Nobody Loves Palm (And Really, Why Should They?)

from the circling-the-deadpool? dept

Fri, Jul 6th 2007 8:25am — Carlo Longino

There have been long-running rumors that Palm was up for sale, with the things getting so ridiculous that at one point it looked like they were made up to boost the share price. The company has never been sold, though private equity firm Elevation Partners bought a 25% stake last month and brought in some new management. Some people wondered at the time if Palm went down this road because it couldn't find anybody interested in buying the whole company; an SEC filing about the Elevation deal suggests that this was indeed the case. The deal in and of itself does nothing to solve Palm's long-standing problems (and neither will its recently announced and wholly underwhelming Foleo product), and in the meantime the bad news rolls on: Palm also said this week that devices using a Linux-based follow-up to Palm OS 5 -- like it's been talking about since 2004 -- have been delayed until next year.

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23 Comments

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Paul Mavromatis, 6 Jul 2007 @ 9:18am

Rubbish
I hope they disappear. As a user of Psion's througout the 90's, it saddens me to think that their model type won out over the 5MX, which for pratical purposes was much better machine and still has the best qwerty keyboard on a handheld after all these years.I think Palm like many of todays tech manufacturers load up a load of useless functions to make up for the fact that the machines performance in basic functions (esp inputting) are sub-par.
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Richard DeRuiter, 6 Jul 2007 @ 9:34am

Hey, I love my Palm
I just got a Palm Treo 700p. I love it! There are more fancy-schmancy phones out there, but for the simplicity of managing contacts and schedule, I don't think Palm can be beat.
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byte^me, 6 Jul 2007 @ 9:41am

What is wrong with Palm?
I must admit, I have been a user of PalmOS devices for years and I love them, at least until recently. I started with a Palm IIIx, then went to a TRGPro so I could use CF cards. Then a Zire 31 and most recently, a Palm Treo 700p.

Until the Treo, I had no serious problems with my Palm devices and loved the interface and availability of programs. Much better than what I found for Pocket PC's.

Unfortunately, the quality of the Palm products has declined seriously. I have had numerous problems with my Treo. It hangs, restarts and is overall unreliable. Unfortunately, I don't appear to be the only one experiencing these problems.

To make matters worse, does Palm fix the problems? No, they continue release of new products. If the continue at this rate, they will lose the loyal customers they have so why bother creating new products? People are losing faith in the products they already produce so why would they buy a new one?

Since it doesn't look like things are going to change, I guess my next PDA will have to be Windows Mobile based........
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George Fragos, 6 Jul 2007 @ 9:41am

Palm worked hard to loose this customer
I've owned 6 different Palm PDA's through the years. I've always liked the software from 3rd parties like Tealpoint. Palm's musical connectors drives me crazy. Every Palm requires all new accessories. Each time they changed the connector they implied that was the last time -- it wasn't. Amazingly the only improvements in the Palm OS applications added little but frequently caused developer pain trying to make their applications compatible with new devices. They've missed the boat completely and I and other long time fans have lost patience with them. My next device will be the LInux based Nokia N800.
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Tom Sawyer, 6 Jul 2007 @ 9:56am

Lack of Interest inPalm
No big surprise. Palms just plain suck. I have had two Palms and they both died shortly after the warranty period expired and I received no help from Palm. Their prodcuts, service and company just plain SUCK!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2007 @ 9:59am

Palm has just recently started spamming my work email account trying to get me to buy new stuff. Probably got my address from back in the day when we were looking at Palm Development.

Still pretty slimy though to send spam to potential developers. ..
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Instructor (profile), 6 Jul 2007 @ 10:20am

My very last Palm device ever.
I bought a Palm LifeDrive PDA about a year ago. The one with the hard drive. BIG mistake. Palm is quietly pretending this device never happened -- no support, no updates, no answers to why the damned thing is unacceptably slow, no useful information on their website. And no announced recall (I registered my device, so they have no excuse on that count).
--
Concealed Handgun License Training in Plano, Texas
New All-day Saturday class available
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alternatives(), 6 Jul 2007 @ 10:36am

Palm and Linux
I remember how Palm said 'yea we are moving to linux' then a few months later 'We are dumping Linux and moving to WinCE'. Now its back to linux? Bah.

If I want linux on a handheld - I can get motorola.
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phantom, 6 Jul 2007 @ 10:52am

So there.
I like Palm.

the end
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jul 2007 @ 10:58am

to each their own
I've had about every other version of the Palm Pilot since day one, and have hardly ever had problems. The only one worth whining about was my Treo 650, but even that was because of 3rd party software. Considering that the newest models are like iPhones on steroids, what is there to complain about? Sure they haven't changed much in ten years, but what exactly is that needs to be changed??
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palmholio, 6 Jul 2007 @ 11:39am

dang
It's sad to see palm go this way.
I've had a Clie nx70v for years and I'm finally having to replace it.
I wish I could replace it with a palm device but I'm not.
I can't decide between a blackberry curve or a blackjack.
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Jeroen Wijnands (profile), 6 Jul 2007 @ 11:51am

loved mine
Started with an original US Robotics Palm. Upgraded to a M100. Lovely devices, a set of AAA batteries lasted me 3-4 weeks. Synced with outlook, wonderful ebook reader.
Dropped it because I was looking for a device that could run TomTom.
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Jeremy, 6 Jul 2007 @ 3:37pm

good riddance
they are the worst PDA OS ever. Now, I must say Windows Mobile is right on their tail, but nobody wants Palm. The products are horrible and the OS is just as difficult to use and not compatible with anything.
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Mike Wood, 6 Jul 2007 @ 3:39pm

Re: Rubbish
"I hope they disappear"...
If they disappear, will that make thinks different in your life? Can't use just use another product of your choosing?
Where's the REAL "rubbish"?
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Mike Wood, 6 Jul 2007 @ 3:51pm

Old Palm still good
Worked my way along with Palms from "way back when". When I got the Zire 72 almost 3 years ago it fit like a glove.
Maybe I'm lucky, but the little dude has never had a problem.
It has a decent camera, video, music player, alarm clock, voice recorder, and enough little apps to serve my needs as a property manager. Knock on wood: still using the original battery.
BTW- it's the Special Silver Edition, not that blue thing.
I have a fine cell phone, and no need to seek a higher level PDA. When it dies, I'll look for a used one on Ebay.
....that's me two cents!
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Phil, 6 Jul 2007 @ 6:18pm

Palm hardware is excellent and the OS is fine
Had numerous Palm devices over the years and we run 5 Palm TREO 650's. Dropped mine so many times and it keeps on working. Had Tungsten dropped it mailed it to Palm and they replaced in 48 hours no cost. I have found their service excellent. A friend bought the Treo 7O0w recently and the CE OS compared to the PALM and the reduced screen size is yuck. He looked at how clear my screen is and said I should have bought the 700p. We sell 60% Palm and 40% CE programs to clients and compile for both. The OS that is really growing is Symbian and we see a lot of growth in Blackberry. The great thing about Palm is with OS5 and OS4 we install the stuff and it works. With CE devices shipped and Actisync typically of Microsoft constantly updated things to get around the bugs.
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Joe, 7 Jul 2007 @ 4:16am

Palm sucks
It just goes to show how although American engineers are top knotch, American executives are just about the worst in the world. They can't manage a product worth a damn.
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clint, 7 Jul 2007 @ 6:07am

Stale
I have a 700p, 700wx and now an iphone. They all have their strengths but what you see is how old the Palm interface is. WM and especially Apple user interface is the evolution of the ways we use our Palms but Palm hasn't stepped up. They used to make us use them in new ways we never thought of and now.....
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inc, 7 Jul 2007 @ 2:00pm

Can't wait till Ubuntu brings out their mobile linux OS. While I'm not gonna risk making a brick out of my HTC 8525 I'd prob get an old palm on ebay and try my luck at it. Would love to have apt-get to install my apps :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6634195.stm
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Dekaritae, 8 Jul 2007 @ 11:55am

Linux-on-Palm
Here's the big guide to Linux-on-Palm. Doesn't include Treo models, as the OPIE build for those is still very alpha.

http://hackndev.com/node/474
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maceyr of Palmdiscovery.net, 8 Jul 2007 @ 12:48pm

Being a Palm fan, I have to agree with this
I am a Palm fan and although I love my Treo 650 and Zire 71, I have to admit that they have really missed the ball big time now. In the past 5 years or more, they have simply sat around and milked on the Treo line for all it's worth. It's now five years later and they're stuck wondering what to do. Their Linux OS has been talked about for years and yet nothing to show for. There's no Wi-Fi and even the new Treo lines only show a little bit more RAM and maybe some software updates.

As a Palm fan, I'm disappointed and will likely get a Win Mobile smartphone as my next, so needless to say, my focus will likely be more Win Mobile once I get my upgrade. But I am remaining hopeful that something will come out, sometime.
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Derek Currie (profile), 8 Jul 2007 @ 7:18pm

I want Palm stuff to survive on into the future...
Clearly Palm have had a multitude of problems. Their R&D got incredibly side-tracked and unimaginative. Their management has mostly been a mess. The market for PDAs never really took off, and what there was of it got extremely anemic. And what was with them selling off then re-buying their OS? Sheer insanity, and the OS is antiquated these days anyway. Apparently no one over there knows how to code it any more. Very sad.

Nonetheless I still lug around my trusty old Palm IIIc and still love it. It remains 'the other half of my brain' and I hope it lasts forever. Some day I would love to get something better, but I will want whatever it is to still run all my great little Palm programs. Really, if or when Palm drops dead I think the biggest waste of all will be the loss of the vast collection of great software written for their devices. I damned well want a Palm OS emulator running on whatever device replaces my IIIc. And I ALSO demand to be able to use Graffiti handwriting recognition on into the future as well. It is the only HWR that I consider worth using, and it works great for me. I'll take it over punching little buttons until my joints ache any old day.

Concept: Make Palm OS and Graffiti Open Source, I mean like do it right now, immediately! No way could the Open Source community bungle Palm OS any worse than Palm have themselves. And, it would provide Palm OS and Graffiti with a future.
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n/a, 16 Jul 2007 @ 9:37pm

old palms - how long they will last
the actual unit itself will last a long time, however the problem is the Datebook ROM. and the date as it will only go up to 2030ish something -- so about 30 years left unless someone can make a rom and update the calender to go way beyond that date - in resoponse to "I want Palm stuff to survive on into the future... by Derek Currie on Jul 8th, 2007 @ 7:18pm"
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