Ralph from alt.comp.os.palm posted the following scoop:

The information I got yesterday from an unofficial announcement of the Palm developers is that the new (T6) will be called Tungsten 2005 and should have the following features:

• OS 6 (with scalable fonts)
• Bluetooth
• Wavelan
• 1 GB Flash
• 3 Megapixel Cam
• New connector (ethernet included)
• VGA resolution 640 x 480
• Graffiti 2 plus (with voice commands)
• Interface to iTunes (Apple iPod)
• The device is maximum 200 grams
• Automatic software update over internet
• Compatibility mode for pocket Windows is built in
• Initial price is around $400
• Launch date approx end of April

To me this sounds like PalmOne are back in the game with an excellent range of features, all for a reasonable price.
 
 
 

Cited by: PalmAddict, PDA Expertos, Palm 247…

Throughout the past few months, as Palm users began to migrate elsewhere, there have been talks about embracing the open-source community (i.e. Linux) and placing special emphasis on inter-operability. Many Mac users, in fact, have chosen Palm, their reasons being obvious. When one gets to think about this trend, Apple followed a similar path when Mac OS X was introduced. An alliance, in some sense, appears to be the best way to tackle giants and benefit from each other’s strengths. As an example, the wonderful design of the Macs, in particular their user interface, made Jaguar one of the most appealing and the most reliable ‘Linux distributions’. Also it made it commonplace in the market of laptops.

Let us hope that likewise, we may soon see Linux in our pockets and our schedules under Linux — something which was miserably lacked despite Linux-Palm projects like KPilot.

CNET have have just reported that Palm pursue this possibility further:

PalmSource moved a little closer to the open-source community this week.

The maker of the Palm OS has joined the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum, or CELF, pushing ahead with its plans for a version of the Palm OS that runs on top of Linux.

Cited by: PalmAddict

The HP Tablet PC has just exceeded 1 million sales. Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) from Microsoft said the following:

At any other company that’d be considered an outstanding success. Getting a million people to do ANYTHING is pretty tough.

Walking around the TechFest this week I came to the realization that the Tablet PC is dead.

In the general sense, tablets may not be ideally mobile and handy tools, but they appear to be gnawing at sales of PDA‘s and laptops. The figures challenge critique about their size and reliability. Slashdot recently reported and boasted Linux installations on the Tablet PC, which makes one wonder about the direction tablets may take.

Palm have recently looked into the possibility of replacing Palm OS with Linux on their devices, as well as the provision for Cobalt, which makes Palm-powered handhelds run much, much faster. The next Palm, which is due to be unveiled this spring, should incorporate Cobalt, whose exclusion from the Tungsten T5 was a great disappointment to many.

Cited by: PalmAddict

Some might recall the dysphoric feeling when Sony left the PDA scene in most of the world. They have now halted their sales in Japan as well, thereby saying farewell to the world of miniature computing.

Jeffrey Kaplan from comp.sys.palmtops.pilot commented on the news:

It was only a matter of time until they dropped completely out of the Palm PDA market. Japan was their last market, they pulled out of the rest of the world last Summer. Expect their next entry to be either a Symbian or MS Smartphone due to their cellphone partnership with Ericsson.

It was rumored last year that Sony had bid to purchase what became PalmSource from Palm Inc. It is my opinion that failure to complete that bid is what made them decide to drop the PalmOS specifically, not the more general drop in sales after they flooded the market.

Cited by: PalmAddict

Albert Nurick from comp.sys.palmtops writes:

In an article with a slightly inaccurate headline, MSNBC carries the AP story about declining PDA sales.

Reading the story reveals some interesting details.

PalmOne’s shipments are down 9% to 3.7 million, from 4 million in 2003.

Sony’s dropped to 419,000 from 1.4 million. (Sony pulled out of the US market)

A very interesting note at the bottom:

“Shipments from other leading PDA makers, such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Medion AG, increased, but not enough to offset the overall market’s downward spiral.”

“Those three companies all make PDAs that run Microsoft operating systems.”

So it appears that PalmOS sales are down, and Pocket PC sales are up; that wouldn’t have been as good of a headline, though.

Read it all: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6906812/

Cited by: PalmAddict

A heated thread in Slashdot discusses why (or why not) the iPod is a better music player than a Palm. Here is a snippet:

Many people don’t need PDA functions, and even for those of us who do the standalones have advantages:

• Price – a 4GB SD card will cost much more than a flash based 4GB MP3 player.
• Size – iPod minis and shuffles are smaller than any PDA on the market and even the biggest current iPod Photos compare favourably on pocket real estate.
• Capacity – 60GB SD card or even CF microdrive? I don’t think so. Fair enough, most people don’t need the full 60, but even the sensible 20GB capacity doesn’t have any real competition from publically available cards, and plenty of people like to have their whole music collection with them to choose whatever they feel like hearing.
• Ease of use – iPods are set out (extremely nicely) to play and organise music. PDAs are not, and as such have loading times, fiddly small buttons and touchscreens that are hard to use one handed.
• Battery life – big fat backlit colour touchscreen or small, clear, functional monochrome display.

Cited by: PalmAddict

Ever wondered what is going on inside your PDA? Peter’s Pilot Pages contain high-resolution images of the entire contents of your Palm broken apart. This site is for the curious, not only for electronic engineers.

Cited by: PalmAddict