The Palm Treo 700w will run Windows Mobile instead of PalmOS
Just to give Palm some credit, it is very cool that they’re willing to be platform agnostic, and aren’t cursed with “not invented here” syndrome. They’ve been making devices that run PalmOS since the beginning, and if they can make a better device that runs a different operating system, more power to them.
But what to think of the choice of Windows Mobile? I’ll start with my impressions of PalmOS.
I use and like my PalmOne Treo 600, which runs PalmOS. Before this, I had a Treo 300, a Handspring Visor Neo with Sprint Digital Link, and before those the non-phone Palm Vx, Palm III, Palm Professional, and Palm Personal. PalmOS has been good to me. It does what I need, with a minimum of fuss. I’ve been able to sync my Palm devices with Windows, Linux, NetBSD, Mac OS 9, and Mac OS X, with few problems. There’s a ton of third-party applications for PalmOS, many of them free, many for specialized fields like Law and Medicine, and there’s even a free set of developer tools.
But PalmOS is showing its age, or maybe its focus on simplicity and only providing functions necessary for an organizer just make it seem outdated. In PalmOS (or at least, the version of PalmOS I’m running), there’s really no filesystem access to speak of without additional software, multimedia is an afterthought, multitasking can only be achieved in a non-elegant way (no offense meant to authors of Palm application switching software, I just mean inelegant in that it really should be an OS function), and additional hardware support is lacking (I’m referring most specifically to 802.11b CF cards). Palm’s defense over the years has been to point out that these features are all requirements of full-fledged computers, not necessary for an organizer or phone, and would just add bloat to the OS.
And maybe Palm’s defense isn’t just marketing. Perhaps I benefit from the simplicity of the OS running on my Treo every time I click to run an application and don’t see an hourglass or timer icon entreating me to wait. And the fact that my device doesn’t crash very often, and almost never loses data? Maybe that’s attributable to Palm OS… Although as someone who would like to expect the stability of NetBSD and OS X from all his devices, I’m inclined to think rock-solid stability is something that can be achieved in complex systems. Simplicity is not a requirement.
On to Windows Mobile. It lies on the other end of the simplicity-complexity scale. It includes API’s for the sort of 2D and 3D graphics that would be useful for game developers (DirectDraw 2D and 3D), DirectShow APIs for working with cameras and video, digital rights management, audio IO (waveform audio API), etc. Windows Mobile devices are targeted towards business users, and ship with mobile versions of all of Microsoft’s office applications.
I can’t comment personally on the merits of Windows Mobile, but I will say that I have heard secondhand about lag when launching programs, the start menu being an annoying way to hunt and peck for applications on a small mobile device (it’s annoying enough on my full windows desktop), and applications requiring complicated installers and uninstallers to scatter DLLs on the device (makes me wonder if there’s a ‘windows mobile registry’ to corrupt as well, or if Microsoft left that bit of the Windows legacy behind when designing Windows Mobile). Windows Mobile doesn’t sync to Mac or Linux without third-party software. Of course, all these reports were with devices based on Windows Mobile 2003, and Windows Mobile 2005 has recently been released and devices based on the new supposedly improved OS are just getting to users. I’ve found a few reviews of the new Windows Mobile, but none of them glowing.
Hardware issues probably earn these devices much of their detractors — the Windows Mobile phones all seem to attract criticism for being bulky and having poor battery life, and it’s hard to like other things about a device when you’re predisposed against it due to hardware deficiencies. On the other hand, the Treo 600/650 is a nice piece of hardware that is well designed, gets good battery life, and is easy to use. Maybe a Treo that runs Windows Mobile would be a hit in the market and could shake up the PDA-Phone landscape in a good way.
I guess time will tell. Windows Mobile doesn’t get me very excited, but if PalmSource doesn’t have something up its sleeve vis-a-vis their supposed new version of PalmOS built on Linux (the whole idea reminds me of OS X, which was a great leap forward for Apple computers) may soon be the best (or the only) real OS running on PDA-Phones. On the plus-side, I’ll still be able to run my old PalmOS apps under emulation :(
While I’m ruminating over the projected benefits and shortcomings of an unannounced device that I haven’t yet looked at, I might as well fantasize about what I’d like to see in a PDA-Phone. Given today’s technology, it would be something like this:
- Slightly wider and taller than an iPod Nano, with the same thickness and a larger screen.
- Runs some form of Unix to which all sorts of Linux apps can be easily ported
- Organizer apps (datebook, contacts, todo list) save files in non-proprietary standards-based or xml-based formats.
- Mounts as a generic storage device on all computers via USB
- Because it mounts as a generic storage device, it should be easy to sync on any platform (PC, Mac, etc) using open-source utilities like rsync.
- Bluetooth headset and DUN support
- Built-in GPS accessible by applications running on device
- Built-in 802.11b
- Processor fast enough to support SIP or IAX-based VOIP applications (eg. ifon, ZiaxPhone)
- usable keypad, like the one on the Treo 650
- Graffiti input method via stylus
- speaker-phone
- voice-recording
- camera for still and video recording
- SD or CF slots for media and devices
- UI closer to PalmOS or OS X than Windows
- This is optional, but it’d be nice to see some advanced multi-media capabilities of the sort available on windows mobile devices. Maybe a processor fast enough to perform multi-channel audio synthesis, a good quality (low noise) audio line/mic in port, and a video-out port for presentations (hey, the ipod photos have it, why not a PDA?).
