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Handhelds Hardware

A Palm for Every Purpose 126

Posted by CowboyNeal from the and-a-ham-for-every-occasion dept.
fm6 writes "We can look forward to a round of niche devices running PalmOS. According to the Forbes article, we're looking at PalmOS in: a game device called Helix , a platform for developing 'customized handheld instruments' called the Meazura, and of course, the usual round of PalmOS cell phones. On the other hand, fewer manufacturers seem to show any interest in making general-purpose PalmOS PDAs. Food for thought."
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A Palm for Every Purpose

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  • yeah right... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by fjordboy ( 169716 )

    The device that probably has the most tongues wagging is coming from a startup called Tapwave that is planning to build a Palm OS device with an eye toward handheld gaming.

    Aceeca's Meazura handheld

    It's aimed at a demographic you might call "game boy graduates"--people between the ages of 18 and 34 who still like to play videogames but also have to pay attention to grownup matters like deadlines, schedules and lists of contacts

    Yeah, I'm sure a black and white palm OS PDA will be perfect for playing

    • where have you been? palm OS supports transflective color screens now. and palmOS 6 will be BeIA reincarnate.

      • Re:yeah right... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by fjordboy ( 169716 )
        but we've already got an excellent solution for games on the go with the gameboy advanced. It seems to make more sense to me that instead of tooling a new pda centered towards games, which will need to be designed for the OS and probably won't compare to the nintendo games, they should contact nintendo and add some OS capabilities to the gameboy or something. I just don't see marketing a PDA as a gaming alternative is really worthwhile and seems sort of pathetic...unless they have some really new angle on
        • I was not saying it was a good business idea, just that palm is not a B&W interface anymore.

        • Re:yeah right... (Score:2, Insightful)

          by martyn s ( 444964 )
          but we've already got an excellent solution for games on the go with the gameboy advanced.

          Sure, it's a great solution for games, but why not try to make a better solution? The GBA's resolution is only 240x160 while helix will have, according the forbes article, a resolution of 320x480. That's a BIG difference. In fact, it's 4 times as many pixels (double in each dimension). And according to the PCWORLD article, it will have a 3.8 inch, backlit screen, while the GBA SP, has a 2.9 inch, sidelit screen. (tho
    • On top of that, the button layout is just idiotic for gaming. It looks like four buttons are arranged for use as a D-pad, with three more buttons positioned at the D-pad's center, left, and right, respectively.

      That'll be clunky as hell for any game that involves using more than the D-pad plus one other button - you'll have to use both hands for action buttons, or even both hands for both directions and actions. Which is exactly why action games like Dreadling (a 3D shooter) haven't taken off on PalmOS de
      • good point, I wasn't even thinking of the button arrangement. The only thing I can possibly think of as far as advantages is the possibility of MMPORPGs with the ability to get online w/ the palms...there's also the wireless multiplayer abilities with IR ports...but I think that nintendo will probably be working on that aspect...if it isn't already available in the SP...I'm not sure.
      • You realize, they are building a new device geared towards gaming. Not using the old design.

        Btw, all you need for pacman is a 4 directional game pad. For legend of zelda's (except wind waker (maker?) and 64) you needed a digital pad. Super mario world, f-zero, final fantasy, sonic the hedge hog.. they don't need the analog stick

        Now they may not be YOUR favourite games, but they were hits that many people will play.
      • The picture in the Forbes article is of the Measura handheld... The one that was mentioned as a scientific platform. AFAIK, there are no pictures of the Helix available yet.

        The following abridged list of features is from a Palminfocenter article [palminfocenter.com]
        • Analog controller, integrated triggers and a full complement of action buttons
        • High-resolution 480 x 320 pixel screen, with portrait or landscape-mode display
        • All-inclusive gaming environment with the Fathammer X-Forge 3D Game Engine
        • Rumble effects

        Don't wor

        • Re:and look at the buttons. . . (Score:5, Informative)

          by druzicka ( 314802 ) * on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:39AM (#5926146) Homepage
          Actually, check out the video at the following URL:

          http://www.godoplay.com/tapwave2.html [godoplay.com]

          They show a brief glimpse of a guy using the hardware itself. He's holding it so that the screen is landscape... Looks like a layout similar to the origninal GBA, with Dpad and action buttons on either side of the screen. Plus there are clips from a couple of games. They look like they're in 3d. There is a Spy Hunter and a Tony Hawk game... Graphics appear to be as good as a Gamecube. Beats the hell out of the GBA's Super Nintendo-style graphics.
          • Did anyone else notice that the music in that video was an obvious ripoff of No Doubt's "Hella Good"? Creepy...
          • Plus there are clips from a couple of games.

            Those may come directly from either the PS2 or the Gamecube. The video is pure marketing: they quickly show something that *might* be the device but they don't really show anything tangible. Although it may have a 3D engine, I am still skeptic until I see some further proof, like a video of the device running the game.

            I'm not saying it can't be done. But as it is the advertisement is highly suspicious.

        • Don't worry, it's a gaming platform. And unless they're stupid, they'll have a D-pad on the left and buttons on the right, like a real controller.

          Why is it that the D-pad is on the left and the buttons on the right, are all gamers left handed? I wish all d-pads were like my gravis that can be switched from left-handed to right-handed.
    • I think it is color, and has a 3d gaming environment aside from the palmOS software. It's not a black and white solitaire clone.
    • The device that probably has the most tongues wagging is coming from a startup called Tapwave that is planning to build a Palm OS device with an eye toward handheld gaming.

      The game device isn't the one in the picture. That is the measurement device, the "Aceeca's Meazura".

      The game device is supposed to have a 320x480 color TFT screen.

      Now, why they used that "gameboy" like style for the measurement device is a good question... ;-)

    • The Gameboy Advance has a shitty screen, it has no touch sensitive capabilities, no built in memory, no operating system - nada.

      It can play games for sure, but to make it into a decent PDA you may as well toss the thing away and start from scratch.

      I have seen some companies produce MP3 players and cameras for the GBA, but frankly these things are so laughably clunky and so close to a better dedicated unit pricewise that you may as well not bother.

      Hell, someone was mentioning doing a GBA organizer cart

    • Re:yeah right... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Having seen the Helix, I can assure you that it's definitely not a "black and white palm OS PDA." It has a screen that will best anything out on the handheld gaming market, and I think it will likely kick some major booty. The only real question is whether Tapwave can attract the game developers in sufficient quantity and quality. Based on the enthusiasm from the developers in attendance at Tapwave's launch, they have a good shot at it, IMO.

  • Palm (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I bought one recently.

    They rock! At least once you update to 2.4.20

    • Re:Palm (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Wow, I'm glad I read this post.

      I hope you post more often.

      I in no way wish I had the last few seconds of my life back.

  • The Battle Rages On (Score:5, Interesting)

    by snitty ( 308387 ) * on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:50AM (#5925946) Homepage
    There seems to be a battle growing between integration and segration in the Computer Industry.

    First it was the internet appliances, with the thinking that people would eventually want seperate "computers" for web browsing, typing, etc.

    Now we have the idea of tablets as alternatives to laptops, and a camears being integrated into phones and PDAs.

    It seems that people can't decide how many devices they want on them at any givem time. Will we ever see a balance between integration and segragation of digital devices?
    • Will we ever see a balance between integration and segragation of digital devices?

      My guess is not right away... Integrated components usually come at some sacrifice to quality or function, e.g. integrated motherboards for computers. Sure, it's cheaper, and more convenient, but if you're looking for performance, do you really want a 8mb Trident video card onboard with no expandable AGP port? Same thing with integrated cameras on phones and PDAs... the resolution isn't anywhere near what that of a stand a

    • Re:The Battle Rages On (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:01AM (#5926005)
      (warning, slightly OT)

      I don't know, but it seems like the industry is also missing out on some of the most sensible types of integrations.

      For example, I haven't seen much with integrating pagers, but I sure know that if I had both cell phone and pager service, I'd much rather have an integrated cell phone and pager than I would an integrated cell phone and PDA or cell phone and digital camera. (Heck, I'd rather have a pager/PDA than a cell phone/pda, too.)

      • Re:The Battle Rages On (Score:5, Informative)

        by pauljlucas ( 529435 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:26AM (#5926101) Homepage Journal
        I haven't seen much with integrating pagers, but I sure know that if I had both cell phone and pager service, I'd much rather have an integrated cell phone and pager than I would an integrated cell phone and PDA or cell phone and digital camera.
        The thing is that nothing on the current crop of cellphone/PDA devices or even just plain cellphones has to change one bit to incorporate paging since SMS exists.

        All that needs to change is software/hardware on the back-end in cellular providers' switching centers to provide a POTS-to-SMS gateway just like there are already e-mail-to-SMS gateways.

        There are any number of reasons why this hasn't happened:

        • Paging companies are too entrenched and defend their markets against cellular companies.
        • There's not enough of a return-on-investment for cellular companies to get into the market.
        • Companies can probably make more money keeping them separate. For example, they can charge at least $35/mo for cell service and probably as much for pager service (athough I actually have no idea what pager service rates are). If they offered paging as an add-on service to cell service, they couldn't get away with more than $5/mo additional (probably).
        Note: the above are educated guesses only. If somebody knows the real reasons, I'd like to hear them.
        • At the PalmSource Dev Con, Weblink Wireless and HuneTec were discussing a forthcoming Palm OS-based pager for WW's ReFLEX network. The H-500 looks kind of like a color RIM Blackberry and an iPaq H1910 smushed together, but it runs on Palm OS 5.2. IIRC, it's supposed to be out in late 2003 with an SDK out in June.
      • I'd much rather have an integrated cell phone and pager
        It occurs to me that we sort of have that, since many cell phones accept pages and text message. Problem is that the cell companies don't provide a simple way to send a page.
      • I'd much rather have an integrated cell phone and pager than I would an integrated cell phone and PDA

        You're aware that many celphones are capable of pager-style number reception, right?

        And, of course, SMS.

        This isn't the fault of the technology, so much as it is of little companies that refuse to play together - Why would Company A allow Company B to transmit pages over it's airtime, when you could be eating up your minutes, instead? Likewise, why would company B let Company A have your pager telephone
    • I forgot to mention my "not right away" part...

      Eventually, better quality things will be integrated, resulting in relatively high quality all-in-one components. Motherboards, for example, are now avaliable with integrated Geforce 4 MX440s, along with an AGP slot in the event it's not good enough. Once decent quality components are avaliable for integration, such as a 4 megapixel digital camera built in a 3g wireless phone, with a 5 gig memory stick and MP3/OGG/ACC/WMA playback, I'll buy that phone, and d

    • Re:The Battle Rages On (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JamieF ( 16832 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @02:22PM (#5926914) Homepage
      In my experience, the folks in favor of integration are the engineers, while the folks in favor of segregation are usability specialists.

      Maybe it *is* possible to get a phone, PDA, camera, pager, gameboy, audio player, etc. in a single small device, but how the hell are you going to get a decent UI on it? Perhaps the problem is more that there are too many single-function buttons on current devices, and that a multifunction device would just have a bunch of multifunction buttons that the software would use differently for each feature, sorta like the PS2 does.

      You'd lose the dedicated "zoom in"/"zoom out" buttons but on the gadgets I have, those are so small that the icons for them are inscrutable anyway (so they might as well be unlabeled).

      It's probably possible to come up with a good UI for such a thing, but since gadget buyers still buy based on features instead of usability, it'll probably be a reeeeeal long time before we see it.
    • What battle? Internet appliances didn't work, consoles are becoming more PC like (see Xbox), and PCs have gained the ability to play movies and music. It seems to me that there has been a STRONG trend towards integration. As components get cheaper and smaller, it becomes so easy to integrate new features that even if they're not used by 99% of the population, it's still worth doing. The only "battle" seems to be that many buisness people seem to think that specialized devices are a good idea even though

  • Original Purpose? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DarkBlackFox ( 643814 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:50AM (#5925947)
    Were not all these concepts intended for the Palm platform originally? Mobile computing has come a long way in the past 5 years, with more and more powerful processors leading to smaller and better things. Where is the PalmOS headed? The place it's always been going- to provide a comprehensive interface to perform certain computing functions on an ultra-portable level. The introduction of more/enhanced features/functions/uses is only following the initial path set by mobile computing.

  • And of course... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Graspee_Leemoor ( 302316 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:51AM (#5925954) Homepage Journal
    The watches, already mentioned on slashdot.

    Amongst other places: here [fossil.com]

    graspee

  • pdas are now the niche (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zebbers ( 134389 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:52AM (#5925961)
    I just bought a Nokia 3650 which has enough average person pda functionality to satisfy me: calendar, todo, phonebook...christ. it runs symbian and java midlets so there are a whole lot of apps out for it, including doom ;)

    point is...ive always been interested in a pda to use as an organizer, but theres no way in hell im carrying that bulk in addition to my phone.

    now that problem is solved. I'm usually against multipurpose devices ie : vhs/dvd players...but space is a concern with things you carry.

    Basically my phone is a phone, a digital camera (640x480),a gameboy(has emulator), a pda...and more (mp3...) and of course it has internet connectivity.
    • One nice thing about still having separate devices is that I can be as connected as I want. I have a Treo 90, an iPod, and a cell phone. It's nice to be able to leave the cell phone behind so as not to be disturbed, but still have my schedule, and contacts. Sometimes I'd like it if my pockets were less full, but its a small price to pay for the ability to determine how wired I am at any given time.
    • Unfortunately if you use it for all of this, you will probably want to keep a portable battery pack handy to keep it running.

      I suspect that if you give it "normal usage" use, that the batteries will need charging every other day. (Normal ussage pattern being gba use, twice a day for 45 min each, mp3 use 15-30 min a day, and phone use for 15 min a day. Camera use would be minimal impact unless you are treating it as a video camera.) PDA functions (alarms primarily) would have almost no impact, and could eve

      • Re:pdas are now the niche (Score:4, Interesting)

        by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <giles.jones@nospaM.zen.co.uk> on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:51AM (#5926180)
        Actually the Nokia 9210, 7650 and 3650 use very good batteries that last quite a long time. The reason is probably the low clock speed on these devices, on the 9210 it's around 66MHz.

        These aren't PocketPC battery sapping PDAs. Symbian is a much more compact OS and has a long heritage with ARM processors. It needs more programmer effort, unlike Windows CE which is designed to be familiar to exisiting Windows programmers.
      • I never understand these arguments, as the reply already stated the 60 series nokias have awesome batteries...and symbian has a low footprint...

        but why the charging every other day? I have no problem putting my phone on the charger at night. Hell the charge time is 1.5hrs on this phone, how hard is that? You cannot possibly tell me you are on the move for 48 hours straight with no opportunity to charge.

        As a side note.. an hour and a half of gameboy? I think not. Its just a plus to be able to play more com

    • Good for you... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Trillan ( 597339 )

      Now try writing down a phone number while you're talking over it! :)

      I can't help but feel that what makes a good palm-held computer makes a crappy phone, and what makes a good phone makes a crappy palm-held computer. Among other things, the physical profiles are incompatible; the Palm has to be wide enough to write on, and the phone has to be narrow enough to be comfortable.

      Nope. I'll take the smallest phone I can that's comfortable, and a reasonably sized palm, and rely on them linking together to exch

      • I quite agree. The right solution, at least for me, is not to combine phone and PDA, but to make it easier for phone and PDA to work together.

        Consider my Samsung SCH3500, which was the most popular phone in the U.S. when I bought it a couple years ago. It can't even talk to a Palm without an expensive, hard-to-find serial cable. Plus special software to handle the data format gap. But it's hardly suprising -- the different features within this phone are not integrated, so why should they give any thoughts

        • gprs is nice but the charges are ridiculous right now. maybe they will go down eventually with more subscribers, but right now its pretty sick.

          and yes, gsm and bluetooth rock. until now my phone has always been a call only basic device because of the backwardsness of the us cell companies.

          no more
          • Ridiculous? T-Mobile charges $5 a megabyte. That's too expensive for file transfers or heavy graphics -- but the connection's too slow for that anyway. If you just use the connection to read the news or follow slashdot (in low-graphcis mode of course), it shouldn't cost that much.
      • Now try writing down a phone number while you're talking over it! :)

        already been done, one button press, and my phone is in loudspeaker mode and i can hold it in front of me and use other apps on the phone, such as phonebook while continuing the call.
    • Thinking PalmOS vs PPC is outright ignoring market effects.

      PalmOS owns the PIM market, by far the biggest reason that PDAs are purchased. 28M+ Palms sold by now, and 100M+ smartphones sold by now (many running Symbian). Doing the math shows that Palm is going to have a rough time in the future and will have to open up new markets.

      The biggest danger PPC devices have is Microsoft itself. In 2 years you'll see tablet PCs the same size as PPCs, and only $100 more. Which would you rather have? MS makes ab

  • What's the future? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:52AM (#5925965) Homepage Journal
    I am helping with a computer science course involved with microcontrollers. We basicly teach ARM and controlling IO. I was just wondering if teaching assembly is old hat now days where handhelds come with OS's capable of doing all that for you, and where handlelds are today washing machines and tosters will be tommorow.
    So is there a point in teaching low level coding or should microcontrollers be programmed in higher level languages?
    • Higher level languages (well C and nothing else) will be used more and more.

      But for a long time yet there will be a use for little microcontrollers, the ones with only tens of registers and a 2 or 3 level hardware stack as memory. The C code wouldn't be any simpler than the assembler. Of course with the beasty 'micro'controllers with 4KB of RAM and 16KB of ROM and clocks of 16Mhz your really programming an early PC so C is the obvious solution :)

      Even when you code in C, you tend to write the occassional b

    • Re:What's the future? (Score:4, Informative)

      by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:27AM (#5926106) Homepage Journal
      Low level micro-coding will pretty much always have a purpose. Especially for micro-controllers.

      I know that there are a lot of people who will point out that today's optimizing compilers can often produce tighter code than an average programer writing in Assembly. I won't even contest that, because I am pretty sure that the few of us that are completly incompetent at writing code in assembly are affecting the "average" in question. Of course that means that just about any competent Assembly programmer can write tighter code than an optimizing compiler can. (Today.)

      Personally I think that if ASICs continue as they are, Coding at the bare metel is going to continue to be important as the ASIC will present an API to the system it is installed in. The ASIC itself may be running a higher level OS, but for the near future will not itself need to multi-task. As a result the OS involved will be very limited in capability, and may itself be written in Assembly. I would expect it to be an interupt driven OS that responds either to environmental or api interupts, which ammount to the same thing.

      Yes memory is getting physically smaller with higher capacity, and these ASIC processors are getting faster. As a result it is possible to run more bloated softare with no appreciable impact to performance. At the same time there will always be instances where a 1/100" delay will be the difference between the user's life, and death. You may not be interested in working on a project where such is the requirement, but someone will. Provide them with the information they need to succeed.

      Then again, I could be wrong. Expert Systems may be able to take arbitrary instructions and produce machine code up to the requirements. I just don't see that happening within the next couple of years. I may have tunnel vision.

      -Rusty

    • Your question was asked as an or, but it really isn't.

      Those who are capable of programming in assembly -- even for a made up architecture -- tend to have a better understanding of how computers work. It is my belief that someone who can not learn a simple assembly set and implement algorithms in it will find themselves out of their league in any language sooner or later. It is just much more difficult to realize someone lacks a basic understanding in Java than in, say, Cardiac because there are so many le

  • zire is a nice Palm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by romit_icarus ( 613431 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:56AM (#5925985) Journal
    The $99 Zire is an example of the non-general purpose PDA concept. Zire is only for scheduling, to-do lists, and an address book. It seems many were buying loaded PDAs and ended up using it as an organiser...

    • Re:zire is a nice Palm (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Tyrdium ( 670229 )
      Why buy a Zire when you can buy a refurbished Clie SL-10 for 80 bucks from Sony? It's got 4 times the ram, the processor is twice as fast, the display has 4 times the resolution, it's got a lot more bundled apps, and it's got a memory stick slot (I'd rather have SD/MMC, but it's better than nothing). Or a Palm m105 for the same price? Or maybe a Visor Neo for a buck more? How about a refurbished Clie S360 for 15 bucks more? I'd rather have any of those over the original Zire.
      • For someone like you who *uses* the bundled apps, your argument would make sense. It doesn't make sense for those that dont have any use for those apps. And that's the where the mass market lies. Most importantly, Zire allows Palm to *focus* on those millions that have a use for *organisers*, not for a pda I think it's sensible product positioning
        • Yes, but the other ones also have the apps the Zire comes with...
        • Actually, I think for anyone it makes sense to get either the Neo, or the m105. Why would someone deliberately choose to limit themselves based on their current behavior? If people normally bought things based on their current needs, there wouldn't be the monsterous SUV market that we have today. Instead everyone buys an SUV promising to go drive up to the cabin they don't have yet with it. So why not get a PDA that does all the scheduling stuff, and has the capability of doing all the other stuff eve
          • The Neo is a Handspring product, and some of us have had too many bad experiences with that company. A brand new m105, if you can find it, goes for $50 more than a Zire.

            As for a used m105 or Clie -- yeah, you can save money that way. You can also get burned. Buying used or refurbished gadgets is a whole different can of worms, and has nothing to do with the price/performance value of a given product.

    • I think you're confusing the way the Zire is sold with the way the Zire is designed. This model is at least as powerful and as feature rich as the old Palm V -- which used to be the high-end model! The Zire is being marketed as "just an organizer" because that sounds better than "it's cheap because it's only got 2 meg and no feature ports".

      Marketspeak often understates things this way. Interbase is marketed as an "embedded DBMS" even though it's a perfectly good general-purpose scalable DBMS. But calling

  • still holding out (Score:4, Funny)

    by snuffdiddy23 ( 620624 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:56AM (#5925987)
    i am still going to hold off until microsoft comes out with a collar-based PDA with GPS capabilities. if they were cheap (or simply mandatory) i think everyone would grow to love them.

    XP collar edition does not sound that far away, i am going to embrace the "freedom to innovate" and hope i don't catch anything.

  • Summary... (Score:4, Funny)

    by floydigus ( 415917 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:00AM (#5926001)
    Summary of this article...

    Hey - you can get all different kinds of Palm devices! There's one for playing games and there's another one for doing science stuff! Palm and Sony make Palm devices for use as organisers! Cool!
    Tune in next week for "There's these things called peripherals that you can plug into your computer to make it do stuff!"
    What? You mean I'm actually getting paid for this?! This is like, so cool!
  • It would have cost them next to nothing to have a left and right button as well as the up and down. This wouldn't have hurt its organizer functionality at all and would have allowed it to play games more easily. As it was the controls for many Palm based games were terrible hacks that made the games less enjoyable. I am not saying that it would have become a great gaming platform early on, but it wouldn't have hurt it to have two more measily buttons. The sad thing is that it seems so obivious. How did
    • It would have cost them next to nothing to have a left and right button as well as the up and down.
      It cost them even less than that: zero. Any game software that warrants use of left/right buttons can easily override the DateBook and Memos buttons. Palm allowed the buttons to be overrridden in software precisely for this purpose.
      • You have missed my point entirely. They could have easily had somthing resembling a d-pad, instead of the non-intuitive mess that the design forces you to put up with. They didn't make it easy, natural, or obvious. That was dumb. You can bet that the "gaming Palm" or Helix or whatever will not have the same button layout that you are accustomed to.
        • You have missed my point entirely.
          No I didn't: I just don't think it's a valid point.
          They could have easily had somthing resembling a d-pad, instead of the non-intuitive mess that the design forces you to put up with. They didn't make it easy, natural, or obvious.
          I think "Use the left-most button to go left and the right-most button to go right" is fairly intuitive.
          • No I didn't: I just don't think it's a valid point.

            Do you think that the controls on the Palm are superior or even equal to those on a GameBoy? Do you think that a "gaming Palm" will keep the traditional button arrangement/number?

            I think "Use the left-most button to go left and the right-most button to go right" is fairly intuitive.

            In some games that would work fine, a thumb on each of those buttons. The submarine game that comes with the Palm is an example. But how do you go up or down in that situ

      • Re:Palm missed the boat on games early (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        yeah, but they should have moved the up and down buttons one to the left so you could use the left two app buttons as left and right with one finger. the left four buttons would act like steering cross and the right two buttons like normal buttons.

  • This will Continue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hangtime ( 19526 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:06AM (#5926023) Homepage
    When the PDA really took fire three years ago, we all began to speculate that everyone would have a handheld and would go everywhere with it. My how times have changed and not necessarily for the worse. I have a Palm IIIxe and find myself not taking it to all the places I used too. It got to the point that is was very bulky and I found I didn't take it out as much so I left it at home. However, when I was in school I used all the time. Hooked up with one of the Palm keyboards I could take all my notes in class and not have to worry about lugging a laptop.

    The simple fact of the matter is, handhelds are starting to go back into their niche and take the place of paper where it makes sense. Currently, we have an internally produced application that interfaces with our system of record to update inspections for home sites. It makes a lot of sense because the inspector no longer has to use a pen and pad and we can process draws for borrowers at any point in the week instead of waiting for the inspectors to come back in on Thursday.

    I predict you will see more and more of this as time progresses. The time for everyone having a PDA with 20 applications has passed. Its now Blackberrys (wireless email, calendar, contact info) and/or hardened PDAs for every day, one to two applications use.

    • I think the issue is not everyone needs a PDA. It got to the point where everyone was buying them and then discovering that they didn't really need them. I'm just a programmer, for the most part I sit in a cubical all day tapping on a keyboard. I may have a few meetings every week but I certainly don't need a PDA to keep track of things. My wife owns her own business and has to deal with distributors, customers, employees etc all day. She uses her PDA and her cell phone to the hilt and they do actually

  • The SPH-i500 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jstroebele ( 596628 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:07AM (#5926037) Journal
    We need more cell phones that run Palm OS like the SPH-i500 [phonescoop.com] it's the size of a normal phone but with all the palm stuff built in

    Of course the SPH-i600 [infosync.no] would kick it's ass, but I don't think that will ever make it to market

  • Palm-ela (Score:2, Funny)

    by Malicious ( 567158 )
    Was I the only one who read the title, and thought PORN?
  • Look at the Pebbles [cmu.edu] project.

    From the site: The Pebbles project is exploring how Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), such as a device running PalmOS, or a device running the Microsoft Windows CE or Pocket PC operating systems, can be used when they are communicating with a "regular" personal computer (PC), with other PDAs, and with computerized devices such as telephones, radios, microwave ovens and factory equipment.

  • Well, almost, they aren't remotely as innovative as Macs are.

    Palm tried to ride out the "got there first" mentality by charging WTFM (way to f-in much) for their device which had limited functionality and cheesy, if not hostile interoperability with the PC and the 'net. Since they chose to charge so much and give so little, they didn't gain the market share that being there first would have afforded them and now they are left wondering WTFH (what the F happened) to their market.

    Most people I know who are
    • What bad experience did you have with Palm OS? they continue to be the market leader, continue to be the easiest to use for non-technical folks, continue to be easier to synch with a PC, and continue to offer less-expensive devices than WinCE.

      I don't know where you're coming from -- certainly geeks love iPaqs because they have beefier hardware, but Palm's bread and butter is selling to business people and consumers who have no interest in running linux on a PDA. They want to push a button and have their sc

    • Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FallLine ( 12211 )
      Palm is not perfect, but you're wrong in a couple respects. Palm still dominates the market. They are still the single largest manufacturer in the entire handheld space. Their platform, PalmOS, which they license, also has more than 50% of the market. The pocketPC platform collectively fights over something around 30 to 40%--the remainder occupied by Epoch and other platforms--despite the best efforts of Microsoft who has spent an inordinate amount of money trying to overcome them and has the advantage
    • WUAUEIYNTETAEI?

      (Why Use Acronyms Unecessarily Especially If You Need To Explain Them After Each Instance)

  • A Palm for Every Purpose... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Xacid ( 560407 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:25AM (#5926099) Journal
    My palms have enough purpose as it is... Patty cake you sickos, not that, I swear.
  • That companies entering the general purpose Palm PDA market have to compete with Palm (duh), Sony, and several other companies.

    The Sony Palm PDAs are very nice. I'm currently using a Clie PEG-T665C. It has MP3 playback, memory stick expansion (which can also be used for WiFi), 320x320 TFT screen, jog dial, 16M memory, and a 66 MHz. Dragonball.

    So far, I've been extremely happy with it! If I were a new company thinking of getting into Palm devices, I'd be very intimidated by Sony's products.

  • I've had a few Palm devices. My favorite for gaming is the Handspring Visor Prism.

    I play mostly old-school games like "Galaga", "Spy Hunter", "Defender" and "Frogger". For these games the Prism is great. It has a good, 8-bit color screen and a decent key layout. I know the operating system is on the old side and it doesn't have Bluetooth.

    If the target audience is people in their thirties who like to play games, there is fair chance that the games they want to play are retro games like "Defender", which

  • My Palm... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gefiltefish ( 125066 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:49AM (#5926174)

    My Palm has been working it its own niche market since I was about 13...

  • build it and they will come (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Connie_Lingus ( 317691 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:55AM (#5926194) Homepage
    There is, IMHO, a "holy grail" of handheld devices, and it would contain...

    1. a cell-phone
    2. 16-bit color Nintendo and/or Sega compatibility
    (maybe emulated MAME-like?)
    3. embedded Linux
    4. 80G hard drive ala I-pod.
    5. Can easily fit in my pocket...
    6. 802.11g

    Build it, and I will come...nothing else makes sense to me
    • My holy grail also needs:

      7. GPS hardware and software w/ downloadable database
      8. IR hardware for use as a universal remote control
      9. Bluetooth

      At the risk of loosing Geek Points, I don't really care if it runs Linux or not, as long as it's a documented & supported platform for application development.

    • I snagged a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 from a WIZ that was closing nearby for $200. Amazing device.. how often do you see a PDA run linux? As it matches your wish list.. not too bad! 1. sorry no cell phone. 2. Yes, you can run mame and emulators on it. 3. kernel 2.4.6 embedix 4. maybe not. but you can have up to a gig in secure digital slot and probably more for the compact flash 5. sure. 6. wifi via compact flash 7. gps support
  • Alphasmart has a cool product, and laptop that uses the Palm OS , the Dana [alphasmart.com].The NY Times gave it a great review, there is a PDF [alphasmart.com] version of the review on their website.

  • A Palm for Every Purpose (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For a second I thought that the title was "A Palm for Everyone". Free Palm as in free (belgian) beer : Palm [www.palm.be]

  • Observation... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @12:10PM (#5926256) Homepage Journal
    I think that one of the things that may need to be specified is that there are two primary ways to use a PDA. You can use it as an application specific device (ASD), or you can use it as a general computing device (GCD).

    What PalmOS is doing is expanding their sales into more ASD, as they discover that the market seems to be saturated for GCD type PDAs at the level that Palm, Sony and a couple of other companies have been selling.

    In all honesty, WinCE (whatever version) and Embeded Linux (in a variety of forms) with appropriate hardware make better GCD based PDAs than PalmOS (in current implementations) does. That may change with PalmOS 6.0, depending upon how much of what was in BeIA that they stripped out and or replaced.

    On the other hand, if you need a device for inventory management, or a phone list on a cell phone, or for package tracking, etc. the lower hardware costs associated with a PalmOS device can significantly reduce the cost of each device, making a device that you can sell more of to your customers, because you can pass the savings on, or draw more profit off of the ongoing service charges.

    Then again, who knows what will happen with PalmOS 6.0. All the cost savings may be out the window.

    -Rusty
  • Here's the no ad version of the story:

    http://www.forbes.com/2003/05/08/cx_ah_0508tentech _print.html [forbes.com]

    I would've hoped the /. editors were smart enough to post the ad free version.. guess not.

  • Well, they did! How hard is it to design a good little game box? Judging from the aimless floundering of those that would aspire to, it must be DAMN HARD! But really, come on!

    Here's how to make a smash hit palm-based game unit.

    1) Start with the new gameboy SP
    2) Add touch-sensitive screen
    3) Put two more buttons above A and B for game controls (I always wanted four buttons on the face of the game boy) and keep the L and R buttons. They're good too.
    4) Add a "drop to OS" button, maybe near the SP's 'start
  • Palm is trying to pull a Microsoft: establish a poor, cumbersome API as an industry standard and reap profits from a strong market position. And it's working, sort of: while the operating system is pretty awful internally, PalmOS is where all the applications are, it's what the handheld developers know, and where most of the nifty hardware is being developed.

    Palm is just like Microsoft, only that their software is even worse. As far as I'm concerned, Palm isn't cool, and my m505, which I bought a few ye

  • I notice that all the images on their website are rendered. They don't have exact diagrams for their modules (ie. so you can figure out how much stuff you can pack in there). They have only recently licensed PalmOS (May 6th I believe). It looks like vaporware to me. Well crafted vapor, but just the same I'd like to see some real units.

    bcl

  • general purposes? Laptop! (Score:3, Informative)

    by axxackall ( 579006 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @04:34PM (#5927557) Homepage Journal
    If i need general purposes computing device, I would prefer laptop.

    I am fed up with PalmOS. It takes too much efforts to develop anything for it. As for buying - the market of software for PalmOS is very limited (even less then Linux's one) and has very few of really good programs (less than a dozen). Besides, my eyes are crying after watching to palm screen longer than 5 minutes, while my fingers a sick of drawing text on it.

    Laptop doesn't exceed the size of palmtop too much. I bring my Powerbook almost always with me in my backpack, which is usually with me, while its accessories are in my car, which is my usual transportation mean. Sure its a bit heavier than PalmVx, although I am not exactly a weak person, physically. But as a benefit - it's a real general-purpose computer, with dual-boot between MacOS and Linux, with virtually unlimited ability of easily writing my own applications, with local web server and database, with various multimedia tools, various content and document authoring tools. I use it for presentations, for demonstrations, for diagnostic, for training, for learning, for surfing, for data gathering and even for some AI-based data processing. And it's big enough to save my eyes and my fingers from any potential health problems typical for Palm users.

    So, that's a general-purpose computer device.

  • I was in Lowe's yesterday with a couple of friends helping them buy a grill and on the way out of the store I noticed that on the wall near the exit there is a box. There is the name of some security company on the box (don't remember the name) and in the center of the box was a cut out with a Palm OS device screen peeking out. Tre' cool. :)

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