On January 13, 2003 02:29 am, Jim Cooper wrote: > > Those applications that most use, are not available on the Palm (or at > > least not good ones). On the PocketPC, there is very useful applications > > for most users.
I disagree with the PPC having many useful applications. Sure, it may be a bit easier to -port- Windows applications to the device, but that doesn't make the application useful. Application count wise, there are many more applications for the Palm (as it's been in the market much, much longer.) > I think you're missing the point a bit here. What are the applications > that most use **on a PDA**? Spreadsheets and word processors suck on a > small PDA screen, I don't care what OS it's running. They are simply not > appropriate applications for the device. There are four main applications I use on my Visor: - WordSmith - I write freaking books with this. 300k words and counting on one of them. I bought a Targus keyboard to better use my handheld as an alternate word processor to a laptop. The price difference is substantial. - powerOne calculator - The best. So good, I'm not allowed to bring it to tests. My profs are quite impressed with it. - Plucker - reading books. Lots of 'em. I much prefer the handheld's size to that of a real book - and the refresh rate of an LCD doesn't hurt my eyes like my desktop machine. I can also store thousands of books in less space than a sticky note. - SpaceWar - everybody has at least one game on their handheld, right? > Should you be mad enough to want them, though those apps **are** shipped > with pretty much all new PalmOS devices. They just aren't installed, > which is fair considering that many of us don't want them. Most > reviewers seem to think the Office type PalmOS apps are superior to the > PPC ones, too. I still don't understand why anyone cares, but... WordSmith beats PocketWord, hands down. In fact (IMHO) WordSmith beats down many alternative PalmOS apps as well. /me is heavily biased, having used WordSmith since I received my device. > > MP3 player - not available on Palm; need 3rd party (quite useful one is > > available on PocketPC) I actually have a real MP3 player. Since both the player and my visor use the same media (CF), I'm quite happy. Also, it was cheaper than buying a PPC device, or a Sony, or a MP3 player module. > And I think you're wrong about there not being one for the Tungsten... I'm waiting for an OGG player ;P WARNING: The following is personal experience and opinion - I haven't done extensive research and I may be completely out to lunch. <opinion> My general thoughts are that Palm is in the lead, and will stay there as long as they don't fsck up with PalmOS 6 too much. I would so like to see something like what was introduced in MacOS 6 - MultiFinder, a standard media format (OGG would be nice, Quicktime was the Mac way) and a variety of other improvements. A real filesystem for "advanced" users would be great. Then again, I'm a bit of a console jockey... ;) WindowsCE based devices are too varied in hardware and software capability to be very useful to me. I notice that some applications work on this CPU, others on another. Some on several. It's very, er, slap-dash. Who knows, Palm may be heading that way, too. At least Palm handhelds have one instruction set :P Get a copy of the Cassiopea BE300 SDK, installer creator, and manuals. You'll see what I mean. Engrish is not a good language. Well designed Palm applications are compiled once, and can run on any PalmOS device. Well designed WindowsCE applications need several dozen different API versions, and half a dozen different compiler/assemblers to run on every CE/PPC device. Even then, there is no real standard resolution or any number of other capabilities. Palm programs usually require one file. CE/PPC ones require installers for each architecture. The BE300 system is the epitimy of why I don't do CE. Of course, Palm is only the better of several evils. Since it's been around so much longer, it's matured more. Also, there is a huge amount of philosophy behind PalmOS systems and applications. I would NEVER have thought to run Windows APIs on a small device. *shudder* That's why Palm has been able to get away with 16-33mHz processors, while the smallest CE device I have ever seen was around 200. PalmOS: 8mb, CE: 32+MB storage. PalmOS hardware is also generally cheaper than CE. </opinion> There, that's my dime worth. -- Matthew (Darkstorm) Bevan [EMAIL PROTECTED] Margin Software, NECTI. http://www.marginsoftware.com Re-inventing the wheel, every time. - You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. -- For information on using the Palm Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
