Granted these are only my opinion, so take them with a grain of salt.. I
have been a Palm user for years and I currently have 4 different devices on
my desk.. with a half dozen more of various model numbers scattered about my
office.. and among all of those is one lone Journada 545 that I curse at
every time I have to pick it up... but again, that is IMHO..
> 1) Why is PalmOS hardware so anemic compared
> with the iPAQ?
The standard answer is, at least in part, true. However, I think it also has
a lot to do with my analogy previously.. the Palm hardware is "anemic" (I
would prefer to say "simpler") because that is all it needs to get its
target job done. It makes for a cheaper device with lower battery
consumption. Palm's approach has always been to keep it simple.. is this the
right approach today? Probably not, given the drop in prices of the
underlying hardware.. this is one of the reasons Palm is moving toward the
ARM based technology. That, by the way, will also allow them to branch into
some of those other areas of complaint.
> 2) What is Palm doing to make development faster
> and easier?
A difficult and loaded question. I have used CW from the early days of
Release 4.. I am currently still on Release 6, but plan to upgrade it soon.
There are numerous things that bug me about it.. not the least of which is
its seeming need to override standard Windows controls in favor of things
that look the same, but behave differently. After 4 years or so of it, I've
gotten used to those little quirks... you think it stinks now? Do a search
in the knowledge base for BDWM and see all the complaints that older
versions used to get... like Palm itself, CW is improving.. if only at a
sometimes maddeningly slow pace.
This whole thread started with someone stating that they were screaming for
these things a year ago and now they still don't have them.. and tried to
turn that as some sort of mistake on Palm's part because they didn't listen
to his "expertise". Was he right? Maybe on some points.. Palm has got to
look toward Enterprise users now (which is where CE got its real foothold)..
but where Palm is today vs. where Palm was a year ago? They are a lot
healthier and have a lot more plans than the general public may believe. In
the last year, the Palm OS (not entirely at Palm's labs) has improved
resolution, the total number of colors, created a dynamic graffiti area, and
added an additional expansion slot ability... and they did ALL of this
without impacting 99% of existing applications. Now that's what I call
innovation.
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