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Handhelds Hardware

3Com To Charge $20 For Palm OS 3.5 101

Posted by timothy from the will-this-raise-the-price-of-visors-too? dept.
Alex Bischoff writes: "According to this NY Times Article, 3Com will release Palm OS 3.5 in the fall, but for about $20. 'Mr. Cook said that he had already heard grumbling from some Palm users about the upgrading fee and that some future releases might still be free.' ObCredit: PalmStation." (Free registration, worth every penny.) I wonder if this is a way to sell more (new) Palms?
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3Com To Charge $20 For Palm OS 3.5 More

3Com To Charge $20 For Palm OS 3.5

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  • ...when you can simply buy a brand spanking new palm of the same type you already have now, stick your old one in the box, and return it. Bam, free upgrade to OS 3.5 and a new palm. Just be sure you do a hard reset and wipe your old data off once you verify your data is on the new palm. This will also benefit those who might have a palm device with the bad memory installed. Just buy the new palm, back up all your databases from the old palm, put the new palm in the cradle, sync it, and you're pretty much done. It would probably take less time (minus the time waiting in the checkout line at your local store) to do it that way then it would to actually upgrade the OS.
  • i think that 'middle managers playing on the train' are the group that are really going ot buy the upgrade...

    the change in the OS to non-techy people will be the extra view in the date-book, and the fact that the battery meter is 3d looking (oooh)

    i agree that the hardware is the main thing, but when you are comparing V and Vx, and VII and VIIx palms (which i think may be the only ones that the upgrades for, but 'm not sure), where the main difference is the memory, i think its the middle level people who'll go after it.

    and me of course

    --I dunno much about these things, so shoot me down if I'm bad

  • You may not be able to upgrade from 3.{4,3,2,1,etc} from linux, but OS patches are no problem. I have a Vx running PalmOS 3.5 which I just patched w/ pilot-xfer. It comes as a .zip ('the Winblows version') or a .sit ('the Mac version') which decompresses to a .prc. At least they made this part easy.

    --
  • don't change your mind all of a sudden and leave them out in the cold

    how does switching from free to charging $20 leave anybody out in the cold?

  • My guess is that it should work on any Palm. A few months ago, I picked up a IIIxe. It came with OS 3.5.

    Has me wondering why it has taken 3Com this long to release it.

  • I wonder if this is a way to sell more (new) Palms?

    Don't be ridiculous. Why, that would be like buying a whole new computer just to get the latest version of Windows (or MacOS, or pick your OS) pre-installed.

    Oh, wait, people do that...

  • I guess the real question is do you need it?

    I do own a palm V and am running there OS 3.3. I think it works fine. What does OS 3.5 have that 3.3 doesn't? If you buy a new Palm will it have OS 3.5 or will it still have 3.3 and will they include an upgrade cupon or something?

    Personally I think that this is a result of palm OS being free adn Sony and handspring (to mention a few) coming out with palm devices based on the palm os that are better to some extent than palm, and palm sales are probably not as good as they should be. This may be designed to hurt the competition not so much as the end users. But I wonder if they realize that by doing this who will be the one to get the added charges?

    It looks like just another case of some company saying our OS is free and then saying no it is not. The same thing can happen with QT so watch out which verison you use for kde all ;-O

    I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
    Flame away, I have a hose!

  • I know why this is... (Score:3)

    by Dicky ( 1327 ) <slash3@vmlinuz.org> on Monday September 18, 2000 @04:29AM (#772533) Homepage
    This is not, repeat not, a charge for the software, although you have to pay the varge to get the software. The charge is for the customer support overhead associated with the combination of a new OS (with a few noticable changes) and a flash-upgrade procedure. The cost of a call for either reason is far more than $20, but the average cost of supporting the upgrade is something like $20 per user. Personally, I would prefer to see a 'pay if you need support' method, since I don't need support, but that would mean much higher charges (or Palm taking a profit hit) for those who did call. Plus, the more less 'techy' users who would need the support are the ones Palm needs to target (c.f. M100), and they don't want to antagonise them.

    For reference, I have a TRGPro, so the upgrade was released a while ago for me, and it was free. Although the download is there for non-TRGPros, do not try to use it on a 'normal' Palm - it will not work. Also, the 'register as a developer and you can download it' method has two drawbacks - it only works for US-based developers, and I bet there will be some toughening up on this method when Palm start selling the 3.5 OS.

  • I am confused, when I got my Palm Vx it already had PalmOS 3.5, I've updated it to 3.5.2 since then.

    /Simon

  • AFAIK, you cannot upgrade the OS on a Handspring. Is this same limitation present on the Sony PDA?

  • "Double-tapping on a word in a field selects it; triple-tapping selects the line"

    Gee, isn't that the way that Microsoft Windows has been ever since 1992? Shows what the Palm coders were too busy playing with: Linux.

  • I don't think my wife really cares how much it costs, she's only interested in the changes made. I have a hard enough time talking her into letting me put Linux on our shared home computer.

  • i am fervently hoping that TRG wont follow suit
    to 3Com. (i own a TRG)but i am afraid that the
    market will dictate TRGs move. also other
    companies move's (Sony).

    if your customers have been loyal to you, (your
    product) why burden them with additional fees
    to pay.

    yorosiku,
    sessyargc.

  • The Datebook's new Agenda view combines a view of a day's appointments with the day's ToDo tasks

    This has been a feature on DateBk3 [palmgear.com] for a while, which I highly recommend as a Datebook replacement. (Although it costs $20 alone)

    The Alarm dialog now has larger buttons to facilitate finger operation, as well as a "Snooze" button

    Another DateBk3 [palmgear.com] option, along with various snoozes.

    The Command bar

    Very win, but the same can be accomplished with GoBar [palmgear.com] ($14)

    Tapping the title tab of an application shows the menu bar

    Menu Hack [palmgear.com] ($free)

    I started this post as an arguement against the $20 upgrade, but on a little research, I found they're incorporating products (or portions thereof) that together amount to a bit more than $20. I doubt that I'll buy the upgrade anyway.

    -----



  • TRGPro [htp] has had PalmOS 3.5.1 on their website free for download, for the last few months. I've been using it since. Love my TRGPro.
  • Damn, could have sworn I used a "" in there. =]
  • Ok, there is lots of bitching and moaning, but nothing will happen unless we let Palm know how bad of an idea this is. Any ideas who to contact? ...And why is everyone talking about the $20 covering retail materials & packaging? I've never seen a Palm OS upgrade through retail - they've just been internet downloads.
  • It is really cool that Apple released all their old software (System 7.5.5 and back) for free download and use (no support of course). System 7.5.5 was codename Unity. At the time, it could run on every Macintosh computer ever made. Quite a feat of software engineering at the OS level.

    On the other hand, the Mac OS X beta costs $29.99. Thirty dollars is a lot to pay, though my copy is on its way. If I had a Palm (and most of the rest of my family does), I would be quite happy to pay $20 for an OS update -- provided there was anything in the OS I needed.

    --

  • Is this just an administration fee? (Score:3)

    by shippo ( 166521 ) on Monday September 18, 2000 @01:53AM (#772544)
    I've dealt with OS upgrades for years. The usual system provided by most companies (the evil empire being the exception) is to make all minor upgrades FOC, but major upgrades chargeable.

    One company I dealt with had all their minor upgrades in the form of OS patches, applyable via sets of floppies from a remote machine. The patch could be downloaded from wherever (BBS at first, FTP later), or if you wanted physical media and printed release notes, pay a small sum ($20 was about right) for something physical, either a box of floppies or later, a CD-ROM. There was no qualms about us duplicating patches FOC for customers.

    I've not read the link (needs registration), so I've no idea if this is the method proposed by 3Com, but a small administration fee seems plausable,

  • Maybe if people start to realize that there should be an alternative to PalmOS, it will be good for the ucLinux [uclinux.org] and PicoGUI [sourceforge.net] projects?
  • Shouldn't that be Palm Inc. now? :-)

    -Karl
  • I wonder if... 3Com should make it clear if its revenues come from the selling of Palm devices (in which case the OS should remain free), or if it shifted to a software house concept (in that case it should develop a multi-platform system for multiple CPUs) and charge for the OS.
  • They get their money back through licensing their software to the likes of Sony.

    At the end of the day, most Palm users will balk at the fee and will make do with what they have or they'll get the upgrade by other means, e.g. through warez sites.

  • An interesting move... (Score:4)

    by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Monday September 18, 2000 @02:05AM (#772549)
    OK, so Palm wants to charge for upgrades. Fair enough.

    Now, could someone run down a list of differences between 3.3 and 3.5, for those of us who would like to determine if it's actually worth what they're charging? If it's not worth it, I'll stick with 3.3, thank you very much.

    Honestly, I don't like this. PalmOS upgrades have always been free in the past; to delay upgrades for several months and then start charging for them with no warning whatsoever is questionable at best. Further, this isn't about R&D costs; Palm and Palm-related products are so popular they had to have recouped those costs ages ago from the devices they sell that run it (not to mention royalties from other companies who make devices that run the OS; I'll bet they don't have to pay nearly as much per unit).

    But, as I said, fair enough that they charge $20 for an upgrade. Provided, of course, that the upgrade's actually worth $20. I'm not yet ruling out that it might be; unlike certain companies based in Redmond that change a couple lines of code and use that to try and justify exorbitant prices for their "upgrades," Palm might actually have a product worth selling. We'll have to wait and see.
    ----------
  • True, but the Visor uses the PalmOS too. So, the question is, will Handspring also charge for an "upgrade" to their version of the OS? Granted, they apparently do customize the copy that they have licensed from Palm. I've been looking at buying a Visor but, I'm still shopping around. I think the "gameboy" style modules are a pretty cool idea. We'll see...
  • Is this a different version than the 3.5 I (apparently) have on my Vx now? How do I find the actual version number of the OS? All the standard apps have 3.5 version numbers on their "About" pages, including "Applications" and "Hotsync".
  • Well, considering the Visors can't be updated (no Flash ROM), they can't really charge for what they aren't doing. At least my Palm's OS can be upgraded, though I think that it sucks that the 3.5 upgrade is gonna cost $20.
    _____
  • The Visor is neat, but don't think you can sidestep the upgrading problem by going to a device that can't be upgraded at the ROM level. All this means is that you won't even have the option to upgrade to OS 3.5. Oh well.
  • "Small administration fees" are normally charged when the update is distributed on some type of physical media. If I was getting PalmOS 3.5 on a CD, I'd pay for it. That would cover the cost of burning/stamping the CD's and shipping, along with the manpower they need for these processes.

    But the fact is, PalmOS upgrades have in the past appeared on PalmOS software sites. Palm uses no more manpower or money in production for these updates than they normally do, and yet they want to charge now.


    _______________
    you may quote me

  • Charging for upgrades will only aggravate the consumer.

    ...and the aggravated consumer will what? Trade in the 3Com PDA for a Handspring or Sony? Over $20?

    Apple is one company that comes to mind who makes the hardware and sells their own operating system, but they certainly don't charge for small revisions.

    At the prices Apple is charging for their systems, to charge for small revisions might cause someone to compare Apple to Microsoft and Jobs to Gates. We can't have that!

    What's the turnover rate on PDAs? How long does the typical user keep his/her Palm before upgrading hardware?

  • Not true. The only thing that is more "difficult" for non-US developers is printing out an NDA and mailing it to Palm.

    That's it. It takes a few weeks, but non-US people also get access to the ROM-seeding area.

    And I really doubt that "there will be some toughening up on this method", since without ROMs for the POSE, how should a developer test his programs? Unless Palm is really stupid (and despite the announcement we're discussing here I don't think they are stupid), the won't change their policy regarding developer access to ROMs, SDKs, ...

  • Why is everyone still saying this is coming from 3Com? Palm is now a completely separate entity. Is 3Com still doing the OS for them or something?

  • This version shipped on my Palm IIIc...so why are they releasing it in the fall? More time to market it and make pretty retail packaging? likely...
  • For a closed source os that actually *works* i don't think $20 is unreasonable. You've got to keep in mind, plam needs to pay for media, disttrobution and manuals... right off the top.

    besides, if your that hell bend on not paying or just don't have the cash, i'm sure it'll hit the irc warez channels soon.
  • about the only recently sold palm that it wont work with is the palm 3e which doesnt have the ability to upgrade its os. I believe it uses normal rom instead of eeproms but i'm not exactly sure.
  • It will take me significantly longer to wait for the paperwork to be done at Palm than it will to develop my entire program. That is not acceptable when they make it available for download to US-based developers, particularly when I signed the paperwork at PalmSource London last year - why couldn't they accept that as 'catch-all'?

    ...without ROMs for the POSE, how should a developer test his programs?

    Three possibilities come straight to mind which could be usefully combined: Make US developers sign physical paperwork and post it in, and/or restrict the ROMs to run only on POSE and/or stop distributing non-debug ROMs. These could be combined by saying that you can download a debug ROM by click-through but must sign the paperwork to download a 'normal' ROM, which wouldn't run on real hardware, only on POSE.

  • Actually Palm is not even 3Com anymore. I used to work there (3Com), and they spun Palm in to its own entity a few months ago. They are off on their own and making their own decisions about what to do with there platform, what to charge, etc.
  • While I haven't gone to read the whole article from this stupid site that requires login/pass,
    I still think that the article or the poster is wrong.

    PlamOS 3.5 existed for a while now and it was installed by default on several Palm models, such as my Pilot Vx (which has been shipping for like 8 months now).
  • Why would Palm alienate their consumer?

    Well, for one thing, their major revenue growth and projected area for most earnings is licensing. You get licensing revenues when you do an upgrade. This is where Bill G makes all the bucks. But, as compared to MSFT, Palm actually gives you new features (if you didn't buy a recent model) and it's a lot less buggy.

    Secondly, remember that Palm is now separate from 3Com, and so they need to think about what works for them.

    [caveat - I own Palm (at IPO) and some MSFT shares]

  • That the company actually tries to get R&D costs back somehow.


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • so, there's someone who doesn't think this is an evil conspiracy... Good. So at least some people have some brains. PS. Microsoft still smells like a conspiracy. But not 3Com.
  • Anyone know what platforms it's meant for?
    i.e. can I upgrade my 2MB Palm V?
    (and still have some flashmemory for FlashPro to play with :)
  • USD20 doesn't seem like an awful lot for an OS upgrade of this kind. Why should Palm Inc give away for free something they've been paying their employees to work on over a long time? It's not like your Palm will stop working if you don't upgrade.
    --
  • i spoke to someone on the palm helpdesk a while ago and it should definately work with the 2mb Palm V, but she also said that it should be free...
  • I believe all of the Palms can be upgraded to the ew operating system, as long as you can find a ROM. Use that ROM and the installer from the previous upgrade and you should be fine.

    I'm not sure why they are just now releasing this upgrade publicly, since most of the people that would upgrade did so many months ago when the first ROM hit the bulitten boards.

  • Ooo! (Score:2)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    Bad PR Move. And consumers are fickle creatures. They've just gambled their progression to industry dominance a bit pre-maturely. I'm already pretty pissed off with them since I can't upgrade PalmOS from Linux (No windows on the system.) Think next time I'm in the market, I'll check out one of the new Linix based PDA's.

  • Hmm... (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    Is this just for consumers, or does Handspring have to pay anything? (i.e. "The 3Com Tax", or even worse, fragmenting PalmOS...)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
  • Palm is totally pulling a Microsoft here.
    Think about it, where do you go to buy a palm without a copy of palmOS on it? You can't.
    Basically, Palm gave away the software to establish a monopoly position, and now that you've got no choice but to get PalmOS on your Palm, they'll charge an arm and a leg for upgrades.
    It's totally bogus.
    I think the DOJ needs to get involved here.
    --Shoeboy
  • Not yet.

    Defraggle
    Head monkey
    Dynamic League of discord POEE Cabal "Monkey"
  • Coupla o dese doughts:

    Ya zee - itza notta zin zu makeza moonee. Idza zin to givez it awayza for free-ah. Youza little numbzkulla been geddin tooze mucha for free-ah. Youza needza put someza that moonee awayze. Buyza someding. Itz notza extortion racketz. Itza my life-a breada. I gotza getz paid-a.

    I see no problem with it - as attempted in the poor attempt at parody above. ( Say it in a mafia voice ).

    Palm deserves to charge what ever they see fit. They also deserve to take the consequences for their actions. If people don't like it - it'll be reflected in competitor's projects, in free-Palm-OS movement etc...

    In short, it's Palm's decision - not yours so get over it.

  • "Sometimes it will make sense to charge for an upgrade,"

    Hmm.. I wonder if it's a case of it makes sense to charge for this update, as they have the 'internet kit' that includes this update for 'free'.
    This sounds like a bit of a scam that says for $20 you get an update to your OS that gives you a little extra, when, for just a few dollars more, you can have the whole 'internet kit'. The amount of pressure on people to buy the internet kit is now very heavy if they wish to upgrade their machine at all..
    I think this is a case of the beancounters getting a little greedy...
    Bad form guys, bad form.

    Malk.
  • This is a really boneheaded move. According to the article, they had already told customers it would be available for free, and now are changing their minds.

    Charging for it is fine, releasing it for free is fine. But if you promise customers one thing, don't change your mind all of a sudden and leave them out in the cold. That's just going to alienate customers, and blathering about "we think we have added a lot more value" won't help you.

  • Why exactly do you need an upgrade anyway? Has anyone really run into a problem that a slightly more advanced PalmOS would fix?
    --

  • Consumer Devices (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Even though 3Com are charging for the upgrade, how many people will actually take the upgrade. A consumer device's identity is more to do with the hardware, rather than the software it's running. I mean, hey sure you and I may upgrade, but the average middle manager who likes to play with it on the train is hardly a likely candidate.

    -- Hob - Java Spectrum Emulator [emuunlim.com]

  • Re:Heavens forfend (Score:4)

    by BinxBolling ( 121740 ) on Monday September 18, 2000 @02:26AM (#772580)
    That the company actually tries to get R&D costs back somehow.

    Heavens forfend that customers express an opinion on whether or not the product being sold is worth the price charged.

    Heavens forfend that customers develop expectations based on a company's past behavior, and express surprise and disappointment when those expectations are not met.

  • As long as it truly is an upgrade. If I own 3.X, I should get all 3.X upgrades for free. The when 4.X come out, then I pay for it. Of course, the flaw in this logic is that the company can just release major numbers more often.

    Paying for Win95, the Win 98 (Win 95+ latest IE), then Win 98 SE (Win 98 without as many bugs), then Windows ME (Win 98 with more bugs), should be considered a crime.

    But I am swinging off topic, Palm OS is looking to be a standard OS for PDA's. In the future, Palm will only get corporate users buying their hardware (thats the way corporations are). The rest will be sold by the likes of Handspring and Sony and others. Lots of money can be made off these upgrades. 3Com just needs to be careful not to screw its users in the long term by releasing too often and charging for all upgrades.

  • Why oh Why, can't we get linux with X on this thing? It's been done for 3 other "palmish" devices, and cince this is the oldest palm platform it should have had it first!

    It looks like I'm either selling away my 16 meg IIIx (Modifyed of course!) and getting an iPaq or that other one that is already running Linux + X.

    I had hoped that Palm would have by now "opened" their OS, but that was always a pipe dream.

    on the other side? I am betting there will be a whole bunch of palm devices WITHOUT the 3.5 upgrade applied to it. The general user could care less, Heck, the 12 palm owners here didn't know or care about the 3.0 to 3.3 upgrade, and there are 3 users still using 2.x and everything still works for them..

    Why upgrade? Geek peer pressure.
  • Only way he may be a troll is that he's convinced he must pay to get the best. So what if I am feeding what you may call a troll. Maybe I may have enlgihtened him huh? I think he's making a valid point in that there are so many Linux users that are so dirt cheap they'd rather download an iso and take away income from a Linux company or taking away income from Netpliance with the hacked iOpeners. Granted, Netpliance was stupid here, but it does not mean we have to exploit the hole does it? Oh, I will buy an upgrade when it's compelling, but if it ain't, they ain't getting my bucks and I am getting the iso. But when they release a good update of a distro, why not spend the bucks for the extras like bumper stickers, t-shirts and a cd full of the latest tarballs of open source software. If you don't support the distro of your choice by buying those 40 dollar packages, they ain't going to be around very much longer unless they sell hardware. Same goes for Palm. If U like it, why not buy it?

  • You know, in the real world, most companies violate our ideal of having everything we want be free. It's the way of things. Palm has spent a lot of money developing this product; Why shouldn't they charge a few bucks for it? If you can't afford it, you can still use the old one; And if you buy a new Palm, then it'll already be installed.

  • It's the same version. All Palm V's, Vx's, IIIxe's, and IIIc's being sold come with OS 3.5 preinstalled. This upgrade is targeted towards users like myself with older, but still flash-upgradeable, models.
  • ..and the aggravated consumer will what? Trade in the 3Com PDA for a Handspring or Sony? Over $20?
    I know several people who own several different models of Palms (III,V,and IIIc, for instance). They may also get one for their wife. This brings up to problems for Palm:
    1. It is more than $20 for this individual. It may be as high as $80 if they want them all upgraded, and that's annoying.
    2. This is definitely a repeat buyer. He's going to want the latest stuff. But, if he envisions having to pay an OS upgrade fee every few months, he might hold back or look for other options.
  • The problem isn't really that Palm is charging for this upgrade. The problem is people aren't ACCUSTOMED to paying for an upgrade with Palm. Consider that almost every software package on the market has some sort of associated upgrade cost.

    Palm started out giving upgrades away free. Now people are upset, because they expected the upgrade to be free, are now finding themselves with a $20 charge.

    If Palm had always charged for upgrades, 3.5 would be no different from any other upgrade.

  • will make do with what they have or they'll get the upgrade by other means, e.g. through warez sites.

    Or by signing up to be a developer and downloading the ROM dump intended for the emulator... plenty people have done this already.

  • Some people bought a PalmVx a few months before OS3.5 came out. Their version is 3.3. However they paid the same amount as the folks who bought the version with 3.5. Will they be charged?
  • ...since the Palm itself can't hold more than 2 or 8MB of data (depending on the model, and assuming that you didn't replace the flash memory chips, hehe). I'm predicting that the Palm OS patch would be warezed in less than three weeks after its release. Even if they stuck it in an InstallShield installation, it would be hacked and extracted in no time at all.

    On a personal (and perhaps a little offtopic) note, I'm sick of hearing about these people having fun playing with the unit in the palm of their hand (pun intended). Since when was a monochrome toy that makes clicks and buzzes so fun? Oh yeah, I remember now, the etch-a-sketch! Haven't you PDA dorks grown up yet?

  • You want something like the Compaq iPAQ, the Agenda VR4 or the Samsung Yopy. The iPAQ is a little more expensive but has a 206 Mhz ARM processor with 32 MB of RAM, a nice color screen and it runs Linux. The Agenda should be as cheap or cheaper than the Palm and runs Linux too. I'm not sure how much Yopy is going to be but it looks like the hardware is similar to the iPAQ. Go to http://www.handhelds.org/ or http://www.pocketlinux.com/ for more info.
  • I still don't think this is likely. The thing about only releasing debug-ROMs MIGHT happen, but some errors don't show up with debug-enabled compiles, so that's not an ideal solution either...

    As for only running in POSE: possible, but that would defeat its purpose (being an EXACT duplicate of the real hardware) somewhat, so I don't really fear this avenue either.

    As for the waiting period: yes, it took some time (about 3 weeks IIRC), but that's not soo long... I do think their policy of requiring a snail-mailed (not faxed!) NDA is a bit extreme, though, and rather unfair towards non-US developers, but it's not unworkable.

  • "Double-tapping on a word in a field selects it; triple-tapping selects the line"
    Gee, isn't that the way that Microsoft Windows has been ever since 1992? Shows what the Palm coders were too busy playing with: Linux.

    xterm does the same thing. rxvt does something similar (triple-clicking selects the text from the cursor to the end of the line - or it did the last time I used rxvt, which is a poor xterm clone with pretty graphics, at best.)

  • I was kinda getting used to the free upgrades (granted, most wouldn't run on my Palm IIIe anyway - only the newer ones).
  • Charging for upgrades will only aggravate the consumer.
    ...and the aggravated consumer will what? Trade in the 3Com PDA for a Handspring or Sony? Over $20?

    I'm on the list as an early adopter for the $250 linux PDA, mostly because I'm curious, but partially because I think 3Com is satan.

    I kept my Palm Pro for quite a while before I went up to the Visor. The Visor has more memory (8mb to the 2mb of my upgraded pro) and the expansion slot. I Actually have something in my expansion slot, as well.

  • Is it as good as a ROM patch? No. But saying you can't upgrade a Handspring's OS is just false.

    --

  • Given that you can sign up for free to Palm's developer network, and download all kinds of OS versions (regular, debug, beta...) I'm not too worried about this.

    $20 is a reasonable price tag for boxing it, shrink-wrapping it, and distributing it with a nice install guide and user's manual so your PHB can get it at BestBuy. The cost is for the convenience, not the technology.

    Same thing as getting a Linux distro: if you know what you're doing, it's free. If you want the "for Dummies" edition, get out the checkbook.

    Wes

  • If you've used Windows CE you probably already know that it can scarcely compete with PalmOS. Versions of CE are radically different and incompatible from each other, its slow, takes a lot of RAM (which lowers battery life), and on my Sharp Tripad it crashes constantly.

    CE will always have a niche market because they are are always coming out with gimmicks in CE devices (MP3 players, color, cameras etc). These gimmicks are not bad ideas, but they are gimmicks, there is no promise of consistant or long term support for them.

    PalmOS works today, it worked yesterday, and it will work tommorow. None of these things are true of Windows CE.

  • How much is Apple charging for the final release after you've purchased a beta?

  • the problem is that everybody loved palm for providing free OS upgrades... and now, for a measley $20, we all have to go through the hassle of buying something that should have been free in the first place.

    Yes, it's better than CE, but it does not live up to the standard that Palm has set in the past

    (hopefully they'll read the comments on slashdot and decide to make it free... :)

  • (Predicted) Point one: Software for 3.5 won't run on 3.3

    Point two: It won't support your organizer.

    -- A bitter Palm Personal user who refuses to upgrade...

  • More importantly, As a member of the 3Com staff, I assure you we had absolutely *NOTHING* to do with this if it's for real. We spun Palm off about 4 months ago (PALM) versus our own stock (COMS). That explains why our stock is $16 and PALM's is $51. Two separate companies...
  • ...just replace the "www" with "partners" in the URL.

    http://www.nytimes.com/200 0/09/14/technology/14GEE2.html [nytimes.com]

    - Armage Bedar
    The STATS Man
  • You know, I think there is a market out there for a news site which presents all news for the day in Haiku!
  • Just wondering: I have an IBM Workpad c3 [it's a rebranded Palm V, basically.] IBM previously provided their own update to Palm OS 3.3, even though according to Palm's site, the ordinary one should work.

    What's the change that IBM would release their own Palm OS 3.5 upgrade and not charge for it? (and would it work on any non-IBM device, if they did?)

    --
  • Charging for new programms, functionality, is in my opinion fine. People can buy it, or not. Its up to them, but what about bug fixes? Will the current PalmOS users be able to get a free "service pack"?

    I'm *still* waiting for a fix for the well known last-line-of-a-memo bug.

    Thad

  • The last line on some memos is sometimes un reachable by scrolling. This is a small, but very annoying bug.

    Thad

  • Accountants 1
    Marketing 0
    Customer relations -1

    Defraggle
    Head monkey
    Dynamic League of discord POEE Cabal "Monkey"

  • Re:and? (Score:1)

    by don.g ( 6394 )
    It might have "Better Internet Support" or something? But no, that would be their "internet kit".

    It might have Colour support! Yes, it does! A new feature! Oh wait, the hardware that can cope with that ships with 3.5 already anyway.

    It might update the desktop hotsync software so it can at last work with IMAP! Unlikely (and the number of win32 mail clients I went through trying to make THAT work...).

    It might... well, you get the picture. I'm still not even sure what 3.3 does over whatever it was I had previously. This is beginning to remind me of all the WinMe articles along the lines of "Download these packages for FREE! And you won't have a reason to upgrade to Windows ME!"

    Bah. Humbug.

    --

  • Re:2 words: Handspring Visor (Score:4)

    by Speed Racer ( 9074 ) on Monday September 18, 2000 @03:28AM (#772610)
    Well, considering the Visors can't be updated (no Flash ROM)

    How quickly we forget. . .

    Up until the most recent crop of Palm devices, no PalmOS based system had Flash ROM yet you were still able to update the PalmOS. It was merely a patch that was one hard reset away from being wiped from your system, not a permanent update like the Flash ROM upgrades of today.

  • No, they cost me $2. All I have to do is get on my cable modem (granted, the connection isn't free, but I use it for so much more then just downloading isos!), download the latest iso for the distro of my choice, and burn it on a CD! That's IT! It's done! We may CHOOSE to by the more expensive one every once in a while just so we can show our SUPPORT to our chosen distro (be it Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera or whatever). I recently bought a copy of Red Hat 6.2 after using a iso for a while. Why did I do it? I CHOSE to give Red Hat the additonal money not for the support, but so I can support Red Hat 7.0 and further! That's what's cool about Linux is you can choose WHEN to support your distro. If you don't think that the current package has enough to buy (like Windows ME) You can LEGALLY download an iso, burn it, and be running the latest greatest. Now Palm charging for an upgrade is perfectly alright to me because it's closed and within their right. I don't seem to remember them ever giving it away (only way you could get it before was a rom upgrade, not a flash program like the new one). I do agree that bitching about a 20 buck upgrade is unwarrented BUT I also think palm should make the upgrading program work on Linux too.

  • Here's what 3.5 adds (Score:5)

    by alee ( 64786 ) on Monday September 18, 2000 @03:42AM (#772612)
    For those that are curious about what PalmOS 3.5 adds to/improves upon over 3.3, visit the link below:

    http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/docs/p almos35/ [palmos.com]

    Some of the more "significant" changes that Palm touts include:

    • The Graphics System includes support for 1, 2, 4, and 8 bit color and grayscale.
    • The Datebook's new Agenda view combines a view of a day's appointments with the day's ToDo tasks
    • The Alarm dialog now has larger buttons to facilitate finger operation, as well as a "Snooze" button
    • When beaming an entire category, the receiver's dialog allows selection of the destination category in which to place the items
    • The Title, Company, City, State and Country fields in the Address book support auto-completion of the input text
    • Masked records
    • The Command bar
    • Tapping the title tab of an application shows the menu bar
    • Double-tapping on a word in a field selects it; triple-tapping selects the line
    • The category indicator has changed to differentiate between when the data is changing versus when the view of the data is changing. See the memo pad edit screen for an example.

    Personally, I don't think that it's worth a $20 upgrade. Not only are the changes minor, but from all indications I've seen, 3.5 is SLOWER.

  • Re:Totally unacceptable. (Score:4)

    by Tony Shepps ( 333 ) on Monday September 18, 2000 @03:47AM (#772613)
    Consider that their competition IS Microsoft; a few years ago Palm developers figured they had about a year to migrate over to WinCE.

    Consider that Palm is one of the few vendors out there that has totally blown Microsoft away.

    Consider that most Palm owners are loaded with either corporate expense report money or spare cash, already having paid up to $450 to replace their $20 DayTimer.

    Consider that most Palms will do exactly what their owners want *without* the upgrade, and that's what they paid big money for.

    I just can't find any outrage here.
    --

  • WHY in the hell you want to run Linux and X on a ridiulously underpowered Palm, I have no idea, but I hope you know about Palm Linux [sourceforge.net] and Clinux [uclinux.org]. Whats funny, to me, is that your request for X windows is even dismissed as silly on their page as well.

    "Windowing Environment? I don't think windows has much of a place here, but it would be funny!"

    However, some fools are working on this too. and Nano-X [microwindows.org] could probably be ported to it.

    Anyway, how much for the 16mb Palm? ;)

  • What Is Palm Doing? (Score:3)

    by jaypifer ( 64463 ) on Monday September 18, 2000 @04:09AM (#772615)
    As a developer for PalmOS, this move by Palm concerns me and brings up a many questions:

    Why would Palm alienate their own consumer?
    That's certainly what they are doing. They possess control of the PDA industry and are losing market share to Microsoft, Handspring, and others. Charging for upgrades will only aggravate the consumer. Why run this risk of dropping market share at a more rapid rate?

    What business model are they following?
    Microsoft charges for upgrades, but they don't sell the hardware. Apple is one company that comes to mind who makes the hardware and sells their own operating system, but they certainly don't charge for small revisions.

    Are they stomping out competition?
    Since Handspring and others have licensed the PalmOS are they going to pass these fees on to Handspring and force the rise in price on these products? Maybe that's how they can cause a shakeout in the PDA market. I think this will be bad for all PalmOS devices.

    Are they just milking customers?
    I assume that the flashable ROM in a true Palm device costs more, are they going to drop costs on the Palm itself making it more competitive and then recoup the costs of the flashable ROM via software upgrades?

    Mostly, I hope Palm has thought this out very well, before blithely setting a new standard and business model. Claiming that the minimal improvements they have made are a major revision and charging for it is a thin excuse. The $20 fee is so minimal that it could be compared to standard shareware, and if that's the model that Palm is trying to emulate, then all upgrades should be free.

    Jayson Pifer
  • All CURRENT above listed models. I have a first generation Vx, and it's got OS 3.3 on it.
  • start charging for them with no warning whatsoever is questionable

    complain about charging, ok, but a warning? You demand a warning and that would make it ok? so you could start saving up the $20? Had you made "plans" about how free it was going to be?

  • Does it still cost $450 for a Palm VII? Bring that price down to $100 and I'll be happy to purchase your OS upgrade.
  • I own a Vx that experienced a screen problem a month ago. I sent it back, and the refurbed unit they sent me had Palm OS 3.5.0. So, you're probably going to wonder what's new in this new OS? As far as I can tell, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It must be under the hood stuff, but the only thing I found was a new icon for the battery (it's now a 3D graphic, instead of 2D). Is it worth 20 bucks? Hell no.
  • 3com spun off palm as its own company a couple of months ago, they also planed to distribute all the 3com controlled Palm stock to 3com share holders.

  • Umm yeah, on a 386-16
    it works quite well, and makes a great home automation informational panel.

    not everything has to run with 4000 gigadroolflops and 9654terabytes of ram.

    most of what we have today was designed with 16k of ram and a 4 mhz processor (8 bit BTW!!)

  • I upgraded my Palm Vx (first off the line) from the OS 3.3 it came with about two weeks ago. Follow the steps:

    1. Obtain the OS 3.5 ROM. I signed the NDA to become a Palm developer, then downloaded it from palmos.com. Try it. It's worth it.

    2. Backup your Palm with a HotSync, preferrably after running BackupAll or BackUpBitster to set all your backup bits to "on" and tagging every database to "dirty".

    3. Use the OS Upgrade Utility tool to update to the new OS. [calpoly.edu]

    4. HotSync to restore your old databases.

    It's simple, it takes less than an hour, and it's totally free and legal, as long as you legally own the ROM.

  • Open source PalmOS and let us fix all the bugs and problems. They can still sell the hardware, and we can upgrade the OS.
  • Since this is the 3.5 version and not the 4.0, it should mean that there will only be minor bug fixes and for the new functionnality, let's wait until... 2002? Charging 20$ for developpers' misprogramming seems a little bit expensive. I shall get the crack on astalavista as usual. ;-) Alex

  • Haiku Summary for the bandwidth impaired. (Score:5)

    by enneff ( 135842 ) on Monday September 18, 2000 @01:34AM (#772626) Homepage
    A new palm os,
    3com charges twenty bucks,
    Bad publicity.

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