Two semi-related posts about Palm.

First, Jeremy Wagstaff has a nice rumination and eulogy regarding the upcoming Treo on Windows Mobile for the new year. Yes, I'll probably poke and prod one (but not switch to Verizon most likely), but I've still yet to feel comfortable with the Windows LnF in a small device when I pick them up. I liked the HP 360LX, but that was a palmtop, not a phone or real handheld, thanks very much... I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I still love the Newton OS, despite its age; the formfactor is a bit... clunky for today (and certainly for a phone), but the OS is the Shiznit.

Maybe I should go to WWNC 2006 after all... Where's my conference request form!?

Secondly, I meant to post about it when it came out, but Will Shipley is Really Angry at Palm and - having just gone through the upgrade myself, I can feel his pain. And really, the general pain of PalmOS on OSX - the conduits are OK but not rock solid, the GUI for the Palm Desktop is oh-so-9.x, and I point a shared finger at Palm and Apple for the deficiencies (and yes, the elegances!) of iSync's Palm Conduit (is it too much to ask for category support? C'mon! Pleeeeeeease!)

Unfortunately, Will's final bit

... somebody at Palm needs to start thinking like Steve Jobs. Someone needs to make it her job to say, "This detail sucks, and if the details suck the whole thing sucks, and if our product sucks we suck, so we're going to stay here and we're going to fix this and we're not going to ship until the phone doesn't suck."

is clearly not going to come through now... instead, the rough edges and details will be that deep blue I associate with heavy menus, confusing windowing and, well, more Treo-like crashes from faulty memory management.

The quest for the Onit and allied devices continues.

Technorati Tags: Newton, Onit, PalmOne, WWNC, Treo

Posted by esinclai at September 27, 2005 10:07 PM |