Palm Linux

mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Interesting announcement for those of you hoping to preserve your investment in Palm OS software:

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9351/palm-announces-new-linux-based-mobile-platform/

Palm has finally confirmed rumors that they're working on their own Linux-based Palm OS successor, which will be compatible with legacy Palm apps but will also add the same modern-OS goodness that Cobalt and ALP have both purported to do.

Great news for us, of course, since the more devices we can support without having to port our software to a brand new platform, the better off we'll be.
 
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caesartg

榜眼
Hmmm... ah well, too late for me. I just 5 minutes ago put my order in for a refurbished Dell X50v. Goodbye Palm.
 
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goulniky

榜眼
Isn't it much too late though? I also changed ships a few months back and don't regret it, but I'm certainly not the only one and it's something the Palm community has long been asking.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Well at some point all of those Pocket PCs are going to need to be replaced too, and if Palm can come out with something that's faster and more stable than Windows Mobile (which honestly wouldn't be that hard, Linux is a far better kernel than CE) while preserving compatibility with existing Palm software I think they'd have a pretty good shot at winning back many Palm-to-PPC converts.
 
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goulniky

榜眼
I don't dispute Linux being better than CE but it still confuses me.

Today I can buy pretty much any laptop and run Linux on it instead of (or in addition to) a MS environment.

Couldn't we imagine a similar scenario with PDAs (and increasingly smartphones) or does it require Linux kernel (similar concept to BIOS) ? But even then if Palm came up with this how much of a competitive advantage would it be and for how long before it can work on those CE/WM5 machines?
 
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gato

状元
Take a look at this article about the release the Access version of Linux-based Palm. Access is the Japanese company that bought PalmSource (the OS part of Palm that was spun off years ago).

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4018299974.html
Access Linux Platform for mobile devices goes gold
Feb. 12, 2007
Screenshots of the Access PalmOS-compatible Linux System
access_linux_platform_v1_ss-sm.jpg


It looks like all of a sudden we will have two PalmOS-compatible Linux systems on the market. Palm has the advantage of controlling its own hardware. Access will still have to find licensees for its OS.

I think the more critical thing for Palm is form factor. They need to build something closer to the size of a phone, though the Treo 680's getting pretty close .
 
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Smoodo

举人
Just an interesting rumor.

I was in Oklahoma City about a week ago and while at the Best Buy there looked for any Palm PDAs. All I could find was the Z22. One of the guys there said that they had just pulled all of their remaining stock on the other models and shipped it back in anticipation for new PDAs arriving soon.

Sounds like we'll see some of that Palm goodness soon.
 
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fredrik

秀才
linux palm, delayed.

this linux based palm OS seems even further delayed. Sometime 2008 the CEO announced. Maybe switching to MS is sensible.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
That one is, but the equally Palm-compatible Access Linux Platform will I believe have shipping devices within a few months. As far as switching to MS goes, the next version of Windows Mobile ("Photon") is supposed to be amazingly good and devices with it should be shipping in the first half of '08, by which point there should be firm release dates / screenshots / etc of the other Palm Linux available, so really if you're thinking about a new mobile purchase it would probably be best to wait a year and see how the two new systems shake out.
 
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fredrik

秀才
Mike,
that sounds exiting. I think i can keep my treo 650 alive one more year if there is something coming. Atleast MS is releasing some improvents.

I switched my ibook to macbook, so missing sync did not work anymore. Treo crashes and i had only a backup of contacts through isync. Reinstalling all CKJOS, plumsip, web sphere, gmail app, versamail accounts, plecodict is just a killer. That is why i started looking for an alternative to palm, plus multitasking. btw. have you seen the work done with adsotate? it is quite nice i think.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Why doesn't Missing Sync work on your MacBook? I'm pretty sure they have a Universal Binary version by now...

And yes, the new Adsotate looks good, though lately I've become a bit disenchanted with the Adso concept in general; for learning Chinese it can almost be counterproductive to have instant access to a 1-2 word translation of every word you see, you end up using it as kind of a crutch and don't strain to remember words you haven't seen in a while (which is key to improving one's fluency). However, for reading text significantly above your skill level, or for reading Chinese rapidly when you don't have the time to do it more methodically, Adso's certainly a great tool.
 
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fredrik

秀才
mikelove said:
Why doesn't Missing Sync work on your MacBook? I'm pretty sure they have a Universal Binary version by now...

And yes, the new Adsotate looks good, though lately I've become a bit disenchanted with the Adso concept in general; for learning Chinese it can almost be counterproductive to have instant access to a 1-2 word translation of every word you see, you end up using it as kind of a crutch and don't strain to remember words you haven't seen in a while (which is key to improving one's fluency). However, for reading text significantly above your skill level, or for reading Chinese rapidly when you don't have the time to do it more methodically, Adso's certainly a great tool.
Click to expand...

yes they have universal binary, but their update fee is not reasonable in my opinion.

Adsotate can as you say be a crutch and counterproductive. But if you use it when reading the text the second time. And create a flash card word list from it. then it is a really nice tool.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Well yes, it's certainly helpful for making sure you got the meaning fully. And I definitely like the automatic list generation feature, in fact this is something we're considering ourselves for the desktop version of PlecoDict - it'd be too slow on a PDA, sadly, but on a desktop we could highlight the words that are already in your flashcard list and offer to add the unknown ones to it.
 
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fredrik

秀才
mikelove said:
but on a desktop we could highlight the words that are already in your flashcard list and offer to add the unknown ones to it.
Click to expand...

that would be a really awesome integration of flashcard lists, I travel a lot in my work here in china, so i have lots of time spent in airports etc.
 
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