Monday, June 10, 2002
Palm ships OS 5 to developers
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "NEWS" @ 05:16 AM
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/technology/3437512.htm
PalmSource, the OS and software division, made good on a commitment to ship OS5 to developers by early summer. "The OS 5 platform is designed to be faster and more secure, and can accommodate richer audio and graphics. Multimedia users will be able to play back and record digital audio using higher-resolution screens. The new OS also expands built-in support for wireless networking -- considered the future direction of all mobile computer devices -- and should help improve connection speeds."
Interesting isn't it? Those features the Pocket PC and Windows CE users have been saying for years are great features on a PDA have been blasted by Palm and its core user base as bloated and unnecessary are now the entire focus of OS5.
The article says that Palm OS5 devices should be in stores later this summer. A Yahoo article says "It will take about a year for the new ARM-based handhelds to fully supplant those running the older DragonBall chips in the product lineups at Palm and others. At that point you'll start to see development of ARM-based applications," Nagel said. "We're not doing much to encourage them to do that at this point." If that is the case, I don't see what OS 5 does for most people right now. It is a necessary stepping stone, but many industry analysts are looking for OS5 to halt Palm's slide in marketshare and cure their financial woes. Personally, I don't see it, other than an initial buying wave when the first devices ship. It is the next revision (OS6?) that is really supposed to add multitasking and will encourage native ARM applications. Given what we've seen out of Sony the past 12 months, I expect them to break some rules and start enabling things like multitasking sooner rather than wait for Palm to finish OS6.
You can also read more about it at Forbes.
PalmSource, the OS and software division, made good on a commitment to ship OS5 to developers by early summer. "The OS 5 platform is designed to be faster and more secure, and can accommodate richer audio and graphics. Multimedia users will be able to play back and record digital audio using higher-resolution screens. The new OS also expands built-in support for wireless networking -- considered the future direction of all mobile computer devices -- and should help improve connection speeds."
Interesting isn't it? Those features the Pocket PC and Windows CE users have been saying for years are great features on a PDA have been blasted by Palm and its core user base as bloated and unnecessary are now the entire focus of OS5.
The article says that Palm OS5 devices should be in stores later this summer. A Yahoo article says "It will take about a year for the new ARM-based handhelds to fully supplant those running the older DragonBall chips in the product lineups at Palm and others. At that point you'll start to see development of ARM-based applications," Nagel said. "We're not doing much to encourage them to do that at this point." If that is the case, I don't see what OS 5 does for most people right now. It is a necessary stepping stone, but many industry analysts are looking for OS5 to halt Palm's slide in marketshare and cure their financial woes. Personally, I don't see it, other than an initial buying wave when the first devices ship. It is the next revision (OS6?) that is really supposed to add multitasking and will encourage native ARM applications. Given what we've seen out of Sony the past 12 months, I expect them to break some rules and start enabling things like multitasking sooner rather than wait for Palm to finish OS6.
You can also read more about it at Forbes.
