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Originally Posted by hacker
For me, and many others, PocketPC is simply the wrong choice, in every regard, for many reasons:
- It doesn't work with anything but Windows. That leaves out the growing Apple OSX, Linux, and FreeBSD userbase.
- It also doesn't use standard, known, documented synchronization protocols, nor are the tools to develop for it or interface with it, free.
- It does not use standard file or data record formats, such as iCal (no, not Apple's iCal, the actual iCalendar specification), or vCard, or CSV, or anything else that would make it easy to migrate to or from other devices and platforms to this device.
- Battery life, weight, size, and lack of solid applications are another handful of things missing from PocketPC devices.
Sure, in time, these devices could possibly equal or surpass what Palm developers have now, but Palm has 8 years ahead of PocketPC and hundreds of thousands of developers. Why? See #2 above for one major answer.Its not about the OS, its about what it does, and PocketPC, when compared to a recent PalmOS-based handheld device, doesn't even step up to the table.
PalmOS devices are quick, powerful, simple, and work with every single major platform out there, out of the box. PocketPC forces my choices down to the very slim and narrowing Microsoft product suite.
I'm also not in the habit of recycling my $400 device every 6 months, like these vendors try to encourage everyone to do. $400 devices are not "disposable" in my world.
But that's just my opinion. Microsoft has a LOT of catching up to do. |
Those are some good points Hacker, and got my interest, so I wanted to share my perspective even if it's slightly different. I don't know that there's any "right or wrong" here, but it does reflect my impressions.
As far as being limited to Windows, I only use Windows with my PDA myself, so that's not a limitation for me. But I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with a Linux desktop in a few years. That would certainly be more of a problem with Windows Mobile as I don't expect Microsoft to put many $s into Linux compatibility
As far as internals and file/synch issues or tools I simply defer to you as the expert. But from the perspective of the apparent effect on the user, I haven't noticed any lack of software. In fact, the quality of PPC seems to be very good, which surprised me a bit. And I've read some comments by PPC MS Mobile developers who speak of it being easier to program for than Palm OS. Plus programs like Skype and games seem to be harder to roll out for Palm. That may be entirely due to the different approaches to multitasking, though, so all I can really say is that PPC developers seem to be doing pretty well. I don't buy any self-reported developer counts such as those from PalmSource, but it might be interesting to compare, say, the number of programs at
www.freewarepalm.com vs at
www.freewareppc.com.
As far as the hardware, my Toshiba is smaller and lighter than my Clie, and seems to be built better. (Of course, Toshiba is out of the PPC game now, so that doesn't really mean anything!)
The battery life seems to be pretty similar so I don't have any problems there. But I have noticed that a lot of the PPCs seem to be pretty big. And if I succumb to the smart phone thing to avoid two devices, I'll probably have to go with a belt clip or I won't be able to walk right with something that big in my pants pocket!
Additionally, even though my 64meg memory is adequate, I'm almost as "tight" on memory with 64meg on my PPC as I was on a 16meg PalmOS Clie! And the VGA display models probably do require bigger batteries to keep up.
As a consumer, I felt pretty much pushed into PPC because there wasn't a PalmOS choice I was comfortable with. I know there's some decent devices out there, but none of them seemed like one I wanted to spend money on. There seems to be more life in PPC right now. That may shift back and forth between Palm and Windows Mobile devices in the future, but I'm not too worried about the switch too much anymore because I'll stick with MS Outlook on my desktop either way and continue to simplify how my data is stored on the device.
You did mention that Palm is better out of the box and I highly agree!!!!! Palm is not only usable, but with Docs To Go, it's really great. Add-ons are just a convienence. Except for the need for a boxed weekly calendar view with text entries to get some perspective when looking at the date book, I think Palm as-is works fantastic.
But with PPC, add-ons are necessity in my mind. Launchers, task managers, PIM replacements are all pretty essential as far as I can see. Plus, if you want to use MS Office documents, you really need to buy software because the documents are said to lose formatting if you move them to PPC, edit them, and bring them back to the desktop. In fact, of about 5-6 documents I've tried to move into Pocket Excel and Word, only about half of them even worked okay for me. That's pretty bad in my opinion, but on Palm DTG works great.
You also hit the nail on the head that it's really not so much the OS but what the PDA does. But I feel like PPC steps up to the table pretty well. The biggest things I miss are the simplicity, responsiveness and consistency of Palm apps. (Funny... my description of what I miss most probably changes every time I describe it. Maybe there's a lot I miss! Like ShadowPlan. And the Palm version of iSilo. My Patience solitaire game. Etc.)
And some of the difference is because of the OS, but most of it probably has more to do with market momentum and the culture. With Palm you get the zen of Palm, and it really does leave apps with a particular style of minimalist efficiency and consistency, which I prefer. With Windows Mobile on the PPC, I find it's very annoyingly inconsistent in the UI, but it seems to be more colorful, have more powerful software, and have better hardware. But if all PPC developers applied the Palm zen across the board, it would have been a spectacular platform!
I have some pretty stubborn opinions (and unfortunately longwinded ones also)! But I'm very aware it's just one set of thoughts and that doesn't mean I have the answers. Maybe it's a little like how different people with a glimpse at different parts of an elephant will describe it totally differently. All I really hope to do is share what I'm thinking and experiencing. The more views and opinions we get, the better.
And I want very much to see PalmOS grow and prosper. To keep up the competition, and to provide me with a viable choice that I might hop back to in the future.