Palm to Announce New Treo in September

bain writes "Reuters reports that Palm has committed to unveiling at least one of its next-gen Treos next month. It's believed that it will be the Windows Mobile-based UMTS model first mentioned for Vodafone in July." From the article: "The California-based firm said in July the new version will operate on Vodafone's high-speed third generation (3G) network and be powered by Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile operating system, however details about the handset's functionality remain sketchy. The current 700p version of the latest Treo has a slot for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards, but with the latest Nokia, Sony Ericsson and O2 offerings all boasting the technology in-built, Palm knows it can not afford to fall further behind as the competition heats up."

Re:

[neonprimetime]

Will this article [slashdot.org] have any bearing on it's release date?

I doubt it if anybody within Palm reads /.

Re:

[ilovegeorgebush]

I should have said "will this articles facts have any bearing"...sorry.

Sorry, Symbian 60 has won this Palm user

[Anonymous Coward]

As a longtime Palm fan-boy, it saddens me to know that my next 'device' will by a Nokia S60 phone. After playing with an old hand-me-down 6600 device for a few months now, and not needing to even use my Palm, I see that Nokia has managed the Smartphone balance impressively.

Come on! This thing runs python! You can whip up your own apps in a few minutes, without any of the kludge needed for the supposedly homebrew-friendly Palm OS.

Additionally the natively multitasking OS that is Symbian is impressive - I never really understood the advantage of this when using a Palm, but now really love the ability to jump between my calendar, text, email and Soduku mid-task without having to restart things. Very nice.

Palm fans - have a look at S60, it seems to be have a lot in common with the culture of the Palm community in the mid-90's.

N80, here I come. Sorry Palm.

Re:

[paesano]

There is a lot to love about S60. I've had a 3230 for some time now, but I always find myself going back to the the Treo 650. Yeah, it crashes occassionally, but it reboots fast. :-) Bottom line, the Palm OS organizer apps are far superior, IMHO. Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks are clean, fast and very, very useful. Combine all that with ChatterEmail for Push Email (using IMAP IDLE) and you have an amazing device. Finally, I simply must have a qwerty keyboard For SMS and writing Emails. Also, I've trie

Re:

[ericdano]

As a NEW Treo 650 owner, I love it. Palm Apps are great on it. The Treo is replacing my Palm Vx (which still works) as my cellphone/PDA. I'm in love.

I looked at the Windows Mobile Palm 700w. Yuck. It's just begging for viruses or other problems.....

Re:

[Abcd1234]

Bottom line, the Palm OS organizer apps are far superior, IMHO. Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks are clean, fast and very, very useful.

Indeed... though, if you really want to see what a Palm-based calendaring app can do, check out DateBk5 [pimlicosoftware.com]. It blows Palm's calendaring application clean out of the water.

Re:

[tzanger]

Agreed. I am a longtime fan of Palm, but their smartphone line sucks hairy goat nad.

Weak bluetooth stack, no wifi capability (crippled, even), legendary instability, low memory, inability to properly use an SD/MMC card for memory, not just weak but positively craptastic phone app... all in a bulky-assed package. That's the Treo 600/650/700p.

I've moved to a Nokia 6265i with a T|X. It's still not perfect, because Palm's crippled the bluetooth dialing of their handhelds, but I can hack around that easi

Re:Sorry, Symbian 60 has won this Palm user

[Jahz]

I cannot find a phone that doesn't lock out all bluetooth communications when a headset is connected.

I like the idea of controlling multiple devices with a single BT master (which is what I htink you were describing) so I decided to check into this. Note that I am not an export of BT and have never read any of the specs until now. Okay, so Google pointed me to the Bluetooth website at http://www.bluetooth.com./ [www.bluetooth.com] There you can find the architecture specs for the protocal.

The handsfree spec requires certain QoS guarantees, and imposes some requirements on the phones. For example, there can be only one handsfree (HF) device perl phone (AG). ALL sounds, including voice, KEY TONES, voice dialing, music, etc must be routed over the link to the HF device. For that reason cell for phones likely try to keep handsfree devices in the Active state for as long as they are connected. The important bits of text can be found in the Hands Free Specification, section 4.6:

Upon a user action or an internal event, either the HF or the AG may initiate the establishment of an Audio Connection whenever necessary. Further internal actions may be needed by the HF or the AG to internally route the audio paths.
An Audio Connection set up procedure always means the establishment of a SCO link and it is always associated with an existing Service Level Connection.
In principle, setting up an Audio Connection by using the procedure described in this section is not necessarily related to any call process.
Once an Audio Connection between the HF and the AG exists, the AG shall utilize the HF as its sole audio port. The AG shall keep the audio paths, call related or not, routed towards HF for all the operations (e.g. voice, alert, key press tones) involving presence of audio.

To elaborate, BT slave devices can be set to either Active or Parked. Parked devices can't talk back to the phone, but the phone still needs to transmit a beacon packet every time the slaves reserved time slice comes up. Active mode devices can communicate based on one of several protocols. Handsfree requires Synchronous Connection-Oriented or SCO, which provides 64Kb CDR audio communication. It also requires that the physical link connnection remain in the Active state.

Cell phones probably have very light BT stacks, including extremely limited buffers. That probably sets a hard limit on the number of devices that they can form active physical links with. To that end, the cell makers most likely set up handsfree systems to automatically park all other physical connections.

If you were thinking that the phones should then just set up a new BT network with other non HF devices, think again.
I found this paragraph in Section volume 1, section 4.1 of the Core specification titled "Piconet Topology"

A Bluetooth device may participate concurrently in two or more piconets. It
does this on a time-division multiplexing basis. A Bluetooth device can never
be a master of more than one piconet. (Since the piconet is defined by synchronization
to the master's Bluetooth clock it is impossible to be the master of
two or more piconets.) A Bluetooth device may be a slave in many independent
piconets.

Due to use of TDMA slices as the master channel, hosting more than once Piconet with the same master (or just on the same channel) would not work. If BT used CDMA, this would be possible. It should be possible for your phone to be a SLAVE to your other devices while MASTER to the handsfree.

Lesson: there is more to this than you think. The core spec alone is 1300 pages of IEEE dribble.

Re:

[tzanger]

To elaborate, BT slave devices can be set to either Active or Parked. Parked devices can't talk back to the phone, but the phone still needs to transmit a beacon packet every time the slaves reserved time slice comes up. Active mode devices can communicate based on one of several protocols. Handsfree requires Synchronous Connection-Oriented or SCO, which provides 64Kb CDR audio communication. It also requires that the physical link connnection remain in the Active state.

The phone shuts down the audio co

Re:

[Jahz]

In other words, it does seem to shut down audio to conserve battery of both the phone and the headset, but it keeps the connection in full-out active mode. (it is probably closing down the SCO connection but nothing else).

I am a bit fuzzy as to how SCO is implemented in practice. It's QoS guarantee might be the real problem here. A note on "Parking"... I think parking the device will save any real battery life. Parked devices can ONLY recieve beacons, so the phone doesnt have to do any real legwork there.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, Windows Mobile has run Python since 2004. It also runs Ruby and many other esoteric language environments. You should choose Windows Mobile over the soon to be obsolete S60.

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

You should choose Windows Mobile

As a happy signatory of the ABM[1] treaty, I'll do nothing of the kind, sir.

[1]Anything But Microsoft

Re:

[yet another coward]

I agree except for the availability of the phones in the USA. The current N80 is somewhat handicapped in the USA by differences in frequencies used. Cingular is forever deciding to drop the latest S60 phone before deciding at the last moment not to and then bringing out a buggy version. T-Mobile has failed to progress. Nokia can manage only weak offering for non-GSM networks. I do not know whether Nokia will ever bring out any S60 phone for Sprint or Verizon. For that matter, Sprint and Verizon are both so

Re:

[CandyMan]

Mine is going to be a Trolltech-designed Linux-Running Greenphone [linuxdevices.com]. Sooner or later someone will make a Palm clone interface for it (or even better, a Newton clone) and all will be golden. And it will run Python out of the box, so you should be happy with it too.

I will have to wait a bit, alas, for I just bought a Treo 650 three weeks ago. It hasn't crashed once since either, so I am quite happy with it. Now, if I could just find a cheap screenless bluetooth GPS unit to go with it...

Treo using Windows Mobile

[neonprimetime]

The company is hoping the move to the Windows Mobile will help alleviate the concerns of Treo users who have long complained of Palm's own operating system crashing the handsets on a regular basis.

I preferred the Palm OS. Simple yet effective. And who's to say that the Windows Mobile OS won't crash just as much? Plus you have to worry about viruses and security issues with Windows. Sure it looks prettier, but I don't like the move.

Re:

[adamjaskie]

Me neither. I love the Palm OS. It is perfect for what it is: a PDA. Windows is fine for a desktop machine, but Palm is designed with PDAs in mind from the beginning, rather than designed to be Windows adapted to a PDA. A PDA isn't a handheld replacement for a desktop computer, it is an electronic replacement for a DayPlanner/Rolodex/etc.

Re:

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Windows is fine for a desktop machine, but Palm is designed with PDAs in mind from the beginning

It doesn't matter what the OS was originally designed to do 10 years ago. What matters is where the OS is at now. Judging from real world experience, rather than irrelevant ideals, PalmOS ceased to be up to the task of managing a complex PDA a few years back.

Re:

[adamjaskie]

I simply found the task-based interface of the PalmOS far more useful on a limited-use device such as a PDA. Windows has a lot more "stuff" going on, and the Palm "Throw all six programs up on the screen at once" interface is a lot faster if you just need to grab a phone number, or see what your appointments are next Tuesday. If I need a portable computer, I have a laptop.

Palm is the plain old analog watch of PDAs. You look at it and it tells you the time; no frills, no multiple time zones, stopwatches, lap

Re:

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

My PDA of choice is a Palm Z22. It's a bare bones PDA and PalmOS is great on it. But a phone has much more functionality than my Z22 and that functionality is highly asynchronous in nature. So phones, like laptops, need a real OS.

Re:

[xjerky]

Besides, the Treo is meant to be more than just a PDA. But PalmOS just isn't equipped to properly handle the Internet access it provides. I hate that I would be in an SSH session using the Treo, then I get a new text message. If I actually go to look at it real quick my session is totally lost and I have to start all over again. Same goes for the "browser".

Re:

[tehwebguy]

a buddy at work has the windows mobile powered t-mobile MDA, and it is total garbage. if certain people call him, it crashes. it's insane..

Re:

[dfghjk]

my experience as well. The MDA is total garbage. Unfortunately, the Treo 650 would crash in the same ways and more fequently.

Re:

[tehwebguy]

oh well, i'll just stick to my trusty nokia 8890

Re:

[D'Arque Bishop]

Have him see if there's a firmware update for the device from T-Mobile or HTC. My own Cingular WM5 device was just as buggy and unstable, until I found that there was a firmware update available from HTC. Once I applied it, not only did the direct-push email work MUCH better, the device itself has been relatively stable and crash-free.

Hope this helps...

Re:

[cosminn]

weird .. i have the SDA from T-Mobile and I haven't had any crashes whatsoever.

The only complaint is that it takes about 30 seconds to get back the signal if it loses it

Re:

[dfghjk]

"And who's to say that the Windows Mobile OS won't crash just as much?"

I say for one. I've owned both and they're both horrible but nothing crashes as frequently as a Treo 650. It is pathetic.

"Plus you have to worry about viruses and security issues with Windows."

Virus and security concerns are not significantly different among mobile platforms. Windows Mobile is not Windows.

Re:

[the_maddman]

There's something WORSE than the Treo 700w? Where I work got 5 of them, and they lasted less than a week before the users were screaming at Verizon to take them back. Whoever decided to hide the reset switch on a windows mobile under the battery door was an idiot.

Re:

[dfghjk]

i agree. i don't know which is worse between the horrible usability and performance of WM5 and the wretched instability of PalmOS on the 650. The reset button is one of the more used features though. I know that for a fact.

My Treo 650 only crashes due to 3rd-party hacks

[KWTm]

I just got my new Treo 650 last month. (Not the newer 700 because the 650 is the only one that comes unlocked; the others are tied to cell phone providers.) It only seems to crash when I have the program Silkscreen installed; once I turn it off, it seems to be stable.

Unfortunately, Silkscreen provided a number of unique valuable functions. It lets me use Graffiti instead of just the keyboard, thus allowing me to use the "shortcut" key and punctuation marks like the semicolon. (I can't believe that the T

Re:

[dfghjk]

just wait---it gets worse (and worse and worse)

Re:

[supersocialist]

Have you tried using Resco Locker [freewarepalm.com] to secure SilkScreen? Otherwise, check out Grafiti Anywhere for that feature. I've never had a crash with it. ShortCut5 [palmgear.com] adds a prefs panel that will let you add or modify shortcuts, and trigger them with a period instead of the original odd character.

Re:

[BenjyD]

PalmOS is definitely at the bottom of the pile for reliability. It was a great piece of engineering back when it was new, but these days it's pretty antiquated.

I went back to paper because of Palm

[doublem]

Palm's decision to dump their OS is a good one. I've found the OS to be buggy, unstable and unreliable. Hell, it's memory management is so poor Nethack was never ported to it! My experiences with a Tungsten 2 were so bad that I ended up smashing the damn thing against the wall and going back to a paper day planner.

And you know what, I'm glad I made the transition. It's easier to look up data in the paper day planner, it's not delicate, and all I have to do is transcribe my changes into my computer once

Re:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"I preferred the Palm OS. Simple yet effective. And who's to say that the Windows Mobile OS won't crash just as much?"

I actually don't own a Windows based phone for that reason. I've heard a couple of first hand accounts from people that bitched about its stability. I have several friends with Treos and I haven't heard a thing about crashes.

"Plus you have to worry about viruses and security issues with Windows. Sure it looks prettier, but I don't like the move.'

I haven't heard a peep about security proble

Re:

[Abcd1234]

And who's to say that the Windows Mobile OS won't crash just as much?

And at least in the case of Palm, there are developed remedies for some of the instability problems. The first two pieces of software I installed on my T|X were:

1. Resco Locker (an absolute must if you have an NVFS-based device)
2. UDMH

With those apps, my T|X very rarely crashes.

Not dead, just deserves to die

[Anonymous Coward]

Palm's not dead, it just deserves to die, as it's become another stale company - living off the past and with no vision of the future.

The platform showed such promise initially; with an admirable focus which is the antithesis of the Windows mobile 'everything but the kitchen sink' approach. Unfortunately for the last few years their desktop AND PDA software has stagnated, and their hardware is hardly sensational compared to the phones which are out now. I think the problems all started when they spun off palm-source, which is now in a death-spiral and still trying to sell products which belong in the 1990s. Watch MS carefully cut off Palm's air-supply once they become dependant on Windows CE.

Where are the PDAs with strong links between a carefully chosen set of PIM applications, which syncs seamlessly with desktops on all operating systems?
Where are the ebooks with larger screens rolled up inside them, or a projector, and which use the millions of free classics on sites like Project Gutenberg?
Where is the new mobile operating system which should have arrived years ago, tailored to these devices and their limitations?

Re:Not dead, just deserves to die

[jalefkowit]

I think the problems all started when they spun off palm-source, which is now in a death-spiral and still trying to sell products which belong in the 1990s.

Seriously. Palm has been in a sinkhole for many years now. Consider that last year, Palm paid PalmSource -- a company that it spun off from itself -- $30 million [siliconvalley.com] just for the right to use the name "Palm" again! (They'd rebranded themselves as "PalmOne" during the spinoff process, and split the rights to the "Palm Inc." name with PalmSource.)

Palm Inc. will someday be a case study for MBAs on how to take something great and drive it right into the ground.

Re:

[loyukfai]

It seems to me as well that Palm is always killing itself.

It started off as a promising unit inside 3Com, which was then spun off. A nice move except that the major brains left soon after (and some of them started Handspring).

Not long after Palm started to stagnate and see other Palm OS licensees passing it by handily (at least technologically, even if not in terms of sales, Palm always has been favoured because of its name), it bought Handspring, which rejuvenated itself for a while.

Then, Palm again starte

Re:

[LurkerXXX]

What ever happened to their plans to release an OS for it based on BeOS? That thing should have ruled the handheld world by now...

Who cares?

[WhiteWolf666]

What's so cool about another Windows Mobile device?

Why wouldn't I want the latest and greatest symbian device, instead? Why do I even care about Palm?

Re:

[Erwos]

Well, first of all, the blurb doesn't mention that one of the new Treos is going to be PalmOS-based - so WM5-haters should be placated somewhat. As for Symbian's greatness, that's only helpful if your cell provider is GSM - there are practically no Symbian CDMA phones. PalmOS and WM5 are much less rare in CDMA phones. So, I don't really get what's so cool about yet another Symbian device, either.

The article also doesn't mention that Sprint is (apparently) getting the Treo 700wx in September, which is suppos

Re:

[dfghjk]

I replaced my Treo 650 with a T-mobile MDA because the 650 was so unstable and it became clear that Palm would never fix it. Trouble was that the MDA was horribly slow, buggy, and poorly thought out. I replaced the MDA with a Nokia E61 (a Symbian device) and have found that it is also poorly thought out, difficult to use, and buggy as well. Very infuriating. Even though Nokia has used Symbian for a long time, 3rd party apps are in short supply and they still can't keep the device from crashing. I'm sti

Re:

[BenjyD]

I've only heard good things from people I know with E61s - what problems did you find with it?

Re:

[dfghjk]

It locks up frequently and required a battery removal to fix it. Often it grinds to a halt and takes over a minute to snap out of it. When I get calls it frequently jumps into the messaging app once I answer instead of the phone app. The email functions seems to be the greatest cause of stability problems so I avoid using email when it's not necessary. I still reset it more than once a day. Often I get no alerts on calls of text messages.

As far as ergonomics, the E61 is pretty bad. There's a nonprogram

Re:

[GoatMonkey2112]

Slashdot wants to post articles that will start discussions here. How interesting would the posts be for an article that just sings the praises of Linux?

Dillettante reporting

[Shoten]

(sigh)

It always bothers me when a news report talks about the strategic future of things, when the reporter makes a fairly fundamental mistake to show that he/she isn't really all that familiar with the subject matter. The comment that implies that Treo 700s don't support bluetooth, plus the statement about how Palm stopped selling the 650 in Europe because of standards incompatibility, show that 1, the reporter (Marc Jones) isn't familiar with Palm software, and 2, doesn't get that older phones won't be compatible with new standards, and that it's not a bad thing when sales of them stops, when there's a new phone on the block anyways that IS compatible.

I know they're both kind of minor points, but what I hate is how it casts a shadow of doubt on the whole article. It seems like the reporter is out of touch, and so I wonder what else may be wrong that I don't know well enough to spot.

Re:

[Dr. Manhattan]

It always bothers me when a news report talks about the strategic future of things, when the reporter makes a fairly fundamental mistake to show that he/she isn't really all that familiar with the subject matter.

As an owner of a new Treo 650p (about a month now) I've been quite pleased with it. It doesn't do Wifi, and that's a bit disappointing, but so far I haven't really missed it. As a Palm it's a good unit, as a phone it works well, and having them combined is a nice convenience. Battery life's been (

KISS!

[andrewman327]

I use a Palm LifeDrive and enjoy its built in wifi. The Treo could benefit from this, but overall they need to remember to make a product that works. Sure the Treo could pack every possible gadget possible into its case, but users are not really looking for that. WiFi [palm.com] is very very popular and I believe it should be integrated, but TFA has the wrong attitude. They should focus on making the device as useable as they can. The Treo is a PDA and a cell phone, not an amazing spactacular all-in-one uber device that can change the baby while transferring your call from cellular to Skype. The reason that my friends use the Treo is because it easily works.

Re:

[tzanger]

I've used a Treo650 since November last year. It does not easily work. It's unstable, the bluetooth is shitty, the network connectivity lacks wifi (onboard doesn't bother me, but they crippled it so the sdio card won't work), the phone app itself sucks ass... It works, but barely.

Re:

[supersocialist]

They didn't "cripple" it--it was designed poorly from the start, and the IP stack can't handle multiple wireless radios. Never attribute to malevolence what can be easily explained by incompetence...

Re:

[tzanger]

No, crippled. There has been some work to get the Wifi card to work, and in fact by manipulating the HAL tables a little you can get the T|X network stack to work (bluetooth, wifi, PPP) -- at least in theory... this was crippled on purpose to keep the cell carriers happy.

Re:

[supersocialist]

I'd like to hear more about that little trick if you know anything. Last I heard hacking the TX stack in broke the CDMA radio.

Re:

[Em Ellel]

use a Palm LifeDrive and enjoy its built in wifi. The Treo could benefit from this, but overall they need to remember to make a product that works. Sure the Treo could pack every possible gadget possible into its case, but users are not really looking for that. WiFi is very very popular and I believe it should be integrated, but TFA has the wrong attitude.

I am not sure why people have such an obsession with Wi-Fi on treo. While I do think it can be fun to play with, I do not think it overall adds much valu

Re:

[Cederic]

My Treo replacement has onboard wi-fi, in addition to standard GSM, 3G (whatever protocol that uses) and bluetooth.

In London for four days a couple of weeks ago, with a non-wifi capable company laptop, I used my phone for all my net access over an open hotspot (we presume provided by the company hosting us - 13 floors up it's unlikely to be the coffee shop down the street).

Phone + wifi = internet without mobile phone company charges. Given I'm on a $7/MB data plan (but 50 minutes a day free voice calls) wif

Re:

[Em Ellel]

I belive a $30 USB Wi-Fi dongle is a LOT cheaper and simpler than a $500 phone. Hell, a $50 wi-fi router or access point is a simpler solution. And while I admire your creativity with limited resources, it is about as far from KISS principle as it comes.

-Em

Re:

[Cederic]

the unusual thing was having any laptop with me at all. A $500 phone is cheaper than a $500 phone + a $500 laptop + a $30 wifi dongle and considerably easier to carry.

I almost always have my phone on me. I almost never carry a laptop around. I almost always want email access (although in reality I can go anything up to 18 hours without ;)

~ced

Re:

[Em Ellel]

Like I said, I *get* why it would be a fun toy. But the reality is that for majority of us checking email without WiFi is not an issue. I can check email any time and even have the email pushed to me if I want to (I don't) and all without being tied to a wi-fi spot. I can also get a fairly fast connection to internet on my laptop via my phone without a wifi (Much more usefull IMHO) I would much rather see better bluetooth support(why hide Dial-Up-Networking???), more reliable and complete software,(Why do I

Will they fix the hardware problems?

[Lumpy]

Buzzing and lockups when battery is about 1 year old?

These problems have been in the treo's cince the 600 and still are not resolved.

Another model?

[scdeimos]

Geez, Palm, don't you think it'd be nice if you released the 700p/w to all markets before you start selling the next model?

Re:

[Em Ellel]

Geez, Palm, don't you think it'd be nice if you released the 700p/w to all markets before you start selling the next model?

Is it Palm or the actual cariers that block this? I would think it is the carriers that decide this.

-Em

Re:

[supersocialist]

Palm signed a 6-month exclusivity contract with Verizon on the 700w. The 700wx is coming out for Sprint next month, or so they say.

Wouldn't trust this article

[vsync64]

The current 700p version of the latest Treo has a slot for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards, but with the latest Nokia, Sony Ericsson and O2 offerings all boasting the technology in-built, Palm knows it can not afford to fall further behind as the competition heats up.

I have a Treo 700p and I can assure you that it has Bluetooth built-in, as did the 650 before it. With an error this basic at the heart of the article, who knows what other inaccuracies are lurking?

Windows Mobile? What happened to BeOS?

[tji]

BeOS was sold to Palm a long time ago, and they were supposedly going to use that as their next-gen OS. What ever happened to that plan? How did they now move to Windows?

It's too bad the BeOS technology will just be lost inside Palm.. I'm sure there is little chance of them open sourcing the code instead of just letting it die.

Re:Windows Mobile? What happened to BeOS?

[bfree]

Palm became PalmOne (hardware) and PalmSource (software). Then PalmOne bought out the Palm name from PalmSource who were subsequently bought by Access. While most comments here are discussing the future of the Palm company, I am far more interested in seeing the future of the Access/PalmSource company and whether they can make their ambitious Linux plans pay off for them and for hardware manufacturers who might license their upcoming OS. The short story being that the next PalmSource system should allow existing Palm applications and new applications based on the Free Software layers to both operate together. In the past both IBM and Sony have licensed Palm software, perhaps the new Linux based system will have them both re-inventing portable/handheld/pda/???? with the support of a software company with no competing hardware interests.

As for BeOS, I suspect anything from it got lost in the still-born PalmOS 6. Perhaps Access/PalmSource (assuming they have it) could be convinced to release it as Free Software, they had already adopted Eclipse + prc-tools etc as a build chain and are moving to Linux as a kernel so they are familiar with the idea of using Free Software.

Re:

[JamieF]

PalmSource was at LinuxWorld last week demoing the new OS and development environment. You can run GTK apps natively, and legacy (i.e. 68K Garnet) applications in emulation as well. The OS development environment uses User Mode Linux and Scratchbox.

They also had reference hardware on display. It was an XScale board in a clear lucite box (about the size of a laptop) with a cable going up to a screen inset into a similarly large panel. So, not at all a miniaturization mock up or proof of concept (not really n

700p no camera?

[charliebear]

How about the no camera version of the 700p first. Can't have a camera in my phone due to work issues. Want to trade up from my 650.... If the Motorola Q had no camera, I might check it out.

Re:

[supersocialist]

Take a look around TreoCentral. Removing your camera is a pretty easy hack, if you don't mind the minor detail of voiding your warranty. Just remember to put it back in before you go in for service!

Another inaccuracy

[supersocialist]

The Treo's SDIO slot doesn't support wifi, PERIOD, unless you use an older firmware and a third-party hack by Shadowmite. The IP stack is all kinds of fucked, and even with the hack, you had to disable the CDMA radio to make wifi work. You can also add a "wifi sled" by a company called Enfora, but that's a little bulky. On the subject of stability, though, it's a lot like Windows: the more third-party apps you install, the more likely it is you'll reset every damn day. With careful app selection and prefe

Re:

[lowrydr310]

Can you elaborate? What kind of custom rom do you need to ensure stability and where do you get it? How do you 'carefully' select apps to install?

My wife has a 700p and it doesn't crash much, though the only apps she regularly uses are Blazer, Bejeweled, and the phone. I'm interested in a custom ROM to get rid of the crap that Sprint installed by default, GetBC (business connection) and GetGood (whatever that is). I'd also like the ability to use downloaded files as freely as I choose. Sometimes downloade

Re:

[supersocialist]

To make a custom rom, you'll need Grack's Rom Tool [grack.com]. At one point you could simply download a custom rom, but PalmOne asked Shadowmite to take them down and he did. You'll have to use the tool to extract your rom, modify it, and reload it on the phone. Use this list [shadowmite.com] (danger: pdf) to determine what you can and want to delete. I got rid of everything I don't use, from the tutorial to VersaMail. I added a small handful of programs I can't live without, like pFuel, CMDBar, CMDWay, DA Launcher, and SharkNav. Some

Why I just bought a Treo 700p

[Yeechang Lee]

I just bought a Palm Treo 700p through Sprint. It is my fifth Palm OS-based device, and replaces both a Sony Ericsson T610 (T-Mobile) and a Sony Clie UX50.

I wanted:
* Synchronization with Outlook at work.
* A data service faster than the T610's GPRS.
* A keyboard.
* Small size.
* If possible, keep using my large library of Palm OS applications.

Yes, there's no question that the Palm OS is aging fast; there's a reason why Palm OS 5.4.9 is nicknamed FrankenGarnet. However, in my mind, it's still the best choice:

* Windows Mobile (such as in the Treo 700w) - What's the point of preemptive multitasking if the user interface and phone aspects of the device are awful? The 700w's 240x240 resolution is inferior to the Treo's 320x320, anyway; text on the latter looks *great* when using a replacement TrueType-based font and FontSmoother.
* Symbian OS - I know that Symbian, thanks to its EPOC ancestry, is one fantastic piece of work. However, even if (as another poster noted) one can use Python to develop for it, in practice the third-party development community is a fraction of that for the Palm OS. The one S60-based device that has the display resolution I'd want, the N90, is a $600 GSM-only camera-hybrid monster that still doesn't come with a keyboard. And what's with the multiple, mutually-incompatible OS iterations (S60 v2, S60v3, S90, etc., etc.)? I can still run Palm OS applications I started using on my first Pilot 1000 from March 1997.

By contrast, my Treo 700p gives me:
* The same solid out-of-the-box synchronization with Outlook as with my previous PDAs. Having been able to keep around every calendar and contact entry I've made since that first Pilot 1000 is not only convenient but invaluable.
* EV-DO. It's fast enough for emergency logging into work through Windows Terminal Server with my notebook, something that "slower than 28.8K dialup" GPRS certainly couldn't do. Sprint's EV-DO network is up and rolling in 200 US metro areas.
* A tiny, but quite usable, keyboard.
* A very pocketable form factor. I'm a guy, and have no desire to start carrying a Tribbianish man-bag to carry one of those Nokia monster phones. Although the T610 and UX50 were together not hard to carry in one pocket (it helps to be a six-footer), the 700p is easier still.
* As mentioned above, access to the entire gigantic library of Palm OS applications.
* An unexpected bonus: With Sprint's PCS Business Connection service, I have push access to my work mail, meaning that the 700p has *also* replaced my BlackBerry. It's not quite as elegant as a BlackBerry, but is still quite usable. Besides, it looks like within a few months I'll be able to use either GoodLink or BlackBerry connect to make the process even more seamless.

That said, I'll be dismayed if my next phone/PDA isn't some kind of Linux- or some other modern OS-based platform. I don't care whether it's Symbian, Palm 6 Cobalt, the Qtopia Greenphone I saw at LinuxWorld, something Nokia 770-based, something Sharp Zaurus-based, etc., etc., as long as it has the above features. (Of course, I said this before purchasing the UX50, and the PDA before that, too.)

Re:

[Yeechang Lee]

I neglected to mention in the above post that, although the thinner, antenna stub-less form factor of the upcoming Treo the article mentions is appealing, the UMTS and Windows Mobile are not.

Re:

[pixelpusher220]

I have the Sprint Treo650 and using PDANet I can get 70K speeds pretty regularly. I won't claim to know if this is EV-DO but my guess is it's not. It's using the same data network that Sprint had in place for the 600.

It's not the 300K of the latest and greatest, but it's free and it's anywhere you can get a signal ;-)

Short wish list

[Dark Paladin]

As a Treo 650 user, here's a small list of things I hope they put in. I realize the 750 will likely be a Windows machine at first (like the 700w, then the 700p which later had Palm support), but still:

1. Wi-Fi support. I'd love to be able to hook into a Skype/Gizmo Project client and just start talking without worrying about my minutes in my home or other Wi-Fi locations. That, and it would be better internet.

2. True Blackberry support. Right now through Sprint they have some Exchange hook in thing wh

Treo 650 rocks

[sprintstar]

I have just traded my Orange UK Treo 600 in for a 650. IMHO the Treo is still the best PDA phone out there. Sure, there are smaller faster, more tricked out, more powerful, more complex phones out there, but none as fully rounded and useable as the Treo.

I used to use a Palm (when it was a 'Pilot'), and carry a phone, but moved to the Treo 600 to eliminate having to carry around 2 devices. I never looked back.

When I was looking for a new phone i looked at other devices as well as the Treo. Most 'phones'

Re:

[sprintstar]

No, GPRS doesn't 'stop' just because you have gone to another application..

Switching to Windows

[solid_liq]

Okay, I see their logic: switch to a Microsoft Windows operating system to prevent crashing... Makes sense, right? ;)

Its gotta be better than the 700w

[binaryspiral]

I'd like to think of the 700w as a good first try. Now, include better bluetooth support, more software patches, better memory management, faster processor, higher resolution screen, wifi, and (yeah I know I'm dreaming) longer battery life - and you'll have yourself a good v2.

I'm satisfied with my 700w. Given that my company paid for all of but a few bucks of the phone. My other option was a generic WinMob5 phone that many people I work with hate to the point they're trading them in on standard phones.

I'm o

Hope SCO doesn't ruin them first

[Just Some Guy]

I hope Palm's decision to allow themselves to be used in SCO's advertising doesn't come back to bite them. Quoth SCO's press release [yahoo.com]:

"SCO has shown a high degree of innovation with the mobile services they have created for the Treo platform," said Mike Rank, director of Developer Relations at Palm, Inc. "We look forward to continuing our work with them on the Palm Treo 700 series as they continue to help Treo users gain even greater value from their devices."

On the one hand, there are probably a lot