and assumed PPCs crashed every other day and their palms were more reliable.

Personaly I think the stability isseu is way overblown.
Well, I hope so...since Toshiba e830, Loox 700, and Asus VGA are handsome. :wink:

But, the facts stated in the thread "What make your PPC pain" are difficult to overlook. Did you notice stability and ActiveSync's performance where commonly mentioned or aknowledged there???

[Jonathon Watkins]

HotSync WORKS guys. I've been using Palms for two years and the only HotSync failure I remember was due to having just installed RealCrap.

And Palms do not crash, either...unless you run RealCrap on 'em.

Umm, as the owner of a Palm IIIc I have to disagree. Hotsync regularly messed up and previously knocked out my computer. I also have had a fair number of crashes on the IIIc. However, that's in the past. Lets stick to the subject of SDIO Drivers OK? :wink:

[Prevost]

Umm, as the owner of a Palm IIIc I have to disagree. Hotsync regularly messed up and previously knocked out my computer. I also have had a fair number of crashes on the IIIc. However, that's in the past. Lets stick to the subject of SDIO Drivers OK? :wink:
Yeah, probably in the past. Not with the m515 or T's.

Concerning SDIO Drivers, the issue is way beyond my tech knowledge, only can say my pocket is not deep enough to buy a Bluetooth cell phone to conect to a Palm...or better, not deep enough to keep along with the CONTRACT FEES... :mrgreen: In Panama, Bluetooth devices and utility are scarce, and WiFi is something in the moon's dark side.

But, just thinking a bit further, I think also that if someone needs to use I/O cards in a Palm, probably he's using the wrong device, for I assume in most of cases this person might have important storage needs beside his connectivity needs. I just cannot see myself switching back and forth between storage and I/O SD cards in a Palm. BTW, it is a shame there are no Palms with CF AND SD slots...I should search for an answer.

[Ed Hansberry]

Ed even wrote about how bad it was yesterday, and he's a Microsoft MVP!
What does that mean? MVPs speak their minds about MS products all of the time. :confused totally:

[Pony99CA]

Ed even wrote about how bad it was yesterday, and he's a Microsoft MVP!
What does that mean? MVPs speak their minds about MS products all of the time. :confused totally:
All it meant was that you'd think somebody who was a Microsoft Mobile Devices MVP wouldn't have so much trouble. If an expert on the Pocket PC can have such trouble, imagine what new users will experience.

I thought that was pretty clear, which just goes to show how something seemingly obvious to even a careful author can be taken completely the wrong way. :-| I know MVPs speak their minds about Microsoft; I've been here long enough to know that.you and Jason prove that regularly. :-D

Steve