Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
Michael Haase <michael.haase@alcatel.de> wrote:
>Is there is a new TC version under work?
With Palm classic style PDA sales down a whopping 30% in just one year, I'll bet
they cut way back in new models in favor of the better selling phones.
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AaronJ <noemail@noemail.com> wrote:
> Michael Haase <michael.haase@alcatel.de> wrote:
>
>> Is there is a new TC version under work?
>
> With Palm classic style PDA sales down a whopping 30% in just one
> year, I'll bet they cut way back in new models in favor of the better
> selling phones.
That's looking at it the wrong way. The market of people who don't have
a PDA is /much/ bigger than the market of people who don't have a cell
phone.
Perhaps if Palm went back to making high quality professional PDAs like
they did when they *did* sell a ton of them, instead of the cheap
plastic bug-ridden toys they make now, the PDA sales wouldn't drop 30%.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
Arthur Hagen wrote:
> AaronJ <noemail@noemail.com> wrote:
>> Michael Haase <michael.haase@alcatel.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Is there is a new TC version under work?
>>
>> With Palm classic style PDA sales down a whopping 30% in just one
>> year, I'll bet they cut way back in new models in favor of the better
>> selling phones.
> > That's looking at it the wrong way. The market of people who don't have
> a PDA is /much/ bigger than the market of people who don't have a cell
> phone.
....Yet many people with a cellphone will be willing to 'upgrade' their
cellphone and get a PDA at the same time. Two birds, one stone. Having said
that, I might as well mention that a standalone PDA might appeal to less
people because it means carrying two devices. Also, a person with a
cellphone would probably like to keep having a cellular phone of one type
or another.
> Perhaps if Palm went back to making high quality professional PDAs like
> they did when they *did* sell a ton of them, instead of the cheap
> plastic bug-ridden toys they make now, the PDA sales wouldn't drop 30%.
I perfectly agree with that. They still outsell any other vendor, but the
trend is worrying.
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Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote:
> Arthur Hagen wrote:
>
>> AaronJ <noemail@noemail.com> wrote:
>>> Michael Haase <michael.haase@alcatel.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is there is a new TC version under work?
>>>
>>> With Palm classic style PDA sales down a whopping 30% in just one
>>> year, I'll bet they cut way back in new models in favor of the
>>> better selling phones.
>>
>> That's looking at it the wrong way. The market of people who don't
>> have a PDA is /much/ bigger than the market of people who don't have
>> a cell phone.
>
> ...Yet many people with a cellphone will be willing to 'upgrade' their
> cellphone and get a PDA at the same time. Two birds, one stone.
> Having said that, I might as well mention that a standalone PDA might
> appeal to less people because it means carrying two devices.
It does? You seem to believe that everybody has a cell phone. It might
seem that way to you, but in large parts of the world *including the
Palm home market*, cell phones are not ubiquituous. And even where most
people seem to have one, there are plenty of people who don't want one
or can't have one, or at least not a phone with a camera, which includes
*all* pda/phone combinations.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 10:32:19 +0200, Michael Haase wrote:
> I'm wondering that the TC is no more available in German shops. Also > from the European PalmOne sites it cannot be ordered anymore.
> > Does anybody know why? Is there is a new TC version under work?
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 12:44:56 -0400, Arthur Hagen wrote:
> That's looking at it the wrong way. The market of people who don't have
> a PDA is /much/ bigger than the market of people who don't have a cell
> phone.
> > Perhaps if Palm went back to making high quality professional PDAs like
> they did when they *did* sell a ton of them, instead of the cheap
> plastic bug-ridden toys they make now, the PDA sales wouldn't drop 30%.
I have to agree. I find the idea of a PDA/Phone to be one of THE most
useless devices ever - at least for me.
Now, I can see the value in making your PDA work with your cell phone, but
if I'm on the phone, I usually need the information in my PDA. If my PDA
IS my phone, I either can't talk, or can't get to the information I need.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
"Arthur Hagen" <art@broomstick.com> aszonygya:
eople seem to have one, there are plenty of people who don't want one
r can't have one, or at least not a phone with a camera, which includes
:*all* pda/phone combinations.
I do not want a cell phone with a camera [I have an LG 1200], and I do not
want cell phone/PDA combos [I have a TC + about a dozen older Palms which I
use for testing only].
Despite its shortcomings, the TC is almost perfect and is definitely less
buggy than all the other Palms by palmOne [aka Palm] with OS 5 such as the TT
TT3, TT5, Treo 6x0, etc., and is certainly way better then the disastrous
LifeDrive.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
Ranma <tendo@dojo.org.jp> aszonygya:
n Fri, 29 Jul 2005 10:32:19 +0200, Michael Haase wrote:
:
:> I'm wondering that the TC is no more available in German shops. Also :> from the European PalmOne sites it cannot be ordered anymore.
:> :> Does anybody know why? Is there is a new TC version under work?
:
:The LifeDrive replaced it.
Correction: the LifeDrive would have replaced it had it not been such a
disaster. /PaulN
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
In article <dcdme8$91r$1@cauldron.broomstick.com>,
"Arthur Hagen" <art@broomstick.com> wrote:
> AaronJ <noemail@noemail.com> wrote:
> > Michael Haase <michael.haase@alcatel.de> wrote:
> >
> >> Is there is a new TC version under work?
> >
> > With Palm classic style PDA sales down a whopping 30% in just one
> > year, I'll bet they cut way back in new models in favor of the better
> > selling phones.
> > That's looking at it the wrong way. The market of people who don't have
> a PDA is /much/ bigger than the market of people who don't have a cell
> phone.
LOL! It's not the market of people who don't have that matters. What matters is the market of people who want. The market of people who want cell phones is several hundred times bigger than that of people who want PDAs.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
Ranma <tendo@dojo.org.jp> wrote:
>I find the idea of a PDA/Phone to be one of THE most
>useless devices ever - at least for me.
I too would prefer a separate PDA. The phone sized screen is just too small for
enjoyable ebook reading. But *individual* wants don't count. What counts is what
the market wants. And the market says it does not want the classic PDA (sales
way down) but does want the smart phones (sales way up). Palm has to respond to
the market or fail. Simple as that...
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
"Arthur Hagen" <art@broomstick.com> wrote:
>Perhaps if Palm went back to making high quality professional PDAs
My Zire 72 has a hundred times the capability of my earlier Palms. Which Palm did you want to go back to?
>like they did when they *did* sell a ton of them,
Which earlier model should they make to sell a ton of them now?
>instead of the cheap plastic
What's wrong with plastic? It's durable and lightweight. And I especially like
the plastic screens because they're much more shock resistant. And of course
plastic is economic so they could be sold at a lower price. Which plastic model
didn't you like?
>bug-ridden toys they make now,
My 2 newest models (TE and Z72) never crash unless I'm trying new software.
Which bug were you referring to?
>the PDA sales wouldn't drop 30%.
It's not because of quality. And it's not because Palm stopped making the Pilot Pro either...
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
On or about Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:28:45 +0100, someone claiming to be Ranma
<tendo@dojo.org.jp> permuted the language to say:
> Now, I can see the value in making your PDA work with your cell phone,
> but
> if I'm on the phone, I usually need the information in my PDA. If my PDA
> IS my phone, I either can't talk, or can't get to the information I need.
>
Great points... plus there's plenty of times I take a phone with me but
wouldn't risk losing the 95% of my life tied up in my T|C.
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AaronJ <noemail@noemail.com> wrote:
> "Arthur Hagen" <art@broomstick.com> wrote:
>
>> Perhaps if Palm went back to making high quality professional PDAs
>
> My Zire 72 has a hundred times the capability of my earlier Palms.
> Which Palm did you want to go back to?
>
>> like they did when they *did* sell a ton of them,
>
> Which earlier model should they make to sell a ton of them now?
I don't want an earlier model, I want the *quality* and *simplicity* of
earlier models, upgraded with today's features.
The design of the V/Vx was a killer. It's small enough that people
always can carry it with them, and being metal and glass, sturdy enough
that you can keep it in any pocket without fear that tension will break
it, and massive enough that it won't jump out of your shirt pocket if
running.
Now upgrade it with new features, like a 480x480 "electronic paper"
screen (like on the Sony eBook reader) for those who value battery life,
or a 320x320 OLED screen for those who "must have" colour. Add USB 2.0
High Speed, 802.11g WiFi, lots of memory and built-in flash, and an
upgraded PalmOS 4.x on a mc68k, not running under an emulator on a
power-hungry CPU.
It's a shame that the GUI is _less_ responsive on a 200MHz PalmOS 5 PDA
than on a 20MHz PalmOS 4 PDA. Umpteen layers of abstraction and
emulation on top of mediocre code does that -- compared to the lean,
mean and effective code on earlier Palm PDAs.
>> instead of the cheap plastic
>
> What's wrong with plastic? It's durable and lightweight.
Light weight is not a plus if it means a bigger device. A four ounce
small PDA will stay in your pocket a lot better than a six ounce PDA
that's twice the size, and feel better in your hand too.
> And I
> especially like the plastic screens because they're much more shock
> resistant.
On the other hand, the plastic isn't rigid and gives, leading to
inaccuracies in screen recognition. Plastic is also less clear than
glass, and has higher refraction.
> And of course plastic is economic so they could be sold at
> a lower price.
This isn't necessarily the main buying point for a PDA. Else, how can
you explain how the Vx, initially at $450, was such a big seller?
> Which plastic model didn't you like?
*All* of them.
>> bug-ridden toys they make now,
>
> My 2 newest models (TE and Z72) never crash unless I'm trying new
> software. Which bug were you referring to?
Where should I begin? Network UDP wake-up being broken in all 5.x
versions? Errors in memory consolidation after hotsync, leading to
fragmentation and eventually running out of memory (try syncing 20 times
in a row on a PalmOS 5 device). "Mad digitizer" syndrome? Graffiti 2
(which is "broken by design", in that some combinations are incompatible
with shortcut actions)? Or one of hundreds of others you can find
described even here in c.s.p.p.
>> the PDA sales wouldn't drop 30%.
>
> It's not because of quality.
It's because they haven't launched a model that excited the market. Why
that is, and why they did so well five years ago should be asked someone
*NOT* working at or for Palm. I don't have all the answers, but I am
pretty sure that continuing in the direction they've been heading since
the the introduction of Zire and Tungsten is not the solution.
> And it's not because Palm stopped making the Pilot Pro either...
Of course not. But it's likewise not because the LifeDrive is such a
marvelous device that people *must have*.
Remember that specs and price isn't everything -- the iPod still
outsells all other MP3 players, despite not having the best
functionality nor being cheap. It's damn expensive, has limited
functionality, but it has a killer design and simplicity of use.
Perhaps those are features that Palm might want to look at again.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
Arthur Hagen wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote:
>> Arthur Hagen wrote:
>>
>>> AaronJ <noemail@noemail.com> wrote:
>>>> Michael Haase <michael.haase@alcatel.de> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Is there is a new TC version under work?
>>>>
>>>> With Palm classic style PDA sales down a whopping 30% in just one
>>>> year, I'll bet they cut way back in new models in favor of the
>>>> better selling phones.
>>>
>>> That's looking at it the wrong way. The market of people who don't
>>> have a PDA is /much/ bigger than the market of people who don't have
>>> a cell phone.
>>
>> ...Yet many people with a cellphone will be willing to 'upgrade' their
>> cellphone and get a PDA at the same time. Two birds, one stone.
>> Having said that, I might as well mention that a standalone PDA might
>> appeal to less people because it means carrying two devices.
> > It does? You seem to believe that everybody has a cell phone. It might
> seem that way to you, but in large parts of the world *including the
> Palm home market*, cell phones are not ubiquituous. And even where most
> people seem to have one, there are plenty of people who don't want one
> or can't have one, or at least not a phone with a camera, which includes
> *all* pda/phone combinations.
> > Regards,
You are mistaken here as I have a real apathy for cellular phones. They were
recently said < http://www.isracast.com/tech_news/250705_tech.htm > to
cause eye damage as well as what we already know about risk of brain
tumours. The long-term effects are yet to be seen.
I read some months ago that the number of cellphones in the EU has become
outrageous. I am not entirely sure about the States, especially when
compared with Asia and other developed parts of the world (assuming we
speak of places with potential high penetration rate for PDA sales).
However, many people who require a PDA also require a phone because of the
nature of their job. You can't discount that altogether.
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
In article <dceu03$2d7e$1@godfrey.mcc.ac.uk>,
Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@schestowitz.com> wrote:
> You are mistaken here as I have a real apathy for cellular phones. They were
> recently said < http://www.isracast.com/tech_news/250705_tech.htm > to
> cause eye damage as well as what we already know about risk of brain
> tumours. The long-term effects are yet to be seen.
More urban legends. All such claims shown not to be proven scientifically.
> I read some months ago that the number of cellphones in the EU has become
> outrageous.
Interesting word, "outrageous." I imagine TV ownership long ago passed "outrageous."
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
Logan Shaw <lshaw-usenet@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>[plastic] Lightweight, yes. Durable, not really.
Depends on your definition of durable I suppose... I've not had a problem but then I've never dropped one of my plastic models. And
I suspect that if you did from high enough to break the plastic case, the metal
case might survive but not the innards or screen.
>Also, what about the finish? Since you have a Zire 72, I'm sure
>you're familiar with the whole fiasco where the blue peels off.
That Z72 "fiasco" was a *paint* problem, not a plastic problem. I finally peeled
the rest of the paint off mine. Actually I think it looks better. That toy blue
color never impressed me anyway. ( And the plastic case is still holding up just
fine.)
>The Tungsten T, T2, and T3, where the screws like to come out
>and where the slider quickly loses the firmness to its latch
A poor design. I avoided that series of models because of the unreliable slide
design. But it had nothing to do with plastic being durable. Kids beat their
(well designed) plastic toys to death and they survive.
>and simple things that used to be blazingly fast on the original
>16 MHz Palms are suddenly slow?
What things are you referring to? Certainly not video...
Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)
"Arthur Hagen" <art@broomstick.com> wrote:
>The design of the V/Vx was a killer. It's small enough that people
>always can carry it with them, and being metal and glass, sturdy enough
>that you can keep it in any pocket without fear that tension will break
>it,
This newsgroup was queried often about how to replace the broken glass screen of
the Vx. The metal may have been tough but the glass wasn't. Then we gave them
the bad news about how the thing was held together with glue and they needed a
hair dryer to get it apart. Glued together. Now that's real quality...
>Light weight [plastic] is not a plus if it means a bigger device. A four ounce
>small PDA will stay in your pocket a lot better than a six ounce PDA
>that's twice the size, and feel better in your hand too.
Plastic or metal? Looks pretty close to me:
V/Vx ( metal case ) 4.5" x 3.1" x 0.4" 4 oz
Tungsten E (plastic case) 4.5" x 3.1" x 0.5" 4.6oz
>This isn't necessarily the main buying point for a PDA. Else, how can
>you explain how the Vx, initially at $450, was such a big seller?
The Vx was a flop compared to the sales of the Tungsten E at $199.
>Remember that specs and price isn't everything -- the iPod still
>outsells all other MP3 players,
You heard it here first. In a few years the iPod will suffer the same fate as
Palm. Those nasty phones are gonna take on the mp3 market too...
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AaronJ <noemail@noemail.com> wrote:
> Logan Shaw <lshaw-usenet@austin.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> and simple things that used to be blazingly fast on the original
>> 16 MHz Palms are suddenly slow?
>
> What things are you referring to? Certainly not video...
What part of "simple things" didn't you understand?
Like tapping somewhere and expecting something to happen *immediately*.
Like not having to wait more than a second for the address book to pop
up or swap pages. Same for all the other core apps -- they're
/significantly/ slower now than they were, and yes, they are still the
*core* apps that justify the PDA.