Software maker PalmSource confirmed Tuesday that it delivered on its promise to provide its partners with a new version of its latest operating system for mobile devices before the end of 2004.
PalmSource licensees get new OS
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Eugenia Loli
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After trying CE Phones, P900 and Tungsten C+W, I’m convinced Tungsten W is a much better buy. PalmOS is in terms of users experience completely superior to Symbian.
Symbian is also somehow much more user friendly than CE. I’m sure many users would choose CE because they’re familiar, but these cellular devices are brilliant in the way they make people learn something new. That could have side effects on OS choice for their home computers too in the long run.
Back to topic though. Symbian is neat in many ways, but PalmOS is simply much more thought through, the apps in PalmOS is very mature already on 4.xx level. I can’t imagine how good OS 6 will run, but those Be engineers they acquired are known to be brilliant people, so I wouldn’t expect less from it.
My advice… before buying a “communicator”-like phone, don’t just try the different Symbian devices out there… do try the PalmOS enabled once such as Tungsten and stuff from Handspring+Kyocera. I’m convinced that after you had a look around, the choice will go in terms of system for Palm.
Good job Palm, keep it up!
This particular PR piece was added and removed a few times from PalmSource today (1-6-2004) about a week AFTER PalmOS 6 supposedly shipped. The legalese at the bottom is longer than the “news” portion of the PR.
So far I don’t see anything about this in the PalmSource developer pages. Of course you can shell out $700 bucks and go to the Developer Conference in February for enlightenment.
I’m not saying its NOT true . . . its just very different from an open source release where everybody sees what’s there from day 1. Maybe this old fashioned approach will still work or maybe not. All I can say for sure is it won’t work for me.
I predict it will be about 6 months before this trickles down into anything most of us care about.
OS 6 is probaly pretty cool. It will be interested to see what developers can do with it in terms of new form factors and new devices.
However, i remain more interested in a small form factor, low cost palm os 5 smart phone.
the treo and the samsung i500 (?) are quite nice but too expensive.
Amen. I can’t wait for a phone like the Kyocera 7135 w/ one of those nifty “remember when we hung out here” cameras, a slot for a memory stick, and PalmOS 5.
I’m looking forward to seeing if the Palm OS 6 SDK provides a nice API for developers. I wonder how much of the BeOS OOP features will trickle down to this new release. Such improvements would be a welcome change from the old C style of Palm OS 5 and lower. The more that Palm can simplify and streamline the development process, the more productive the developers will be (perhaps stating the obvious) and the more developers will jump on board.
end of 2003
The p800 is more of a smartphone than a PDA phone It takes the best qualities of the PDA and puts them in a smartphone environment. I love my p800 – it does well
I would consider a palmOS phone if it had multimedia functions like the sony clies and when the “phone edition” comes out from palmOne given that it is a phone/PDA OS rather than a PDA OS with a few phone additions here and there
I’ve used PalmOS through emulation only, but I really like it. However when shopping for an actual unit this year I felt the Palm units were overpriced and, at least statistically, underpowered. I bought a PocketPC with 400mhz processor, 64MB RAM, and 32MB ROM for $200. Palm units in that price range were toys…
Best Wishes,
Bob
Sure Bobthearch! I can iamgine that you feel that way, but the thing is, you’re comparing apples with pears.
First of all, comparing mhz numbers for Mac and PC can fool a person. Why? Not same architecture… same for Palms and Pocket PC’s. Not same architecture. The Palm uses a different CPU which works differently. Someone should be able to tell you a lot more about this or just check Palmsource and their user groups to find specifics.
Also, PalmOS is extremely fast which you will notice when you compare it with a pocket PC.
My experience with Pocket PC is that they tend to work a lot harder than the Palm, also suffering from a lot more power draining and such than the Palm. This leads to greater batterysize which also effects the size of the complete unit.
Do not do the mistake of focusing on cpu frequencys but rather just test 2 devices in same price range and feel the difference.
Just my 0.02€
its true you really can’t compare palm to pocket pc performance based on processor speed.
the palm will give you equal performance on a slower processor and greater battery life. That said palm is using an ARM based processor now which (I believe) is the same thing that pocket pcs use.
I just bought a Tapwave Zodiac myself. Palm OS 5.x with 32MB RAM for $300 and 128 MB RAM for $400. 200 mhz Motorola ARM9 processor, ATI 2d graphics accelerator, and a dedicated Yamaha sound processor. It plays mp3s better than an iPod. I’d like to see a PocketPC match those specs.
As to the processor in PocketPCs, most have Intel XScales processors. Approximately a 400 mhx XScale equals a 200 mhz ARM9.
Thanks for the info. The particular unit I bought has a Intel 400MHz XScale processor, so it is apples and oranges…
I did assume that Palm OS ran smoother than pocket-Windows. I was more concerned about third-party apps requiring more power. And the amount of memory was a factor too.
And too be honest, if I were buying one for myself I’d spend more cash and look seriously at high-end Palm units. 🙂
Thanks again and Best Wishes,
Bob