I think if palm is to survive they need to UPDATE PALM OS!! Seriously. It is supposed to be an "OS" not a calculator. Most palms come with software that make it only a little more useful than a datebook/calendar. Most people don't have a memory card to use with pTunes... and they would need a stereo adapter to use headphones anyways. A2DP Bluetooth is BUILT IN to Windows Mobile now. You have to buy $20 in software from a non-Palm vendor to do that (not to mention you have to FIND OUT about it). Also, Docs To Go is great... but anybody with a phone like a Treo650 didn't get it... or at least I didn't for some reason. Also it doesn't have the ability to create files... like in Pocket PC's Pocket Word.
Also ... Hotsync is and always has been SLOW! Why??? I heard something about it not taking advantage of USB 2.0 high speed at all... and instead using legacy serial speeds. (am I wrong about this?). Either way... I NEVER hotsync because it just sits there seemingly frozen. I bet it would finish in a few hours. Another thing... most common cell phone users would like something better than Midi for ringtones these days. I didn't notice support for non-midi ringtones (native) until the Centro. I hear in Windows Mobile, you can select from a variety of file formats for ringtones - per contact! Windows Mobile (it seems to me) qualifies more as an OS than Palm does... its more useable out of the box... and you don't have to go searching for 3rd party vendors for all those common features you want. Hopefully the SDK for this new OS will actually allow Palm to get their act together. They had better. I think the only way they are going to survive is to make Palm OS integrate with Windows (the dominant OS) and office products even better than Windows Mobile currently does - and out of the box! Built in stuff, not 3rd party software. Well maybe 3rd party software wouldn't be bad if it integrated into the OS well. Also as I pointed out earlier... at least meet the minimum cell-phone user expectations. One thing they ought to add is a built-in PC-Palm file transfer feature... so that music and pictures can be downloaded waay easier. I'm sure many of the Windows Mobile phones already have a "USB Mass Storage" mode. I'm kinda debating as to whether I should aim for Palm job-wise... because I'm not sure whether it will survive. I really want them to, though. I am still awaiting the next Palm OS phone that has GPS and Wifi like the other recent models. Luc Le Blanc wrote:
Palm has been quick in the past to boast the wide software offering for Palm OS, yet did very little to actually support the developers who made their platform attractive, especially freeware writers, while much of the offering was freeware. Continued support from developers to migrate their apps to web OS is just taken for granted after years of uncertainty about OS 6, ALP and Nova. Today Palm says "forget about a compatibility layer, there's no adaptation possible, just rebuild your apps from the ground up with Javascript, HTML or CSS and stay with us, we need you to make money!" Count me out! Luc Le Blanc
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