Palm VII Debut 05/24

Darkfell writes "The first Palm computer able to connect directly to the Internet will be unveiled in New York on May 24, according to people familiar with the company's plans. Along with the new device, Palm will debut its Palm.net wireless Internet service. "

Re:Feh.

[Mad Browser]

It DEFINATELY does TCP/IP. All Palm devices have had this built in since the Palm Pro...

Feh.

[jwriney]

I don't believe this thing can access the Net, per se. (It can't do TCP/IP). As I understand it, it's spoon-fed specially prepared pages, in a proprietary format, with a proprietary protocol, that are basically forms(a stock quote page, for ex.). The form data is sent up to Palm's network, and the results are returned in a special format. You can't, afaik, type(er, write) in "http://slashdot.org" and view a page directly.

Dosen't excite me much.
--John Riney
[e-mail]

Re:Internet Access.....Late?

[WarOWorlds]

I do believe 2MB was more than Palm Pilot offered at the time. In addition the Newton has 2 expansion slots. Right now I have 32M. Can a Palm Pilot upgrade so easily. The answer is of course no. They make you by a new one.

It's not IP

[RebornData]

You're right in one respect- I don't know why some people have been saying that the Palm doesn't do IP, because it does, today.

However, that doesn't mean that they're using IP over mobitex. My company built a mobitex wireless messaging solution for laptop users- I've used a mobitex network as an end user, and I've seen "under the covers". It just doesn't make any sense to put IP in mobitex- it's not necessary, and the overhead is too high, given the sucky bandwidth and high cost.

Totally USELESS _and_ expensive. No color?!

[goomba]

1> 50Kb a _MONTH_ limit. Thats right, not an HOUR,
but a MONTH. For $9.99. Ever k after is 0.30. Sp, they're saying we can read 10 emails a month and then we pay $1 an email? Sorry pals, what a pile of horsesh*t. :) Seriously, I couldnt even check daily news headlines, let alone check my email at that cost! A spam message alone is around 5k with all that HTML crap in em!

2> It isnt even 16bit color like the E-100 (which is AWESOME).

3> It doesnt have stereo sound MP3 output.

4> Its twice as expensive as everything else.

5> There are cheaper wireless solutions that cover more areas (Ministrel wireless add-on for Palms)




Uh, duh? See yah Palm Pilot!

Re:another winner from Palm, most likely

[bluGill]

Yeah, I want to see a palm/cell phone intigrated. I like my cell phone even though I only use about 5 minutes in the typical month. I'd use email a lot more though. (I don't need full web access, though that would be nice)

I just want one gadget that I can take with me that has what I need on it.

Re:another winner from Palm, most likely

[mclem]

And you've seen Qualcomm's Palm-phone, yes? http://www.qualcomm.com/pdQ/ [qualcomm.com]

www.palm.net up

[Anonymous Coward]

Go take a look... They removed the password protection so you can access the pages now.

Re: not at 30 CENTS A KILOBYTE.

[goomba]

50k limit per month and then 30 cents each additional kilobyte. An email saying 'hi' will cost you 1/3 of a buck. imagine spam... sheesh.

Re:Feh.

[slim]

Where do you get that impression? Want sources.
Why on earth *wouldn't* it do TCP/IP?

Personally, all I want is a handheld, wireless telnet client (ahem, with a flat rate tariff), and I'll be happy.
--

New Project

[DonkPunch]

I was planning on starting a project to construct a Palm Pilot Beowulf cluster.

I had to drop the project. "PalmWolf" sounded too much like the title of a porn movie.

are there viable alternatives?

[xeno]

For about a year, I used my Palm3 with a real tcp/ip connection for performing remote admin. My employer graciously provided me with a Motorola PM100c CDPD modem and the PCMCIA adapter that allowed me to plug in a serial cable from the Palm3. While the whole mess was a little unweildy, it was still about the same size as a Palm+Minstrel. This was pretty handy, especially when I had to telnet into work and fix something, or use PalmVNC to reboot an NT machine.

However, I'd like to have a direct connection to the internet for network sync/downloading/etc. I haven't seen any direct serial-to-ethernet adapters other than some USB devices. Does anyone know of such a creature? Ideally I want a solution that does not require a host computer running as a proxy; just a small extra doodad similar to the Xircom PE3 to stuff in my bag-o-geekdom.

Re:Internet Access.....Late?

[MeanGene]

Yeah, Palm III is 2Mb+2Mb - so far it's enough for me. And if bulkier body is the price of more memory, I'm not willing to pay it. Do you remember the time when really cool programs with graphics and stuff could fit on one floppy? It's not the size of the wand... Ooops! wrong discussion! ;-)

P.S. Long time ago, I studied a computer that would real-time operate a SAM battery with 64kb (that's k!) RAM.

Comming Soon

[digitaldaniel]

Check out Unilinear [unilinear.com]. They have a neat little pcmcia clip-on for palms (although nothing yet for the V's :-( These will allow highspeed modems, cell modems, flash cards, and yes even Ethernet cards (with driver still under development).

Looks like good stuff ;-) (except for the lack of Palm V support, but then again, that would kinda defeat the purpose of the V's size)

Re:Totally USELESS _and_ expensive. No color?!

[stickyc]

1> Try the $24/mo plan?
2> It also doesn't run Windows CE (but that's a different holy war)
3> And you need this feature because...? The E-100 has 16mb, which works out to about 18 minutes of music (assuming a decent compression and you have no other data on the unit). For $464!
4> Twice? The best price I could find on an E-100 + modem was $664 ($464+$200). That doesn't even include the compatible cell-phone! Last I read, the Palm VII was looking to be under $600.
5> Does that take into consideration roaming and ISP charges (included in the Palm VII)?

East Coast / West Coast - who gives a damn!

[Ratface]

"Palm Computing will introduce its eagerly anticipated Palm VII handheld computer next Monday in trial markets starting on the East Coast. "

It is so frustrating to have such fine trinkets dangled in your face, but to be completely unable to use them. Does anyone know when we are likely to see this device in Europe? Especially Sweden?

Still, at least we got the Nokia 9000 before you yanks did :-)

Re:Totally USELESS _and_ expensive. No color?!

[Mad Browser]

Palm.Net highly compresses and strips out the crap so you don't have as huge of messages...

Re:IT ALREADY DOES

[AtariDatacenter]

It already connects to the internet. Why else do they have telnet apps and settings for your ISP, and those cool browsers?

Re:Internet Access.....Late?

[MeanGene]

Yeah, and Apple's Newton did that before anybody else. Palms were always able to connect (telnet, WWW, e-mail) via external clip-on modem. The only piece of news is that "The Palm VII offers no real hardware enhancements to the Palm III, except for the wireless antenna enabling the Web clipping service". However, cellular networking was available for Palm before (again via a clip-on).

P.S. Did I mention that CE sucks? ;-)

Re:Mindcraft study out soon?

[dattaway]

I was reading through the usenet posts how people who had the CE devices could play mp3's in real time, but were complaining it took much longer just to retrieve addresses and such. Sometimes its nice to have a smaller horsepower device and have the batteries last for many months too. To me, that is usability!

I just got my pilot and am learning how to gcc some stuff for it and learn how to use the tcpip stack. Fun awaits...

Re:Internet Access.....Late? Hardly.

[jezor]

Fine, I'll take this one. The Palm Pilot platform has had a built in TCP/IP stack and Internet-capable applications since at least the PalmPilot Pro, and maybe before. What's new to the Palm VII is wireless Internet connection without requirement of add-ons or modems. Of course, the 8kbps Web clipping offered by the Palm VII is fun, but the 19.2kbps CDPD IP connectivity offered by the clip-on Minstrel [novatelwireless.com] wireless modems is available today, nationwide, affordable, and is true Internet access. Very cool. {Jonathan}

Re:Feh.

[jwriney]

Sorry, I should have worded my statement more clearly.

You're right, indeed the Palm does TCP/IP. Using my Palm Pro and modem to dial into my isp and browse around with Proxiweb, as I do frequently, would be pretty hard without it. I was using the term "tcp/ip" in a less precise manner.

According to the white paper [palm.com], "The Web Clipping Proxy server implements a reliable layer over the UDP protocol to talk to the Palm VII handheld."

Lemme try again - It would appear from the paper that you can't simply open up a socket on an IP address and start slurping data across as an ordinary browser would do. It also seems that this "reliable layer" is something fairly transparent, and you can't get around it. I recall reading somewhere that you simply won't be able to browse in a conventional sense, nor open up a Telnet or IRC or somesuch session either. In fact, this is explicitly stated on page 3 of the paper(first paragraph under "Web Clipping, Not Web Browsing". Thought it was in an article here a while back.

Annnnnnnnyways...

If anybody's listening, my dream Palm peripheral would be a Minstrel that works over GSM. Mmm.

--John Riney
[e-mail]

Internet Access.....Late?

[Accipiter]

While I'm not too familiar with the Palm Pilot, Isn't it a bit late for them to FINALLY come out with one that does internet? Windows CE devices did that from day 1.

-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

Re:Feh.

[DouglasA]

While you can't type "http://slashdot.org" and check out the homepage, Slashdot is included in the selection of sites you can clip information from. A friend of mine is beta-testing Palm VII, and was reading me the Slashdot stories as I drove us down the Mass Pike last week. I, for one, was impressed!

Re:Mindcraft study out soon?

[mytdave]

You Windoze people still don't get it. It's not about MIPS, MHz, etc. Palm Pilot is phenomenally successful because it's simple, elegant and (key word here) reliable.

Oh, and just a reminder. MS didn't invent the PDA market, Apple did with the Newton - too bad they discontinued it. MS is just playing copy-cat again with WinCE, and as ususal, the quality's just not there.

Yahoo

[Martin Fick]

Now what they really need to do is port yahoo chess to it :) Certainly would beat any portable chess game.

another winner from Palm, most likely

[tuffy]

But probably not so much from the web aspect. "Clipping" news sites will be a bonus, and very handy for those boring meetings/classes/etc. However, I think wirelessly beaming apps/data to anyone else with a Palm VIII from across town will be the major selling point for people. Integrating these things with cell phones and beepers could cut down on a whole lot of gadget overload.

Re:The scoop on the connectivity/IP

[stickyc]

What the Palm VII does is read web content through a Proxy server that converts HTML to the Palm VII's compressed data format. In theory, any site can be read through the server, it's just a matter of what URL the device requests.
Providing "spoon fed" content out-the-gate is good for several reasons:
-It provides out-of-the-box bulletproof functionality. The first user experience will NOT be going to a page that looks like crap or takes minutes (and precious free bandwidth) to load on the Palm device.
-It provides immediate value-added benefits (you think "Buy and sell stocks from the palm of your hand" isn't a valuable bullet point?)
-It provides a very controlled environment for content delivery.

With that said, I wouldn't be at all suprized if Palm released the 'code' to allow custom URL's to the developer community, enabling anyone to make thier own "spoon fed" pages.

But the cost issue . . .

[hawk]

There's an article on B1 of this morning's Wall Street Journal.

There are two service packages, at $9.95 and $24.95/month. The first comes with 50*K* of download, and I forget what the second came with. After that, it's about 30c/K . . . The reporter ran up $16 in her first week of testing.

Also, some of the canned sites aren't so friendly: she noted that ABC insisted on sending (unusable) links & graphics.

hawk, who's still holding out for a chording keyboard in the case.

The scoop on the connectivity

[RebornData]

As I understand it, the network behind Palm.Net is Bell South Wireless Data [bellsouthwd.com], which was originally a company called "RAM". The technology is called "Mobitex" and is a low-speed FM radio packet network. I know a bit about the network, having worked on a laptop-based wireless messaging service that used it.

The IP issue
The network itself is not IP-based, and I doubt that Palm would implement full TCP/IP on top of it- specifically, I don't think TCP would be feasible, and it wouldn't make sense to add the overhead of an additional packet protocol on top of the base network. Palm has probably implemented proxy servers that communicate with specially-designed websites and compress and transmit the web data back to your palm using a protocol that is most likely largely proprietary. The transmission protocol between a wireless application server and the actual network was X.25 back when I was working with it, but I bet they've moved to Frame Relay or some sort of stream wrapped in IP by now. So it's unlikely that any of the existing Palm TCP/IP apps will work with this service (based on what I know of the network).

Coverage
Although Bell South is regional, the network is nationwide in the US, and has pretty amazing coverage. RAM used to compete with a similar network run by Motorola- RAM generally had the higher data trasmission rates, Motorola better in-building coverage. Folks outside the US are out of luck- I don't think Mobitex is an international standard.

Performance
The network is designed to transmit fairly large packets, and has high latency. In-building coverage can be a real problem- when I was using RAM to get my e-mail on the road, I generally had to be near a window for it to work well. It was also somewhat spotty when moving (like in a car). It's been a couple of years since I really used the network, so they may have improved things, but there are very good reasons why Palm has implemented this as a "web clippings" service and not as a full-on browser.

3COM stock price

[jonathanclark]

Hmm. As an investor in 3com for several years, it's interesting to see how the rest of world views their value. The core of business is pretty sounds and has a lot of potential. They also have good mind share because everyone and their dog has a Palm-Pilot, especially investor types. But as of recent they took a sharp plunge on the market. Announcing anything internet related is always good for a healthly boost in stock price. This can be seen today, I expect 3com to be up about 2 points before the market closes [quote.com]. Even though 3com's development efforts in this area have not been secret, it takes the main stream press (such as WSJ) to make people aware of it.

I doubt it is accidental that they chose to first demonstrate PP7 in New York (aka NYSE). I got a demonstration 4-5 months ago, and I thought it was pretty cool - mostly for it's small size. The PP7 sales price is pretty high thus a limited appeal, but I expect the price to be half that within a year. I can imagine a lot of companies using a PP7 as part of an eletronic tracking system such as used by UPS and other delivery services.

jonathclark.com [jonathanclark.com]

Re:Internet Access.....Late?

[WarOWorlds]

As the user of a Newton Messagepad 2100, I've had access to the Internet via PDA for over a year and a half. Its a shame how those who embrace the future forget where the real innovation is comming from, i.e. Apple.

Re:Internet Access.....Late?

[WarOWorlds]

I do agree that elegance seems to be a lost art. I should clarify something about the body size. The Palm Pilot is not a real working tool, it is and expexive spiral ring note book. Why? because the body size is too small for writing our a line of text, which is what I need to do. I need to be able to write reports, view, and edit them. This requires the screen to be of a usable size. The body size of the Newton had more to do with the human interface than technology.