Thursday, January 15, 2004
It Is About Time - Palm OS 6
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THE COMPETITION" @ 09:00 AM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34856.html
Four years ago it was "who needs 16/32/64MB of RAM," "why would you want to listen to music on your PDA, that is what MP3 players are for" and even "color?!? That is gimmicky." Of course, Palm has slowly been adding these and many more features. As those features have been added, they have been heralded as the best thing since sliced bread as if Palm put a magical section of code in it that makes it right when they release it but anything else earlier wasn't ready for prime time. Oddly enough, as PalmOS devices have gotten color and faster processors, I've not heard a peep out of anyone about battery life that has gone from the legendary "4 to 6 weeks" to 4 to 5 hours on some devices, even though the 6 to 8 of the original iPAQ was considered laughable by them. :roll:
The last big hold out, besides a file system that makes RAM and storage cards transparent, is multitasking. Even two to three years ago, I talked to Palm owners that couldn't fathom why you would want to multitask. "This isn't a PC. I just want to do one thing at a time with it." More and more though I've seen Palm fans clamor for the ability to check emails while chatting online, or check on an appointment without having to shut down their browser. Well, PalmOS 6 is out and should bring the versatility multitasking brings that you and I have been enjoying since our first Pocket PC or even Palm-sized PC as early as 1997. What is ironic is PalmSource is being very quiet about it. They have tons of PalmOS 5 devices and even a few PalmOS 4 devices in the market channels and don't want the sales of those to stagnate as users await a new OS.
Now we'll have to see how well PalmSource has handled the multitasking experience. Does it have a built in task switcher? Can you really close a task without adding third party software? Will it get sluggish at all once 5-6 apps are loaded? I'm sure if it does, we'll never hear about it. :wink:
Four years ago it was "who needs 16/32/64MB of RAM," "why would you want to listen to music on your PDA, that is what MP3 players are for" and even "color?!? That is gimmicky." Of course, Palm has slowly been adding these and many more features. As those features have been added, they have been heralded as the best thing since sliced bread as if Palm put a magical section of code in it that makes it right when they release it but anything else earlier wasn't ready for prime time. Oddly enough, as PalmOS devices have gotten color and faster processors, I've not heard a peep out of anyone about battery life that has gone from the legendary "4 to 6 weeks" to 4 to 5 hours on some devices, even though the 6 to 8 of the original iPAQ was considered laughable by them. :roll:
The last big hold out, besides a file system that makes RAM and storage cards transparent, is multitasking. Even two to three years ago, I talked to Palm owners that couldn't fathom why you would want to multitask. "This isn't a PC. I just want to do one thing at a time with it." More and more though I've seen Palm fans clamor for the ability to check emails while chatting online, or check on an appointment without having to shut down their browser. Well, PalmOS 6 is out and should bring the versatility multitasking brings that you and I have been enjoying since our first Pocket PC or even Palm-sized PC as early as 1997. What is ironic is PalmSource is being very quiet about it. They have tons of PalmOS 5 devices and even a few PalmOS 4 devices in the market channels and don't want the sales of those to stagnate as users await a new OS.
Now we'll have to see how well PalmSource has handled the multitasking experience. Does it have a built in task switcher? Can you really close a task without adding third party software? Will it get sluggish at all once 5-6 apps are loaded? I'm sure if it does, we'll never hear about it. :wink:
