There was a lab session on this at Palm Source and I believe that the Web Page
does describe the change over. In any case, the Platinum Program has been
replaced by a Palm Powered Compatible Solution logo. This is not the self test
logo that was referred to earlier in the thread. It is, at the moment, what was
the Platinum Test run through QP Testing. And the link given will lead you to a
description of it.
The change over is for a variety of reasons, but to simplify the best that I
can:
*The test is underused in its present form
*The test is not well understood by the user or developer base
*The test was written with a PIM or standard "productivity" application in mind
and did not always port very well to many of the other types of applications
coming out on palm.
The logo change is a marketing thing and has a lot to do with corporate image
etc. etc. But the test itself is being revamped for OS 4.0 and the focus will
change a bit. Rather than try and pick out Palm Quality based on standard UI
use, we will concentrate on system level compatibility with an eye looking
forward to the eventual move to the ARM chip with OS 5.0. This is not to say
that use of standard UI is not a good thing (that is an entirely different
issue), but rather that judging that was very subjective and system level
compatibility plays a strong role as we move on.
This will mean that we will be stricter when it comes to writing directly to the
screen, stricter about patching traps and other "unsupported" behavior, and
stricter about applications that are just not playing by the rules. On the other
hand, we will remove some of the restrictions about the look and feel of an
individual application. Really, if the UI of your application is poor, it is up
to the user base to decide that...
For now, the test has not changed, just the logo. Look for the new test to come
out along with OS 4.0. Any opinions are welcome :)
-Ezekiel
Palm Developer Support
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