1SRC features an interesting editorial by Jeff Kirvin called "
The Once and Future Palm":
There's been a lot of "Palm is dead" doom and gloom out there in the last week or so. Even sites focused on Windows Mobile have grabbed this meme and run with it. I have to admit to being partly at fault myself. I was too grim in last week's 1SRC podcast and declared Palm OS dead before I really broke down and analyzed the situation.
Good read and I agree in many points, except when Jeff says, "conventional wisdom is that the jump in clarity from 320x480 to 480x640 isn't worth the corresponding drop in battery life and the amount of software recoding that would need to be done; HVGA is "good enough" on a 3.7in screen." If you have ever seen in action a Pocket PC with VGA resolution and a 3.7" screen (such as the Axim X50v), you'll know that the addition of twice the amount of pixels (320x480->480x640) is a
huge jump in screen clarity and it definitely makes it worthwhile if you consider using your PDA for anything else besides organizing your personal calendar.
Also, I am not sure if Jeff is right about what he says regarding Palm OS and multitasking capabilities. Seems like some people believe it does offer multitasking, or at least some kind of it (Jeff), while others believe the contrary. In a
similar discussion here at Mobileread, Dianne Hackborn of PalmSource pointed out that multitasking is a required feature also for handhelds nowadays:
Quote:
|
I think the key thing is that this isn't really an either/or question. For the kinds of things these devices are doing -- multimedia, all kinds of communications stuff, web browsing, etc -- multithreading and multiple running applications is required. That doesn't mean, however, that you should be forced to use it for things where it doesn't give any benefit, such as in your address book app.
|