Engadget Cares: The state of Palm - checking in a year later
By Ryan Block 
posted August 22nd 2008 1:24PM
posted August 22nd 2008 1:24PM
Outgoing Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block contributes Engadget Cares, a friendly advice column for the people who make your technology.
Hard to believe, but it's been a year and a day since Peter, Josh, and I published our intervention letter to Palm, wherein we rattled off a number of (admittedly unsolicited) suggestions on how we thought they might best turn things around at a time when Microsoft, RIM, and Apple were really eating into their slice of the smartphone pie.
Palm CEO Ed Colligan took the time to publicly reply, letting everyone know that he "forwarded [our letter] to [Palm's] entire executive staff and many others at Palm have read it. ...We are attacking almost every challenge [Engadget] noted, so stay tuned." When the dust settled, we were cautiously optimistic, if not a little hopeful.
In some ways that letter inspired Engadget Cares. And since it's my last day here at Engadget as editor-in-chief and all, it seems only appropriate to check in on things and see whether Palm really did "attack every challenge" from a year ago. Read on.
So Palm, I'm going to go over each point from last year's letter, awarding a Treo 600 for every bit you've gotten right, and a Foleo for any (continued) misdeeds. At the end I'll add it up and see how you've been doing.
A Treo 600 represents +1, while
a Foleo represents -1
Hardware
Get thin - I thought we might have to start off on a sour note, because prior to the Pro's launch earlier this week, Treos were pretty much the same place we were last year when it comes to girth. Some newer devices, like the Centro, are down from the usual 0.8-inches thick to 0.73-inches. Meanwhile, the iPhone 3G actually got thicker, and STILL manages to be significantly thinner at 0.48-inches; RIM's Curve is at 0.6-inches, and the upcoming Blackberry Bold sexpot is a scant 0.5-inches thick. But you managed to make the Pro 0.53-inches, and by all accounts that's the thinnest Palm smartphone yet. Just don't stop there, okay? You can always make it a little thinner.
Bigger, higher resolution displays - Same deal. In fact, Palm fans took a huge step back on the Centro, which brought us down to an eye-straining ~2.2-inches. You know it too, Palm, because you totally downplay the Centro's screen size. Sure, you could argue that it's got more pixel density, and that's a good thing when your UI scales. Palm OS 5 does not, so bundle it with some bifocals. We're glad the Pro's screen is no longer recessed (we hear it ain't easy to do a flush resistive touchscreen), but it's still the same display, you know?
Don't mess with the keyboard - I definitely like the mild, incremental improvements made on newer Palm devices, but the Centro keyboard is, as predicted last year, "impossible to type on" (unless you've got a four year old's thumbs), and the new Treo Pro is actually a step back for the flagship line's fuller-sized pad. It's closer to the 800w-style size, but you've managed to actually make it harder to type on, congrats. And don't even get me started on the fact that you don't seem to be an inch closer to a sliding QWERTY. Really, why not do one?
Make it look nice - The Centro seems more toy than smartphone, the 800w kind of reminds us of a smiling clown in makeup, and the Pro ironically shares the same keyboard and design cues as the lowest-end device in the lineup. Hell, even RIM, long-time purveyor of some of the world's ugliest phones, has totally gotten with the program in the last year.
Add WiFi - The 800w and Pro have it, and that's definitely a step in the right direction for devices of this class. Don't stop there, though!
Think about adding some storage - 60MB (in the 755p) and 170MB (in the 800w) of available user memory doesn't do a smartphone a whole lot of good anymore. Even HTC's Touch Diamond stepped to the game with 4GB, 25x your capacity.
Put the kibosh on the Centro / Gandolf / Treo 800p - Turns out the Treo Centro is one of your best selling phones of all time. Congrats! But I do think that has more to do with the aggressive price point, and less to do the device itself. And as of July, $100 for a Centro (with EDGE) became a whole lot harder for consumers to justify in the face of a $200 iPhone (with 3G). You may have to make this one free if you want to continue fending off Cupertino.
You also just announced the Pro, which you're selling unlocked for $550 -- which means you couldn't get AT&T on board to sell it alongside the iPhone at $200 subsidized, or something like that. I don't remember the last time you launched a new flagship product in the US that didn't have a carrier launch partner, so we have to wonder a bit why AT&T got cold feet.
The real point here is to say I still don't really think Palm's on the right track with these devices. They feel just as out of touch with where the market's gone. On the flip side, at least you're trying SOMETHING new, which is a departure from the last few years of Palm products. Plus, a couple million Centros don't lie, nor does NPD's stats which peg Palm's share of US smartphone sales in 1H08 gaining 3% to 12% (over 1H07's 9%). So we'll give you the 600. This time.
Software suggestions
Completely overhaul the OS - In the time you've tried and failed with Cobalt / OS 6, tried again (and failed again) with that next-gen Linux OS (later sold to ACCESS), and have been working on the next-next-gen Linux platform: RIM's totally overhauled their entire user experience and sold a gazillion devices, Microsoft has shipped nearly a half dozen versions of Windows Mobile, Apple's shipped two versions of their mobile platform, and Android was announced and is just about ready to ship.
Meanwhile your target for 2007 turned into end of 2008, then early 2009, and now the first half of 2009 (according to a recent NYT profile) -- but the fact that there's no official (or leaked) alpha shots, no public or private SDK, or really nothing else to go by at this point leaves us skeptical, to say the least. But hey, in the midst of Helio's unraveling you did pick up the dude behind the SideKick's interface, and if there's one thing Android doesn't have going for it so far, it seems to be UI savvy.
The rest (be open, add true multi-tasking, embrace developers, add a better browser, offer great Mac support, beef up the multimedia, and get with Google) - These are a little harder to directly gauge, because they presumed you'd have actually shipped (or at least begun to detail) the new platform by now. But you haven't. And almost all the points we made are still as valid today as they were last year, with only a small amount of forward motion coming from only the most tenacious 3rd party developers still trying to plug the holes.
Fortunately, you still have an advantageous position, especially in light of Apple's false-openness with the iPhone. You need to really let devs and users get their hands dirty with your platform and devices. Trust us, people are getting sick of the iPhone App Store gulag, and Android's radical openness is going to help shift things in the other direction. Bank on differentiation, you might not have any other choice. Since we're not any better off today, though, you get a Foleo. Just one though, not all seven.
Other Stuff
Stop wasting money on the Foleo - Sure, the whole netbook market really started to take off around the time you were killing the Foleo, but I stand by that recommendation big time. What some people didn't see in hindsight was that the Foleo was a totally different concept than netbooks, and was poorly positioned from the start. Expecting users to fork out $600 for a giant "companion" device in order to make up for the long list of shortcomings in your own mobile platform is no way to sell either product.
And unfortunately for the Foleo, it couldn't have lived as a netbook, either; Eee PCs still would have outpaced it because they provide a proper laptop-like experience, be it with Windows XP or just having Firefox in Linux. The Foleo didn't just shirk the experience we appreciate in a good netbook, it also depended heavily on having a cellphone and syncing services between devices. (For example, it couldn't do email by itself -- it required a phone to sync email with and send through.)
In fact, as you may recall, I got to spend some time with a late-model Foleo. Everything about it was underwhelming, and the one thing the Foleo needed to nail -- the browsing -- was a complete failure. (Think: no tabs, no Flash, couldn't even load Gmail, and LOTS of crashing.) Plus, going up against Asus's Eee would have eventually turned out to be a major distraction for an already distracted company, as well as an uphill battle due to the Foleo's fundamentally flawed premise. Trust me when I say that the idea won't be vidicated, and that the smartest thing Palm ever did with the Foleo was to kill it.
Make better ads - "It's a Palm thing" That's really the best you guys could do? These are some of the worst technology ads I've ever seen. And what's worse, they don't even tell you anything about the devices (like, say, why it would be a better choice than a BlackBerry or the iPhone). If I were you, I'd drop Young and Rubicam and run for the hills. Maybe pick up TBWA \ Chiat \ Day -- the people that make the iPhone ads should know better than anyone how to counter them.
Stop keeping us in the dark - Again, nothing much has changed here. No clear timelines have been set for the next-gen OS in spite of developers flocking in droves to Apple's platform. If devs were on the fence before, they've jumped it by now. Would it really hurt to tell people how things are going? Palm has a blog, yet we rarely see it used for anything but the usual company line-toeing.
In fact, I might say things are even more closed off than they were before, and Ed Colligan still won't sit down with Engadget to talk about what's going on with Palm. To be fair, when we last saw him out at an event, Ed expressed interest in an interview with Engadget. But for whatever reason, try though we might, the people at Palm won't seem to let us drop by for a sit-down. Go figure.
So let's see where we stand!
That's four Treo 600s!
And eight Foleos.
Ouch, that's a total score of -4. Or, if you want to look at it glass-half-full, that's four things that have been tangibly improved over this time last year.
Without sounding like too much of a broken record, are we really better off with today's Palm products? Devices take 12-18+ months from start to ship, but I think a lot of us believed that after Elevation's recapitalization and the installation of former iPod executive Jon Rubinstein to lead your product-development, we might see some short term results. In a sense, we have -- you've managed to win over some new Palm converts selling a lot of budget-priced Centros -- but it's hardly a satisfying return to the high-flying glory days.
I'd also wager that kind of gain won't be long term. RIM and Apple know that business devices have to get personal, and vice-versa; your current (and from what we can tell, future) offerings don't seem to address the need for a single, versatile, do everything device. (Say, doesn't that sound a little like the original Treo mission statement?) We're in the same Palm stasis we've been in for about a half a decade now, waiting for the new software as the launch timetables slip quarter after quarter, year after year.
Picking up the Android mantle still seems like a great short-term move, but it seems like once again you'd rather go to bat with Linux alone. That's understandable to a certain extent, but why not at least build a few Android devices alongside your forthcoming Nova / Palm OS II, Windows Mobile, and legacy Garnet-based handsets? It'd show you're still interested in staying relevant and competitive as an important new mobile platform emerges, or at very least that you're humble enough to recognize there hasn't been a major Palm OS update since 2002. No, we aren't expecting Ed to give us another public response, just for Palm to make good on its heritage of innovation -- however you want to define the word.
Ryan Block is the editor-at-large of Engadget, and is currently at work on a new gadget-related content startup.
If you know a company or technology in need of a little advice (especially one too afraid to ask for it), hit him up at engadgetcaresATengadgetDOTcom.
Palm CEO Ed Colligan took the time to publicly reply, letting everyone know that he "forwarded [our letter] to [Palm's] entire executive staff and many others at Palm have read it. ...We are attacking almost every challenge [Engadget] noted, so stay tuned." When the dust settled, we were cautiously optimistic, if not a little hopeful.
In some ways that letter inspired Engadget Cares. And since it's my last day here at Engadget as editor-in-chief and all, it seems only appropriate to check in on things and see whether Palm really did "attack every challenge" from a year ago. Read on.
So Palm, I'm going to go over each point from last year's letter, awarding a Treo 600 for every bit you've gotten right, and a Foleo for any (continued) misdeeds. At the end I'll add it up and see how you've been doing.
A Treo 600 represents +1, whilea Foleo represents -1Hardware
Get thin - I thought we might have to start off on a sour note, because prior to the Pro's launch earlier this week, Treos were pretty much the same place we were last year when it comes to girth. Some newer devices, like the Centro, are down from the usual 0.8-inches thick to 0.73-inches. Meanwhile, the iPhone 3G actually got thicker, and STILL manages to be significantly thinner at 0.48-inches; RIM's Curve is at 0.6-inches, and the upcoming Blackberry Bold sexpot is a scant 0.5-inches thick. But you managed to make the Pro 0.53-inches, and by all accounts that's the thinnest Palm smartphone yet. Just don't stop there, okay? You can always make it a little thinner.
Bigger, higher resolution displays - Same deal. In fact, Palm fans took a huge step back on the Centro, which brought us down to an eye-straining ~2.2-inches. You know it too, Palm, because you totally downplay the Centro's screen size. Sure, you could argue that it's got more pixel density, and that's a good thing when your UI scales. Palm OS 5 does not, so bundle it with some bifocals. We're glad the Pro's screen is no longer recessed (we hear it ain't easy to do a flush resistive touchscreen), but it's still the same display, you know?
Don't mess with the keyboard - I definitely like the mild, incremental improvements made on newer Palm devices, but the Centro keyboard is, as predicted last year, "impossible to type on" (unless you've got a four year old's thumbs), and the new Treo Pro is actually a step back for the flagship line's fuller-sized pad. It's closer to the 800w-style size, but you've managed to actually make it harder to type on, congrats. And don't even get me started on the fact that you don't seem to be an inch closer to a sliding QWERTY. Really, why not do one?
Make it look nice - The Centro seems more toy than smartphone, the 800w kind of reminds us of a smiling clown in makeup, and the Pro ironically shares the same keyboard and design cues as the lowest-end device in the lineup. Hell, even RIM, long-time purveyor of some of the world's ugliest phones, has totally gotten with the program in the last year.
Add WiFi - The 800w and Pro have it, and that's definitely a step in the right direction for devices of this class. Don't stop there, though!
Think about adding some storage - 60MB (in the 755p) and 170MB (in the 800w) of available user memory doesn't do a smartphone a whole lot of good anymore. Even HTC's Touch Diamond stepped to the game with 4GB, 25x your capacity.
Put the kibosh on the Centro / Gandolf / Treo 800p - Turns out the Treo Centro is one of your best selling phones of all time. Congrats! But I do think that has more to do with the aggressive price point, and less to do the device itself. And as of July, $100 for a Centro (with EDGE) became a whole lot harder for consumers to justify in the face of a $200 iPhone (with 3G). You may have to make this one free if you want to continue fending off Cupertino.
You also just announced the Pro, which you're selling unlocked for $550 -- which means you couldn't get AT&T on board to sell it alongside the iPhone at $200 subsidized, or something like that. I don't remember the last time you launched a new flagship product in the US that didn't have a carrier launch partner, so we have to wonder a bit why AT&T got cold feet.
The real point here is to say I still don't really think Palm's on the right track with these devices. They feel just as out of touch with where the market's gone. On the flip side, at least you're trying SOMETHING new, which is a departure from the last few years of Palm products. Plus, a couple million Centros don't lie, nor does NPD's stats which peg Palm's share of US smartphone sales in 1H08 gaining 3% to 12% (over 1H07's 9%). So we'll give you the 600. This time.
Software suggestions
Completely overhaul the OS - In the time you've tried and failed with Cobalt / OS 6, tried again (and failed again) with that next-gen Linux OS (later sold to ACCESS), and have been working on the next-next-gen Linux platform: RIM's totally overhauled their entire user experience and sold a gazillion devices, Microsoft has shipped nearly a half dozen versions of Windows Mobile, Apple's shipped two versions of their mobile platform, and Android was announced and is just about ready to ship.
Meanwhile your target for 2007 turned into end of 2008, then early 2009, and now the first half of 2009 (according to a recent NYT profile) -- but the fact that there's no official (or leaked) alpha shots, no public or private SDK, or really nothing else to go by at this point leaves us skeptical, to say the least. But hey, in the midst of Helio's unraveling you did pick up the dude behind the SideKick's interface, and if there's one thing Android doesn't have going for it so far, it seems to be UI savvy.
The rest (be open, add true multi-tasking, embrace developers, add a better browser, offer great Mac support, beef up the multimedia, and get with Google) - These are a little harder to directly gauge, because they presumed you'd have actually shipped (or at least begun to detail) the new platform by now. But you haven't. And almost all the points we made are still as valid today as they were last year, with only a small amount of forward motion coming from only the most tenacious 3rd party developers still trying to plug the holes.
Fortunately, you still have an advantageous position, especially in light of Apple's false-openness with the iPhone. You need to really let devs and users get their hands dirty with your platform and devices. Trust us, people are getting sick of the iPhone App Store gulag, and Android's radical openness is going to help shift things in the other direction. Bank on differentiation, you might not have any other choice. Since we're not any better off today, though, you get a Foleo. Just one though, not all seven.
Other Stuff
Stop wasting money on the Foleo - Sure, the whole netbook market really started to take off around the time you were killing the Foleo, but I stand by that recommendation big time. What some people didn't see in hindsight was that the Foleo was a totally different concept than netbooks, and was poorly positioned from the start. Expecting users to fork out $600 for a giant "companion" device in order to make up for the long list of shortcomings in your own mobile platform is no way to sell either product.
And unfortunately for the Foleo, it couldn't have lived as a netbook, either; Eee PCs still would have outpaced it because they provide a proper laptop-like experience, be it with Windows XP or just having Firefox in Linux. The Foleo didn't just shirk the experience we appreciate in a good netbook, it also depended heavily on having a cellphone and syncing services between devices. (For example, it couldn't do email by itself -- it required a phone to sync email with and send through.)
In fact, as you may recall, I got to spend some time with a late-model Foleo. Everything about it was underwhelming, and the one thing the Foleo needed to nail -- the browsing -- was a complete failure. (Think: no tabs, no Flash, couldn't even load Gmail, and LOTS of crashing.) Plus, going up against Asus's Eee would have eventually turned out to be a major distraction for an already distracted company, as well as an uphill battle due to the Foleo's fundamentally flawed premise. Trust me when I say that the idea won't be vidicated, and that the smartest thing Palm ever did with the Foleo was to kill it.
Make better ads - "It's a Palm thing" That's really the best you guys could do? These are some of the worst technology ads I've ever seen. And what's worse, they don't even tell you anything about the devices (like, say, why it would be a better choice than a BlackBerry or the iPhone). If I were you, I'd drop Young and Rubicam and run for the hills. Maybe pick up TBWA \ Chiat \ Day -- the people that make the iPhone ads should know better than anyone how to counter them.
Stop keeping us in the dark - Again, nothing much has changed here. No clear timelines have been set for the next-gen OS in spite of developers flocking in droves to Apple's platform. If devs were on the fence before, they've jumped it by now. Would it really hurt to tell people how things are going? Palm has a blog, yet we rarely see it used for anything but the usual company line-toeing.
In fact, I might say things are even more closed off than they were before, and Ed Colligan still won't sit down with Engadget to talk about what's going on with Palm. To be fair, when we last saw him out at an event, Ed expressed interest in an interview with Engadget. But for whatever reason, try though we might, the people at Palm won't seem to let us drop by for a sit-down. Go figure.
So let's see where we stand!
That's four Treo 600s!
And eight Foleos.
Ouch, that's a total score of -4. Or, if you want to look at it glass-half-full, that's four things that have been tangibly improved over this time last year.
Without sounding like too much of a broken record, are we really better off with today's Palm products? Devices take 12-18+ months from start to ship, but I think a lot of us believed that after Elevation's recapitalization and the installation of former iPod executive Jon Rubinstein to lead your product-development, we might see some short term results. In a sense, we have -- you've managed to win over some new Palm converts selling a lot of budget-priced Centros -- but it's hardly a satisfying return to the high-flying glory days.
I'd also wager that kind of gain won't be long term. RIM and Apple know that business devices have to get personal, and vice-versa; your current (and from what we can tell, future) offerings don't seem to address the need for a single, versatile, do everything device. (Say, doesn't that sound a little like the original Treo mission statement?) We're in the same Palm stasis we've been in for about a half a decade now, waiting for the new software as the launch timetables slip quarter after quarter, year after year.
Picking up the Android mantle still seems like a great short-term move, but it seems like once again you'd rather go to bat with Linux alone. That's understandable to a certain extent, but why not at least build a few Android devices alongside your forthcoming Nova / Palm OS II, Windows Mobile, and legacy Garnet-based handsets? It'd show you're still interested in staying relevant and competitive as an important new mobile platform emerges, or at very least that you're humble enough to recognize there hasn't been a major Palm OS update since 2002. No, we aren't expecting Ed to give us another public response, just for Palm to make good on its heritage of innovation -- however you want to define the word.
Ryan Block is the editor-at-large of Engadget, and is currently at work on a new gadget-related content startup.
If you know a company or technology in need of a little advice (especially one too afraid to ask for it), hit him up at engadgetcaresATengadgetDOTcom.
I have the 800w. The keyboard is awesome but the Centro's keyboard is very different and completely SUCKS
wow might as well start calling engadget palmgadget. enough with the palm posts every other post is about palm!!! why don't you start a p.engadget.com?!?
(this is a parody on the people who are bothered by the slew of apple posts in case those of you without sarcasm sensors take this seriously)
even on his last day Ryan is staying true to engadget standards and taking the time to make sure his post has at least one grammatical error....
Obviously, the Centro is a size compromise. One that many appreciate. Easy in the pocket, and not so much of a slab on the face when calling. The reviewer is one that doesn't appreciate a PDA-phone of this smaller size.
Epic FAIL.
okay gang, this isn't tough. 4 treos + 4 foleos = -4. simple.... 4 - 8 = -4. I would have scored them lower.
I had the first USR palm OS based device eons ago....I had a Treo 700p for two years. The OS didn't seem that much different except it was in color. Went to a Treo 750p. Sucked ASS. Sure, brighter screen and a tiny bit quicker, but had all sorts of problems with it. When it got to the point of taking 4 minutes to turn itself on after I pressed the power button, and resetting itself 2-3 times a day, I was able to convince my carrier to let me crossgrade to a blackberry curve. I couldn't be happier! STABLE, bright screen, pretty good data speeds... everything a smartphone should be. Taking notes there Palm? Apple and RIM are mopping the floor with you. LOOK AT YOUR COMPETITION - learn from them or die. You're already on life support, what more will it take? More hand-wringing at the top is getting you nowhere. Clean house and produce devices people want or go the way of the 8" floppy.
"Sure, you could argue that it's got more pixel density, and that's a good thing when your UI scales. Palm OS 5 does not, so bundle it with some bifocals."
What?? Yes it does! WTF
stupid Palm for getting rid of ostracizing ACCESS.
Realistically they should have held off on the Centro until this summer and used ALP. Oh and gave the Centro a flush screen.
minus "get rid of"... weak.
http://www.ryanblock.com/
I'm guessing he's not at liberty to discuss his future company at his previous one. You might be able to find out more on his personal website though. Or... maybe he's retiring to the Himalayas to learn levitation and plot funky world domination schemes whilst crafting a dramatic yet exceedingly impractical superhero costume. I'm thinking another company, personally.
"inch closer to a sliding QWERTY"
You got to be kiddin. More parts to go wrong and cant use it with one hand
"The Centro seems more toy than smartphone"
Its a great phone that does what you need in a small form-factor!
Good article but I think Ryan is not thinking of the financial side of things enough.
Some of the things he suggests would take large capital investments and while Palm has got *some* investment lately, they still can't just throw money around like Apple. At this point, if they spent the money (not to mention the time) to produce multiple products on multiple OS's as suggested, they would be out on a limb financially and ripe for a take-over.
That's why companies try not to get in the position Palm is in. It's a typical kind of "Catch-22" situation. You need a great infusion of "outside" cash to climb out of the hole, but with great cash, comes great accountability, and usually .... a take-over.
On the contrary, I strongly believe now that the Folio (like the 1st Pilot) was well ahead of its time.
Let me explain.
. everyone wants a piece of the netbook market, though prices are going up instead of keeping to the original ideal of sub-$200 laptop
. do I really need another full-fledged OS (Windows, Linux) to manage?
. if the Folio has been priced better and paired with a powerful productivity device, ie. Treo Pro for data/wifi connectivity, imagine what a pair that would have been
. Folio has almost instant boot, battery life galore for being a SSD
. enough screen real estate to do stuff, browse internet, email etc.
It's only drawback was the fact that it was very poorly priced! Palm, I hope you read this is bring back Folio2.
Can we add this to the Engadget Care program and send another email to Palm's Ed Colligan? Please?
Makes me sad to see Palm struggling for relevance. I was a big fan back in the day. Had a Palm Pro, Palm 3C, Palm Tungsten|T, and have a Palm TX.
It would be interesting to see some case studies in biz school of what went wrong. One would venture to guess that one of Palm's biggest problems was resting on their laurels when they were top dog. Since those days, their biggest problem is failure to execute.
Just thinking that the Centro is the Rodney Dangerfield of smartphones - it gets "no respect"
I'm starting a phone company just so I can understand how it could be so hard to make a worthwhile handheld device.
I'm chiming in in support of the Centro here. I think the Centro is exactly what it promised, and maybe a little more. The keyboard is a matter of opinion, and mine is that it's fine. I think it's one of the best I've used, although I certainly haven't used them all.
I guess my impression is that the Centro is the perfect device for the segment for which it's intended. Now, why the "Pro" isn't just the Centro2, I don't know. And Windows Mobile? What does it do besides run slower on the same hardware and suck more juice? I'm not impressed.
I want higher end devices and a new OS from Palm (or Android, if it lives up to the hype), not the gutting of the things that are already working.
Hope to see you round on teh intarwebz Ryan. Enjoy whatever big thing you wish to persue!
OK, I own a palm Treo 755P. The device will do more than a Blackberry as far as applications. But how can the company justify the cost of the device. It cost more for a 2002 OS on an ancient handset than an Iphone. WTF? I am currently going to pick up MY THIRD REPLACEMENT IN A YEAR for OS crashes and generally crappy design. Make a head to head comparison and the Blackberry does not run apps from media card, no touchscreen, no PDAnet, and lacks disgracefully in the realm of free third party applications. As a person who stares at Blackberry screens all day long. My one true wish is a smoother looking UI for the Palm software. The ability to use the location function of Google maps and be able to switch to another application (mutli task). It seems that a device that is soo expensive should offer competitive features. The was waiting at the local store to order my replacement (again) and I watched three centros get returned. Two were for LG Rumors and one for an instinct. I can imagine 2 million frustrated Centro users throwing the devices at the wall as I have with my 755P.
Palm needs to get with it very soon as I will be switching to a HTC touch pro as soon as it is released on my carrier. I have a special place in my heart for the palm OS and all the cool free stuff I could get but my patience with constant crashes is wearing extremely thin. It is the best feeling in the world to have a phone interview and have a phone deciede it needs to do a boot loop.
Good luck in your endeavors EIC Ryan. If you want someone else to step in for occasional Palm bashing, please look me up.
Call me an idiot but I paid $175 to get out of my iPhone contract and into a Palm Centro.
I have a Blackberry 8830 through work and quite honestly it sucks.
The Centro's keyboard is much easier to use and become proficient in than the iPhone's. I can't even read the BB's keyboard unless in well lit places. To me, the Centro fits more comfortably in your hand than either the iPhone or the BB with their wide bodies. Sound quality is the stellar on the Palm. Reception is stellar also.
With PTunes sync capabilities to Napster, Rhapsody and Audible it is a great audio device. I use xstreamxm.com to stream XM radio through my Centro. I use Softick Audio Gateway to allow A2DP bluetooth wireless stereo capabilities with no hardware add-ons.
I think the ONLY area that I think the Centro lacks is video playback. It is capable be this is definitely where a larger screen would be nice.
John, Try TCPMP. I found a free version online and can send it to you if you like. The other great free ware is KeyCaps. With the KeyCaps app, I can type faster than any smartphone I have seen. By the way that's all I do is work on smart phones.
WE'LL MISS YOU RYAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ryan, I do not understand how you can blame Palm for the massive and continuous failures of their spin-off PalmSource, and its successor Access. Those Foleos (more like the hideous ALPo IM icon) belong entirely to the software company, not the hardware company. They dropped the ball on Palm, they abandoned Cobalt because nobody would license the pretty BE GUI with no insides, they abandoned their PalmOS on Linux effort. Look at how successful ALPo is.
Palm couldn't do much of anything until they got a license from Access that permitted them to touch the OS. That was late 2005. They are on schedule for an SDK at the end of this year according to publicly available information. Building a smartphone OS is voodoo, further complicated by carriers.
"Those Foleos (more like the hideous ALPo IM icon) belong entirely to the software company, not the hardware company." Sorry, that was all Palm, not PalmSource/ACCESS - check the wikipedia article on Foleos.
"They dropped the ball on Palm" - huh?
"They abandoned Cobalt" Can't argue with that.
"they abandoned their PalmOS on Linux effort" Really? It just got renamed ALP after the acquisition by ACCESS. I use it every day. It even runs PalmOS 5 apps. We show it off on a regular basis at trade shows, etc., and you can download the development kit and build native apps and run them (or PalmOS apps, for that matter) in a device simulator that runs ALP on your x86.
"Building a smartphone OS is voodoo, further complicated by carriers." Now, *that* is the truth! And even further complicated by hardware partners, if you're not like Palm and control your own hardware.
How about a farewell podcast!!!
Thanks but no thanks..
Faithfully carried around Palm gear (running Palm OS 3,4,5) hardware for many years.
Now toting around a HTC Touch Diamond.
It lacks a keyboard (and I loved the Treo 650's keyboard), but it makes up for it by being thin, with all bells and whistles, useful, fast and stable, moreover looking kinda discreet (most phones are black and thin nowadays). I like discreet.
No Palm USB sync (hotsync) support for Vista 64 for 2.5 years, aww come on! It's been announced (and available) as a beta for that long - how hard could it be to code in a simple USB driver? And how about MacOSX and Linux? You're not Microsoft, and have to tote that flag! It just goes to show how much you really care! If I need workarounds and bluetooth dongles just to sync my "smartphone" with my desktop then it's not worth bothering for.
PalmOS may be (have been) the snappiest of the bunch, but almost requires third party patches and replacements to barely make it as a powertool. One error and crash-prone to boot, if not exceedingly c-a-r-e-f-u-l.
End of rant, back to topic: Treo Pro is a WM device. With lots of lost real estate on the face. With a worse keyboard than my 650. With Palm's lousy track record for support. It's thin(nish), with a keyboard. Ho-hum. Really, wifi at last? Aww come on, it's 2008.. 3.5mm headphone jack is nice though, I'll give that (treo 650 had a 2.5, But T|T (1,2,3) had 3.5) Overall it's nice enough, and I don't doubt it'll sell some if Palm ever manages to get it subsidized.
But with Palm's record for its disregard for customers, if I needed a keyboard I'd take Diamond Pro or Sony X1 or any Blackberry any day of the week.
Palm did right by getting rid of its dead weight some time ago. Unfortunately, this excess fat invariably finds other places to congeal even worse. One of those places was SanDisk. One head honcho got kicked out, and he’d bring along all his slave followers and disciples to the new place, where the whole gang can start the entire clotting and choking process all over again. These jerks would stand around all day long, laughing, yapping, laughing some more, yappa-yappa-doo continuously and loudly over everyone else’s cubicle as if they were god’s gift to mankind, seemingly forgetting their reason for being in the “new” place, kicking trash cans when put on notice and asked to quiet down, the works. While nothing else got accomplished.
Palm did very well by trimming its useless fat. For a start.
@Ryan: "In the time you've tried and failed with Cobalt / OS 6, tried again (and failed again) with that next-gen Linux OS (later sold to ACCESS)"
I know it's confusing, but PalmOne (now Palm) and PalmSource (now ACCESS) have been different companies, with very different agendas, for almost five years. I work for the latter. They make hardware, and software that only runs on their hardware. We just do software, but it runs on a lot of folks' hardware.
PalmSource rolled out Cobalt, and Palm didn't pick it up. Actually, nobody did. :-)
That next-gen Linux OS? ACCESS is doing it. We've been showing it off for years. I've got it running on three machines within two feet of my elbow.
Palm is doing a different next-gen OS. I don't know any details that aren't in the press because, um, we're different companies and don't really talk much. I have friends who work there, but I don't tell them secrets and they don't tell me secrets.
Unbelievable when you remember that once Palm ruled the world. It's the end of the road for them now.
Unbelievable when you remember that once Palm ruled the world. It's the end of the road for them now.
testing testing....
@Bob, you must be recent at Access. There was an effort for PalmOS on Linux that PalmSource dropped after Cobalt and before ALP.
Not discussed much because the fanboys were a little too gaga about the BE folks UI in Cobalt (and very intent on their LJP gaming).
You may have three ALP devices in your proximity but I haven't heard of any carrier picking them up. Orange dropped the Sammy not too long ago. Does that mean there are now two?
So palm still not dead?
Yes, AppleBee. Palm's certainly almost completely dead and buried, what with it shifting 2 million Centros in a year or so and a lovely new Palm Pro device coming up.
Fool!
I love the open letters to Palm. First one was taken seriously by Ed. Let's hope this one reaches him as well.
However, I have to disagree with your assessment of the Centro:
1) It is fairly simple to type using the keypad. It took me a couple of days, but now after 9 months, I'm typing pretty fast.
2) You compared the price to the iPhone, putting up the speed of the EDGE phone v. iPhone 3G. First, many of us have the Sprint model with very fast 3G. Second, I've been reading a lot lately regarding the problems with the iPhone and the 3G network. Based on those, I think it was unfair to compare the two.
Selling millions of Centros ... AT A LOSS ... does not by any definition equate to success. Palm is now attempting to right that wrong by selling the 850/Pro unlocked/without carrier subsidy. A 'Pro' model that no one outside of those already sipping from the Palm KoolAid cup give a rat's ass about, being that it is simply a half-hearted attempt to catch up with the big boys.
Palm's recipe for self-inflicted disaster will be the thing of legend, studied about at Harvard Business School, for how not to run a company. Any company!