Wednesday, November 10, 2004
PalmOne To Release PalmOS 6 devices in 2006. Maybe. Or Maybe Not.
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THE COMPETITION" @ 10:00 AM
http://www.brighthand.com/article/No_Palm_OS_Cobalt_Devices_Until_2006
"Ed Colligan was speaking to analysts in London when he said this, and a reporter from NewsWireless was there. Mr. Colligan wasn't saying that there definitely won't be any palmOne handhelds or smartphones running Cobalt coming next year; instead, the company refuses to commit to doing so by any particular date. "Nobody knows when we'll start the shift to Cobalt, OS 6, or on which devices," Mr. Colligan said. "For now, we're saying that we've built the functionality we need into the Treo and the Tungsten T5 and there's no need to confuse developers by switching. I'm not even prepared to commit us to a change next year, or the year after, at this stage." (emphasis added)
Cobalt was finished up a few months ago and is the code name for PalmOS 6. PalmOS 5, currently shipping on just about every Palm OS device, was meant to be a transition OS, moving from the original Kadak based kernel to a 32bit OS with full multitasking, just like Windows Mobile and your desktop. With PalmOS 5, most apps run in PACE (Palm Application Compatibility Environment) which emulates the 68k processor. PalmOS devices now run with the ARM processor.
Cobalt will allow more robust background processing and multitasking. Currently, when you push an app to the background with OS5, a background thread stays alive, allowing email to download for example, but the UI completely shuts down so when you switch back to that app, you aren't necessarily back where you left off. Apps will be able to be written in native ARM code, bypassing the need for the emulation environment. Oddly enough, OS5 simply doesn't allow full blown apps to be written to take advantage of the ARM processor.
So, as usual, PalmOne is saying they have the functionality you need. "For now, we're saying that we've built the functionality we need into the Treo and the Tungsten T5..." You won't need the more advanced stuff until OS 6 devices ship. :roll: And what is with that bit about "confusing developers?" Any Palm developers reading this? Which is more confusing, OS 6 or Ed Colligan's statement? Meanwhile, PalmSource has released OS 6.1 already and you can run it on your desktop - which may be the only place you can run Cobalt in the near future. ;-) On a related note, anyone know when PalmOS will have a true native file system?
"Ed Colligan was speaking to analysts in London when he said this, and a reporter from NewsWireless was there. Mr. Colligan wasn't saying that there definitely won't be any palmOne handhelds or smartphones running Cobalt coming next year; instead, the company refuses to commit to doing so by any particular date. "Nobody knows when we'll start the shift to Cobalt, OS 6, or on which devices," Mr. Colligan said. "For now, we're saying that we've built the functionality we need into the Treo and the Tungsten T5 and there's no need to confuse developers by switching. I'm not even prepared to commit us to a change next year, or the year after, at this stage." (emphasis added)
Cobalt was finished up a few months ago and is the code name for PalmOS 6. PalmOS 5, currently shipping on just about every Palm OS device, was meant to be a transition OS, moving from the original Kadak based kernel to a 32bit OS with full multitasking, just like Windows Mobile and your desktop. With PalmOS 5, most apps run in PACE (Palm Application Compatibility Environment) which emulates the 68k processor. PalmOS devices now run with the ARM processor.
Cobalt will allow more robust background processing and multitasking. Currently, when you push an app to the background with OS5, a background thread stays alive, allowing email to download for example, but the UI completely shuts down so when you switch back to that app, you aren't necessarily back where you left off. Apps will be able to be written in native ARM code, bypassing the need for the emulation environment. Oddly enough, OS5 simply doesn't allow full blown apps to be written to take advantage of the ARM processor.
So, as usual, PalmOne is saying they have the functionality you need. "For now, we're saying that we've built the functionality we need into the Treo and the Tungsten T5..." You won't need the more advanced stuff until OS 6 devices ship. :roll: And what is with that bit about "confusing developers?" Any Palm developers reading this? Which is more confusing, OS 6 or Ed Colligan's statement? Meanwhile, PalmSource has released OS 6.1 already and you can run it on your desktop - which may be the only place you can run Cobalt in the near future. ;-) On a related note, anyone know when PalmOS will have a true native file system?
