I think that another important issue is to consider how much performance you
have to sacrifice when trying to support earlier versions. If it does not
compromise the performance, why not? But if it does, or make ur design very
difficult, then it may not worth the trouble. Also, who you are targetting
is also extremely important.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of DIAMOND
JEFF
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 6:01 AM
To: Palm Developer Forum
Subject: Re: What percent of Palms are Palm OS 3.5 or better?
It's also not good for the Palm market as a whole.
If Palm users feel that in two years their hand held is a piece of junk,
what are the odds they'll buy another Palm? Or if they do,
why not buy a PocketPC which has much higher hardware specs that might not
become obsolete as quickly?
One of the selling points of the Palm platform is you're supposed to be able
to do cool things without needing gigabytes of ram and
gighertz processors. You have an appliance that 'just works" and doesn't
need constant upgrades. Supporting older OS's is part of
the price.
And for the record, supporting OS 3.1 is not so bad. It took me only a few
man weeks to port an app to OS 3.1 -> first you
encapsulate all the calls to OS 3.5 functions, then you emulate or disable
them under OS 3.1.
It's good for you! Makes you a strong developer. :)
James Preston wrote:
> Two points:
> 1) 10% of 13 million (the original poster's assumption of how many Palms
> have been sold) is 1.3 million. I know everything's relative, but I would
> not call over a million and a quarter users a "small" audience, and I for
> one would not eliminate them as potential customers of my software without
a
> VERY good reason. (If even one percent of that "small audience" bought my
> software, that's revenue of 13,000 times the selling price . . .). And as
> more and more applications go the way you suggest, and abandon support of
> 2.0 devices, those apps that DO run on 2.0 will be all that more sought
> after by that "small audience".
>
> 2) I'm curious, on what basis do you arrive at that figure of "probably"
> less than 10%? I dimly remember the number three million being bandied
about
> as the number of Palms sold shortly before the III came out. If that's
true,
> that's about a quarter of the 13 million. To arrive at your 10% would mean
> that over half of the three million pre-3.0 Palms would have had to have
> been retired already. Seems high to me (this from a person who just
ordered
> an m505, which will be my fifth Palm. But then there's my co-worker who's
in
> no hurry to give up his Palm 5000).
>
> --Jim Preston
>
> "Bradly J. Barton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:43732@palm-dev-forum...
> >
> > The most major "missing" function in 2.0 that I've found TblSetFont ..
but
> > that's easy to work around if you draw your own text using the custom
> table
> > item... I think the percentage of pre-3.0 devices has probably fallen
> below
> > 10% now, so you probably are not eliminating a large audience by
excluding
> > them. However, if you are shooting for a commercial product, I have
gotten
> > email thanking me for supporting 2.0 devices... so there are some out
> there.
> >
> > ----------
> > Bradly J. Barton - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Jenies Technologies Incorporated
> > (972) 602-1835
> > http://www.JTI.net
> > http://HandAble.com
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Alan Ingleby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Newsgroups: palm-dev-forum
> > To: "Palm Developer Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 8:05 PM
> > Subject: Re: What percent of Palms are Palm OS 3.5 or better?
> >
> >
> > > IMO, the 3.5 and up figure would be around 50%. 3.5 was only released
a
> > > year ago.
> > >
> > > I believe all 3.0 and above devices can, however be upgraded to 3.3
for
> > > free, or 3.5 for a minimal fee, so perhaps you should aim for 3.3.
> > >
> > > Personally I decided to aim for 3.0. The only reason I don't go to
2.0
> is
> > > because I use custom fonts. (There may have been a second reason
> too... )
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Alan Ingleby
> > > Systems Developer
> > > ProfitLink Consulting Pty Ltd
> > > 309 Burwood Road
> > > Hawthorn
> > > Victoria 3122
> > > Australia
> > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:43715@palm-dev-forum...
> > > >
> > > > Of the thirteen million Palms sold, what percentage are currently
> > running
> > > > Palm OS 3.5 or better?
> > > >
> > > > I am trying to assess when I realistically no longer have to support
> OS
> > > 3.0,
> > > > 3.1, and 3.2. I am making the simplifying assumption that users
don't
> > > > upgrade their OS.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Alan
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe,
> > please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/support/forums/
> >
> >
> >
>
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