06:45 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Sunrise

As many of you know, Laurens, the guy behind the wonderful Sunrise tool for Plucker, is working on his own e-book viewer.

If you are currently using Sunrise in conjunction with Plucker, and knowing that future (improved) versions of Sunrise won't be Plucker-compatible anymore, would you be willing to buy a single user license for Laurens' forthcoming viewer for $19.95? Too much? Too little?

This is a poll. Make sure to vote with 'yes' or 'no' and if you have a second, please comment your decision.

(In case it matters to you, I voted with YES).

06:34 PM by Colin Dunstan in E-Book General | News

It is true: in Japan you find people reading entire novels on their mobile phones. Although this is not exactly new (the trend has been around for a year), it is still noteworthy and begs the question why tech-savvy people living in the Western hemisphere haven't picked it up yet.

Your eyes probably hurt just thinking about it: Tens of thousands of Japanese cell-phone owners are poring over full-length novels on their tiny screens... In the latest versions, cell-phone novels are downloaded in short installments and run on handsets as Java-based applications. You're free to browse as though you're in a bookstore, whether you're at home, in your office or on a commuter train... people are using cell-phone books to catch up on classics they never finished reading. And people are perusing sex manuals and other books they're too embarrassed to be caught reading or buying. More common is keeping an electronic dictionary in your phone in case a need arises.

[Via Teleread and Associated Press]

06:06 PM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Even though palmOne gave a cautious outlook for its fourth-quarter earnings expectations, the stock rebounded and some investors (Bear Stearns) even upgraded the company. What's your opinion? Does palmOne still stand a change in today's increasingly competitive mobile device market?

A digest of news and responses to palmOne's Q3 FY05 results:

• palmOne Reports Q3 FY05 Results [palminfocenter.com]
• palmOne Manages a Bounce [thestreet.com]
• palmOne Conference Call Highlights [palminfocenter.com]
• palmOne upgraded by Bear Stearns (Briefing.com) [finance.yahoo.com]
• [video] PalmOne CEO: Smart phones key to the quarter [5.8 min] [us.rd.yahoo.com]
• palmOne's Hand Slapped (Motley Fool) [biz.yahoo.com]
• PalmOne Stock Retreats on Weak Forecast (Associated Press) [biz.yahoo.com]
• PalmOne stock down on weak Treo smartphone outlook (at Reuters) [us.rd.yahoo.com]

05:15 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Handango appears to be offering a free copy of Creative Notes for Pocket PC if you use the coupon code 12C7A8C from their discount page. Expires 3/21/05.

(From Aximsite via PDA247.)

09:07 AM by Colin Dunstan in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Tired of the endless discussions whether Palm OS or Windows Mobile is the preferred handheld OS? Perhaps you should consider buying a Linux-powered Sharp Zaurus handheld instead. Unfortunately, the default Qtopia desktop environment and the alternate OpenZaurus environment both lack the ability to run some specialized programs. The obvious solution is to install the X Windowing System on the Zaurus. The distribution Pocket Workstation is based on Debian Linux and can run in a chroot environment on a storage card, using the vendor's preinstalled native Linux system for most hardware access.

What's exciting about Debian Pocket Workstation is that you can run QTopia and a complete Debian distribution on the same machine. Switch back and forth as you need to. You can also build a complete cross-compilation tree on your own Linux computer, and compile and/or modify available open-source software for the Zaurus.´

A new version (updated 2005-03-16) is available. To stay up to date with this project make sure to visit the debian-handheld mailing list.

I cannot wait to play with the first Palm-OS based device running Linux.

08:30 AM by TadW in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

If you are interested in investing in palmOne stock, make sure not to miss the earnings conference call later today at 5:00pm Eastern time.

03:35 AM by Alexander Turcic in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

Regarding the latest rumors of a new palmOne device, a PalmAddicts visitor writes this morning:

"Hi there Sammy!!! Rumor time again. Heard that somebody posted at Palm Addict about the Tungsten 2005. One thing that I know will be coming out this May is this: "I heard 4gb internal memory, bigger and a bit bulkier than the T5, NOT called the T6, and inbuilt wifi. Release end of April. Its not called the T6 though. Its a new sub-brand from palmOne."

I invite you to participate in our discussion on what to make of the latest palmOne rumors and if indeed this could be the new killer PDA device!

Once again, a major thank you to Sam from for the heads up! You rock!

01:43 PM by Bob Russell in Archive | Handhelds and Smartphones

There's been a lot of skepticism about the rumored specs of a new T6/2005. Some think PalmOne is a little backwards and this is too much to expect. Some just think it's too much for too little money.

Well, maybe it makes more sense than you'd think at first glance. I have no reason to think the specs are right, but I think they're reasonable. As I said previously, there were already rumors that the next PalmOne device to come out about now was said to be something that would knock your socks off. And PalmOne may seem slow with technology, but I think it's more a matter of waiting for the right time to introduce the technology. They are much more conservative about that. Combine the conservative approach with slow product development life cycles, and they seem a little behind the times. But I think they're just crafty.

The T5 has positioned PalmOne for all kinds of devices with large internal flash memory. They are using the Tungsten line to develop technologies for the Palm power users that will also set their path for smart phone technologies. And they waited to implement wireless and flash and VGA screens until the technology was ready and able to support lots of function and lots of profit margin at the same time. They haven't abandoned powerful "traditional" form PDAs, it just wasn't time for what we wanted. PalmOne realizes that a large part of the smart phone success will depend on technologies that can be implemented much earlier and cheaper in a traditional PDA form, without all the expense and difficulties of squeezing a phone inside also. They can also gain a lot of smart phone buyers by keeping people on PalmOS until they want a convergence device with a phone. If they flee PalmOS, they may no longer be a PalmOS smart phone buyer either.

So, with all that in mind, let's take a look at some of the rumored features and see if they are really too much to expect from PalmOne...

1) OS6, i.e. Cobalt
It's supposed to have been ready a while ago. Why not in a product now? PalmOne is not ready to abandon PalmOS completely, and they can't live on Garnet forever. If they're smart, they'll license Cobalt partly to support PalmSource through it's transition to a Linux core, because PalmOne still needs PalmOS for smart phones. The real question is what version of Cobalt. PalmOne is known for such long product development cycles, it might be an older version of Cobalt already.

2) Bluetooth/Wavelan(WiFi)
Despite all the protests from PalmOne that wireless is not needed, the market dictates it. I don't think PalmOne is as stupid as we've tried to make them out to be. They were just playing dumb while they stalled until new integrated chipsets came out. For example, if Wavelan is a reference to one of those new chipsets, it all starts to make sense. A lower power drain, and cheaper solution is now at hand for portables, and I bet PalmOne was planning and waiting for this opportunity for a long time. Remember that they are very sensitive to choosing just the right time to jump on a technology. To the relief of many, now may finally be the time!

3) 1-gig flash
Integrated flash is not very expensive any more, and it's the near-term future for PalmOne storage. Surely they can add a gig on board for about $30-$40 these days with a good supplier contract. You can even find after-rebate deals on 1-gig SD cards yourself for not much more than that. Again, PalmOne has probably been planning and scheming for this quite a while. And the T5 was a trial run of the technology needed to support big internal flash memory. The technology wasn't at the right price/performance level for them until now. They've been looking ahead to this day all along.

4) 3 megapixel cam
This one, I have to admit, is impressive for PalmOne. But not unreasonable, and 3megapixel doesn't even seem to mean what it says anymore in cameras because they report "effective" resolutions after software enhancements. Camera technology has progressed very rapidly over the last few years due to the efforts to make it work for camera phones. Still, I wonder if maybe this is something that is going into a new Zire and not the T6/2005, and the rumor just got things mixed up a bit.

5) New connector (ethernet included)
This would be pretty embarrassing to PalmOne if they are already forced to have a new connector for ethernet connectivity. Is Ethernet so important? If your PDA is in the cradle or connected to a cable, you can do wireless sync without battery worries. And who has an extra ethernet wire laying around not connected to your computer or printer already anyway? Besides, people are more likely to use a wireless adapter. I've gotta figure that if this part is true, they got some very specific functionality in mind that we haven't figured out yet. This one just doesn't make a lot of sense to me right now.

6) VGA
Yehaw!!!! This is great news! Unfortunately, it may wreak havoc with existing apps unless there's some kind of screen compatibility mode. The screen pixel ratio is all different. But I'd say PalmOne is right -- they need to get there sooner or later, so with the release of the first PalmOne Cobalt PDA is a good time to combine the transition pain. VGA is where it's at, and if they are making the leap, it's great news for Palm fans everywhere.

Too good to be true? Yeah, this one just might be too good to be true. So what if there's a twist? Like, for example, a hires+ screen, but a VGA video output?! We'll have to wait and see, but I predict either original list price is greater than $400, or it's not a VGA screen that can compare to the Dell or HP VGA screens. Or maybe someone out there just happened to have excess capacity for producing these VGA screens and made PalmOne a deal they couldn't refuse?

7) Graffiti 2 plus, with voice commands
Voice commands is kind of a gimmick in my opinion. I had it on my current PDA, but never tried it. It was worthless to me, so removed it altogether.

More important is the choice of Graffiti 2 plus. Hopefully with no more multistroke characters. Ruins the flow of data entry and makes it unnatural. If they didn't improve the core graffiti, I'd say they missed the boat on that one again. But my guess is that is exactly what happened, and they probably did miss the boat. This is likely to turn out to be more functionality in the graffiti software, not an improvement of the actual graffiti characters. Something like type ahead work completion features and transparent graffiti areas or full-screen entry, etc.

I like Fitaly better anyway, and most users will probably find another alternative also. Anything to avoid Graffiti 2 multistroke characters! Whatever happened to original the Graffiti? It would be great with just a little tweaking.

8) Interface to iTunes (Apple iPod)
Who knows. This is no big deal to make happen, and it makes a lot of sense for PalmOne. But did they really get this done with Apple? We'll see.

9) The device is maximum 200 grams
Easy one... Cheap plastic case. Makes sense to me!

10) Automatic software update over internet
It's about time!

11) Compatibility mode for pocket Windows is built in
If this is activesync compatibility, I'd be amazed. If it's Windows Mobile application compatibility I'd be amazed. More likely, this is just built-in compatibility with Outlook that doesn't require a 3rd party app.

The earliest rumors rarely pan out, unless they have something like FCC site leaks to support. But they usually have an element of truth unless they are started by a bored Photoshop user. We may have quite a fun time sorting this one out, and it's sure fun to speculate and drool over potential new devices!