If you would like to contribute or send in an article please do- hopefully I will be able to produce versions that run on your PDA over time. Doc and iSilo versions will be available for each article and you will be able to read them direct from the web site but it would be nice to bundle them together in a PDA friendly format so that you can carry articles with you. PS. Watch out for my book 'PDA' which will be released soon. Thanks Shaun McGill
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archived articlesBigger just isn't Better..... by Lee Paterson (28/11/03)
The Clie UX40 / UX50..... on paper the form factor seemed everything that I wanted..... finally arrived at the Sony Store here in New Zealand (we get things a little late here) and I set about wasting my lunch hours for a week by persisting in trying out the thing in as many ways as possible.
Having relinquished the SJ30 to my wife, who uses it
CONSTANTLY in her work as a doctor, I was really desperate for this to be what
I wanted. Here's the rubs. (and there are quite a few)
I own a Sony P71 Digital Camera, and it is handy, has a 3x zoom and takes excellent quality pictures - easily good enough to develop on photo paper.
I don't own a bluetooth anything. and if I did own a bluetooth phone, I wouldn't want the phone bills that could come with using the system to surf with.
I type, but my thumbs are way too fat and careless for this texting - typing input.
I love movies.... way too much to suffer a small screen viewing experience.
I've said this before elsewhere... but I notice that when you use a pda, you are probably on the move... without a flat surface to sit against.......
When you use a pda, you have to cradle the unit in one hand and "locate" against iether the pda, or lock your elbows into your ribs to access with any consistency and speed......
With the UX series this just isn't there.... it's too wide to hold in one hand open, and it doesn't even transfer into portrait mode.... !!
I was gutted..... and I haven't even started on some of the strange choices for software on the unit.
You know what I really wanted.
The SJ30, with sound system, good battery life (I could handle the extra weight) and a full 320 x 480 screen (virtual graffiti)
If I could get just the screen half of the NR70, with a battery back, I would be made up.
I don't want the bells and whistles..... I don't want the gadgetry.... I just want something that synchs effortlessly at home and keeps my life organised. When I want to get a "normal person" excited about pdas I still show them the datebook and reminder functions..... we just never see marketting that pushes the utility of these devices.
Until the industry realises that bigger isn't better..... there really isn't going to be an industry anymore.
........I never thought I'd say "I don't want the gadgetry"
Rewind (27/11/03)
I remember playing some of the early Psion games for hours and hours a few years back until I felt sick and have longed to see them appear on a modern PDA. Well, it looks as though we are finally getting somewhere...
The illness: PsiSoccerManager (Psion)
This was a classic football management simulator which, whilst expensive, was my first introduction to just how addictive this type of game could be. Sadly the developer did not port it to any other platform but we have a couple of nice alternatives.
The cure: Top of the League (Palm)
I love this game. It's quite simple which is good for people like me with no patience and who need a shallow learning curve but it grips you straight away.
You choose your team and away you go, choosing your players, selling, buying, arguing with the board for more money, coping with injuries and sorting your tactics to get promoted to the next division up. Games like this have lots of longevity and in theory can keep you going for years.
Another cure: LigaMan
This game was recommended to me and has recently been upgraded to work under OS5 and now includes basic colour.
I haven't really had time to get too involved with it but it is more detailed than Top of the League and could possibly provide a more rewarding experience.
It is also FREE but is no longer supported so at some stage Top of the League should become the boss.
The illness: Jumpy / Horace and the Spiders
These were just brilliant games and were probably the ones I have spent more time playing than any other game on any platform! Jumpy was particularly addictive and to this day is one of only three games I have completed- every level was a chore in some ways but it was rewarding to get to the end. Horace was the second game that I have completed to the end and was just as enjoyable and overall more graphically competent. My guess is that neither game will be ported to Palm but there is a reason why I wrote this article and it's.....
The cure: JACK (or 100 ways to barbecue)
The differences between this game and the ones above are very welcome- superb graphics which are very colourful, a huge playing area to explore and a friendly character to control. Within 5 minutes are starting to play this I was hooked and keep coming back for more. I can see this being the fourth game in my life that I complete all the way through:) Watch out for a full review soon.....
Let's hope us Psion fans see some more releases soon which take us back a few years:)
Using a PDA as my Main Home Computer by Jason Perry (24/11/03)
On November 7, 2003, my computer died. My home computer kicked the bucket. More precisely, it stopped being able to boot into Windows XP. With no real time or energy to get the computer fixed, I was left with my new NX80V to use as my home computer and no ability to sync it with any computer, even the one I use at work. Surprisingly, the solutions I had developed over the year with my work computer and my NR70V and new ones developed to suit my current situation have been found to be an adaquate temporary solution. Seeing as this sort of situation might ring true with some PDA users now or in the near future, I have decided to share my experiences.
Documents: I had been without
internet access at home since I moved to Arizona a year and a half ago until
very recently. Thus, my home computer's primary purpose was to write papers for
classes. However, without my home computer working, I had to develop a new
solution. I first considered Quickoffice, but it doesn't save documents as a
native file, it just views them and saves the documents to QO's proprietary
format. I used Wordsmith quite a bit before but it suffers the same problem. I
don't have the funds to look at Documents to Go. What I have done is to use VFSi by Shenhei Hara. This hi-res+ freeware program acts mostly as a card viewer but it also includes a plugin to view and edit .txt files. This article is written using VFSi. While this does not provide all the text formating that Word or equivalent document editor will have, it does the job. I have also used crsMemo, but that program is not hi-res+ and only uses one directory for .txt files.
Another key aspect of typing documents, be it a lab report for my Chemistry class, and abstract for a conference, or an article for PDA247, is text entry. When I had my NR70V, all I used was graffiti and the built-in thumboard. This was perfectly sufficient for the light editing I would do when my home computer was working fine, but not with the heavy-duty work I would require of it now that my computer doesn't work. In response, I bought the Sony Compact Keyboard, PEGA-KB100. This keyboard has a few quirks regarding key placement, like the right shift key, and the lack of quick action buttons like 'OK' and 'Cancel'. However, the keyboard is quick in key response after the first, and the feel of the keyboard has a very laptop-like quality to it. Having both VFSi and the compact keyboard certainly make it easy to type a paper on my Clie in an emergency such as this.
Data Transfer: Of course, this still leaves an unformatted document, on my Clie. How do I get the document off my Clie without hotsyncing, and without a computer I have authorization to install anything? I use a generic 6-in-1 card reader that does not require any drivers to be installed on MacOS X 'Jaguar' machines. Then I can just hook the card reader to the Mac at work and transfer the text file (or picture files, etc.) to the Mac. I can also transfer files from my work server to the memory stick. From there, I can just load the file into Microsoft Word X and format the file as I wish. In addition, I can use my Wireless LAN card (PEGA-WL110) to transfer the file from my memory stick to my work server using Nine Lock's VFSFTP.
Wireless Internet on my NX80V: Successes and Failures: One of the main reasons I upgraded to the NX80V was for the ability to get online with the my PDA. Initially, this was meant to be secondary to my home computer's access (like read mail in the living room, next to pool, or while eating breakfast). With my main computer being out of commission for the time being, my Clie is my only internet access at home. It has worked out with mixed success.
The NX80V comes with Netfront loaded in ROM. This program has great support for the boat loads of heap space built into the device. However, page loading can be pretty slow sometimes. In addition, I get the feeling that cookies don't last as long as they do on most computers. I often have problems with being logged out of a forum after only being off the site for 30 minutes. These above two problems make it difficult at times to participate in heavy traffic threads, such as the Undead Thread ("UDT") over at PalmOne City. However, connection speed is quite fast despite these issues. I was able to download a 30 MB file in less than 10 minutes on my NX80V just last week.
This leads into the multimedia aspects of my Clie and the wireless connection. One my hopes after my computer died was that I still would be able to download MPEG files and view them on my Clie without converting them. Unfortunately, with the exception of one or two cases, I have not been able to get many of the MPEGs I have downloaded to play, such as that 30 MB file I mentioned above. This does reduce my ability to play videos on my Clie, but thanks to Cliesource members like ncoday, that door isn't completely closed.
Finally, a word on communications. To chat and send email, I use the built-in Clie Mail and PDAApps' VeriChat. Once I figured out the problem of relaying being denied by Clie Mail, this has been a flawless system. Using VeriChat, I was able to talk to my brother longer than I have in several years. The mail program finally allows me to send email from home. However, I am a little preturbed that I can't attach what ever I want to the email. I can only attach Clie-related files such as Clie camera captured images, voice recordings, video recordings, and Clie memos. I couldn't attach the .txt this article is written on to Shaun but had to post it somewhere so he could retrieve it. I hear SnapperMail may resolve this so I might check that out tomorrow.
Conclusion: Using the PDA as your main computer is not an optimum situation. I would much rather be able to use my desktop to get on the internet, chat with friends, play games. However, there are ways to get around the restriction of not having a working home computer and having to use your PDA instead. Not perfect, but I am certainly much less worried about my computer not working.
www.smartphone247.com (23/11/03)
www.smartphone247.com I registered the above domain name today. Why? Because the PDA is dying...
A few people have been talking about the impending doom of the PDA recently and it seems to be sadly coming true. There's no doubt that here in Europe the PDA has never really taken off, it's always been a niche product and to this day still has a nerdy image.
Give someone a SmartPhone (a new P900?) and people get excited about it. Show someone a UX50 and they say "that's quite nice". People like you and I will probably get excited by both but we are not normal:) When I say 'not normal' I mean that we are in a very small minority.
The PDA industry was invented in
Britain over 15 years ago by Psion- there were a few personal organisers
floating around but it was Psion who really got the ball rolling. As time
passed so did the various Psion models and they kust got better and better. A
large fan fase sprung up but this was mostly in the UK and western Europe.
Eventually Palm came along and brought America into the PDA industry, along
with Microsoft who started up their Windows CE line of PDAs.There were others, namely Apple, but it was Palm and Microsoft who were and are largely responsible for the number of PDAs we see today- the problem is we do not and will never see them become commonplace.
Throughout what appeared to be a mini-boom
in PDAs the mobile phone has got stronger and stronger, especially over the
past 7 years. It is not considered a luxury anymore and not even a necessity,
you are just considered backward if you do not own one. In the past couple of
years attempts have been made to build PDA functions into mobiles and most have
failed, apart from the P800. It is a great phone/PDA and many users love them
to bits- I personally was not keen but then I saw a P900 the other day and was
mightily impressed. It looked good, had a great screen and a superb operating
system. So why is this phone so successful? Because it looks like a phone (sort
of:)) Why will the Treo 600 be successful? Because it looks like a phone. Why
will the SPV not be successful? OK, it looks like a phone but it's not exactly
user friendly.My best guess is that the PDA industry as we know it will come to a halt in the next 2 years- Palm have the Treo 600 now which is a step in the right direction and there are rumours of a stripped down Clie mobile phone within 3 months coming from Sony. I am expecting a picture of it this week so will bung it in a newsletter soon:) There are a few Pocket PC mobiles now on the market and I suspect they outsell standard PDAs rather easily.
It's sad to say but the PDA will always be
classed as a niche product and will never jump out from it's little section in
the big electronic shops, whereas the mobile phone has an enormous market place
and will get more complex as time goes by and gradually get the mass market
using the PDA features we do now, only it will be in a mobile phone.So that is why I now own www.smartphone247.com. It may come in handy one day...:)
How long can it last? (by Patrick Robbe) 22/11/03
Patrick recently sent me this nice email and I thought an extract deserved publishing. He still runs EuroClie and long may it continue to be there...
"...don't be mistaken though: with the arrival of your second child, your best PDA days are behind you, I fear (at least, that's what happened to me, my second son being just over one year old now), so it's more or less a gamble for me: either you manage to get your personal server up and running before your second child is born, or I expect PDA24/7 to dwindle and disappear within the next year or so.
Even if it does, by the way, I won't regret a dime spent on your cause, because I really appreciate your style, your work (been there, done that, so I know the work needed to run such a website).
But let's face it, even a quick and dirty answer to the (no doubt) numerous messages you receive every day certainly take their toll in your personal life, not to mention writing news articles or hunting for news on the net. Sooner or later, you'll face some hard choices.
When you do face them, you'll have to consider every aspect of the problem, and carefully weight the pros and cons. What will you tell to your wife and kids, when they ask you "Why do you spend so much time and money on your website?" I'd rather have you answer "Well, honey, see: with the contributions I receive from friendly PDA-pals, I didn't have to spend anything this month, and I could even buy you those nice flowers" instead of "Well, err... this summer we'll take camping vacations and visit Whales by bicycle, as I had to sell the car to pay for the RAID card and hard drives..." ;-)
IMHO, if you manage to setup a "home based" hosting solution, you should consider also a contribution scheme that would let other people write the stuff (news, articles, reviews) they want, then upload it on your site for you to review so that all you have to do is either validate the item for immediate posting, edit it manually for fine-tuning, or just put it in /dev/null if the content is irrelevant/unusable/duplicated. Who knows, in a few months from now, you might even be able to do that from a wireless PDA while commuting, hence saving some precious minutes every day!"
He has made me think but somehow I think the site will continue...:)
New device launch & marketing... (by Patrick Robbe) 20/11/03
OK, let's face it, I'm not in a very positive mood those days. :-(
After writing recently a long (and not quite flattering) article about Sony, the next target in line today is PalmOne (or more appropriately Handspring, as the cause of today's rant took place back in time when Palm and Handspring were separate entities) and Samsung (and let's not forget Orange either! (vbg))
So what's wrong with them? Poor marketing choices, and poor communication.
This summer, I started to read interesting things about smartphones, in particular the fact that some very promising PalmOS smartphones were maturing slowly and would be released "soon".
The first one that caught my attention was
the Samsung SGH-i500. Basically, it's a clamshell-design phone, with a
(supposedly) hires 320x320 (slightly more in fact for the added icon bar)
screen, PalmOS5, builtin digicam, SD slot. I read about it from one of the
various PDA-related news sites (I think it was PalmInfoCenter, or BrightHand),
and went hunting for news and details. The most promising info was originating from Just Talk online store, which had the SGH-i500 for preorder with an estimated release date of August 1st. As good as the news was, it proved both unreliable and depressing. Unreliable because it was later postponed to mid-August, early September, etc... and right now it is expected in early January, but there's no doubt that the release date will be postponed again to February or March - if the SGH-i500 ever hit the stores, that is! There have indeed been numerous rumors about Samsung dropping the SGH-i500, which after all wouldn't be such big a surprise since the SGH-i505 has recently been announced.
Of course, it would be easy to put the blame on Just Talk, and believe me there have been some strong posts against them on some smartphone boards, and they indeed deserve that for giving false hopes to customers again and again!
But all in all, I think that the ones who should actually be blamed are Samsung guys. I mean, it's all right to display nice prototypes in computer shows, but come on, this SGH-i500 had been initially announced in March 2003, with an expected release date of Q3, 2003. It has since become obvious that the device's specs were not written in stone back then, but announcing a device, publishing its specs, giving it a name, all this of course is done purely to make the potential customer stop and hold his breath, to prevent him buying a competitor device while your product is finalized and until it reaches the stores.
But in the real world, Samsung labs and commercial staff produce only "vaporware". And most customers (including myself) don't like vaporware at all. After reading stuff on the SGH-i500, my mind was almost set, I knew I would buy this phone. But summer came and went, and it's almost winter now, and still no news about a reliable estimate as to if/when the SGH-i500 will actually be available. Too bad, as I sincerely think that there would have been many interested customers, but by the time this products actually becomes a reality, it will be severely outdated: PalmOS6 is going gold by the end of December, the recently released PalmOS PDAs have a considerable amount of memory (64Mo for the Tungsten T3, even more for the UX50) so a PalmOS5 device with 32Mb of RAM, while impressive right now, will be more or less the bottom-of-the-line specs for next spring/summer PDAs... thus making the PDA side of the device less appealing.
So what should have Samsung done to get it right? First of all, they shouldn't have exhibited the SGH-i500 prototypes labelled as such. Just let people have a glimpse of the technology, sure, but don't give an expected release date or device specs if you're not going to be able to realistically hold your promises!
So in late Summer, or early Fall, I
can't remember, I started to realize that, true to some posts on Samsung
smartphone boards by "old ones" who had been through this for
previous Samsung devices, the SGH-i500 would definitely NOT be a good candidate
for this Fall's planned PDA upgrade (yes, I happen to upgrade my PDA every
year, basically). So I started to look elsewhere, and decided to consider again
the Handspring Treo 600. Another hunt for data and news info began, but this time things looked more promising: where Samsung support for PalmOS device was scarce at best (they don't even provide a SDK for third party developers to take advantage of their devices capabilities, basically they handle their PalmOS smartphone like your average nokia phone, whereas us PDA (power)users like to think about them as mini-computers, and as such we expect to be able to grab docs, SDKs, drivers, updates, add-on softwares, etc... which lacked on Samsung's web site), Handspring has long been an active advocate of the PalmOS platform, providing everything needed by third party developers. Also, I don't remember reading about a particular official release date, although there were a lot of rumors pointing to this fall.
After a few weeks wait (September and early October), the first review and test units began to surface and the phone's availability became a reality, not just another vaporware item.! :-)
So what went wrong, and why am I going to bash Handspring? Because I still don't have a Treo 600, and that's inacceptable! ;-)
Let's look again at how things evolved: there were a few official shows (labelled "Mission Possible") in the US to show the device to journalists, professionals, and a few motivated end users as well it seems. Then we got informations with more detailed release dates. Orange, in Europe, was starting to advertise the Treo 600 on their web site, and every rumor pointed to an October release. But october came and went, and not that many users could get a Treo 600. In the US, the main reason is that Sprint has the opportunity to start selling the CDMA Treo 600 weeks before it became available for GSM operators. Who's to blame, we'll probably never know. Was it something Sprint paid for (to have the exclusivity for a few weeks before the GSM version release)? Was it caused by FCC regulation slowdowns (GSM carriers waiting for the FCC approval to release the GSM version)? Was it simply caused by Handspring not being able to build and ship enough devices?
I still don't know the answer, but regardless, when seen from Europe, things don't look that bright in the US, with GSM users impatiently waiting for the device to be available, jealous of their CDMA-equipped neighbors, almost fainting when they learned that the (just recently released) Cingular Treo 600 isn't sim-locked and could be used with T-Mobile... And even for CDMA Treo 600 users, life isn't necessarily smooth, with Sprint SMS-like launch delayed and unhappy Treo 600 users unable to send/receive SMS, etc...
Then there's the usual hunt for the best prices: generally available between 399 and 599 US$ depending the subscription plan (or lack thereof), it's the standard game of finding the best deal, sending the rebates coupons, trying to "bend the rules" by thinking cleverly and maximizing the rebates by daring combinations!
Meanwhile, what's happening in Europe? Well, not much, sadly. After the initial thrill of Orange Treo 600 announcements... almost nothing happened. Sure, there are many Orange shops in France (and I expect in UK and Switzerland, the two other countries where Orange got the exclusive release for the Treo 600. Some happy and lucky ones were able to get the Treo 600 either with a new Orange plan or by "upgrading" their current plan (you subscribe to another 2 years and get a discount on the Treo 600). In France, for instance, you can theoretically get a Treo 600 with a new subscription for as low as 399 Euros with a new subscription, 499 Euros if you keep your current Orange plan and just upgrade your mobile phone to the Treo 600, or 679 Euros if you want the Treo 600 without any Orange plan (but wait, there's a catch, you have to add another 80 Euros or so to get the Treo 600 Orange-simlocking removed if you want to use it on another carrier's network).
In the countries where there's no Orange exclusive launch, the device is available directly from Handspring web site for about 900 Euros.
My gripes are the following:
1) 900 Euros for a Treo 600? Gasp! It's a bit expensive, really, unless you're totally and utterly addicted to that PalmOS smartphone. I do understand that for 300 to 500 Euros, you're making a good deal, for 700 Euros you're paying the "normal" price, but 900 Euros makes it more expensive than most other smartphones, mobiles phones, PalmOS PDAs and even PocketPC devices!!! :-(
2) Why restrict the device launch to the Orange operator? Of course, I'm not informed of the internal & financial agreements implied there, but honestly, I wouldn't go to an Orange shop to buy a PDA. There are loads of PDA-specific shops, or simply computer / electronics general stores in which the salesmen would be more knowledgeable in PDA than the typical Orange employee. Don't be mistaken, I've nothing personal against Orange staff, but let's face it, the typical question in a phone shop is about configuring the phone, sending MMS or SMS, getting a new ringtone or screen saver, finding the right accessories for your device.
While all this is fine, and many smartphone users are going to need such answers, I am pretty much convinced that almost zero percent of the salesmen did receive a PDA-specific training before the Treo 600 release, to be able to answer specific questions about the PalmOS in particular or the PDA side of the Treo in general. Is it possible to transfer emails between Outlook and the Treo 600? How do I view/edit/send/receive Office documents on my Treo? Where can I find additional softwares for the Treo? What kind of memory card (SD or MMC?) should I buy for the Treo 600? And what about third party accessories (wifi or bluetooth cards, gps module, cables, stylus, screen protectors, you name it...) I don't know many computer/PDA shops in which the salesmen can give you enlightened answer to all of those questions, and amongs those, there's certainly no Orange shop! The few Orange shops I visited had either no Treo 600 at all, or just a dummy model for display, and in the rare cases where they had a functional device, its battery was rapidly depleted, and the device was abandoned there, as useless as a plastic dummy model. Pathetic. I want to be able to play with it, to test it, to type things on its keyboard, to see how good the screen actually is, all sort of things that you can do in most PDA shops but never in mobile phones shops like Orange stores! :-(
So all in all, if you want a Treo in France, UK or Switzerland, you have to go Orange. While they can certainly attract a few passionate users who desperately want the Treo, and have a mature enough mobile phone plan with another operator, many will not be able to just switch to Orange. Be it because they've signed for a 18 or 24 months plan to get some substantial savings on their previous mobile phone, or for any other valid reason, those people will just skip the Treo 600 and wait for another smartphone with a wider distribution.
As for me, my current mobile phone plan suits me very well, and I'm in the situation mentioned above (subscribed to another 24 months to get a nice phone for cheap), so I can't change to Orange. Even if I could, my current plan includes 10Mb data (inbound+outbound traffic) per month for 5 Euros, where as all the French operators have since cut that to 5Mb data for the same price, so subscribing to a new mobile phone plan in order to buy the Treo would mean also paying more for monthly data use! :-(
And to top it all, when you enter an Orange shop, wait for 45 minutes until it's your turn (because, you know, it's always very slow in mobile phone shops, as customers who buy a new phone can't just pay and walk out, they have to fill out the contract forms, send a copy of the required documents by fax, wait for the phone activation, etc.), then you're given the opportunity to ask about the Treo 600 and you discover that they're back-ordered even if you're willing to get a new mobile phone plan with it! :-(((
This leads me to my third gripe:
3) What the hell did Handspring do with their device stocks and manufacturing plants? I don't know how they were dispatched, but the overall result is a hopeless penury of Treo 600 on the market. I understand that there's a blatant marketing trick which consist in letting only a trickle flow of devices reach the stores to generate an even higher demand (people hesitating to buy the device would buy them when given the opportunity because they know that if they go back home to think about it, and come back the following day, the shop might not have any device left in stock, and the customer would then have to wait long days/weeks/months to get it), but IMHO the result could well be the opposite: people ready to buy a Treo 600 (hey, sometime I could buy a 900 Euros Treo 600 by impulse, if I had one available in a nearby shop, given how bad I want to "upgrade" my current PDA!) will wait a bit then buy something else.
Let's not forget that time plays against us here. I mean, once a device specifications are set in stone and published, every passing day makes the device older and less appealing. Every couple of week there's a new PDA or smartphone released (all platforms included), and/or the price of currently available devices is decreasing. When you're told that your favorite device of the moment is back-ordered with a one month delay, you start re-evaluating your purchase in the light of everything that will happen while you wait. By shortening the product lifes (Sony's PDAs are released every couple of months, and even Palm released the T3 only weeks after the T2 introduction), PDA manufacturers take a risk: not being able to sell their new device before it's become obsolete in end-users minds.
Of course, one might argue that just because one device isn't the latest model doesn't mean that it's obsolete and worthless, and this is certainly true to some extent. But when you're ready to shell out 900 Euros or Dollars to buy a new gizmo, you want to have bang for your bucks, and you know you can't expect to easily find accessories, upgrades or patches, etc. for devices which are not sold anymore! For instance, since Sony released the NX73V with built-in Bluetooth, I haven't been able to locate the Bluetooth MemoryStick on their web site anymore. Coincidence or not, my not so old NX70V had no built-in Bluetooth, and if I hadn't already owned one such Bluetooth MemoryStick, I'd have had a hard time buying that simple accessory for a recent (less than one year) PDA that has already been removed from the manufacturer web site!
All hope is not lost, though. If you give the Treo 600 a 12 months life expectancy (I mean, by Christmas 2004, I'm confident that PalmOne will have released a replacement unit for that model), having to wait three months after the initial release date isn't that terrible. But still, I think that Handspring shouldn't have released the Treo 600 if they didn't have enough stock to deliver them in a timely (less than one week) manner to the Sprint, Orange , Cingular , etc. stores (it's not acceptable to be restricted to one operator, and discover that this operator has no stock anyway). And this 6 months exclusivity may be a good thing for Orange (though I doubt it), it can only hurt Handspring sales on the long run!
Seriously, with new phones or PDA released every couple of months (of not more frequently) by manufacturers, it's becoming less and less convenient to engage yourself for the next 12, 18 or 24 months or so!
Enough ranting for now, I'm back to my browser to check the current state of my Treo 600 order! I guess I'll have checked the order a couple hundreds of times before it ships! Wish me good luck and patience... ;-)
Sony Thoughts (by Patrick Robbe) 18/11/03
The other day in my mailbox was a quick message Mike Cane was kind enough to send me, pointing to an interesting article on Forbes website, about Sony. So I fired up my favorite browser and started to read...
http://www.forbes.com/2003/11/05/cz_bf_1104sony_print.html
Funny how it somehow reflects my own thinkings about Sony recently... :-(
I mean, when they introduced the S300 and S500C, I thought "Wow! At last a PDA with some serious expansion capabilities!". At that time, I was thinking especially about memory cards, of course, as it was the most obvious and urgent need for PDAs, but very early on, there were a few prototype MemoryStick accessories displayed by Sony during shows. Amongst those, the GPS module of course was one of the most impressive!
Alas, the GPS indeed became a reality but only months (years?) after the initial display of prototypes/dummy models, and it was restricted to the Japanese market only.
Well, given its rather limited capabilities, maybe this was a wise decision anyway. Don't get me wrong, fitting a GPS into such a tiny form factor is a great achievement in itself, but the overall result is just barely useable: it pumps the battery life like hell, it occupies the MS slot so you must put your maps in RAM, which is always scarce on Sony devices, and there's a 25 minutes cold start - and whenever you remove the GPS MS (say you want to copy a map from your memory MS to the RAM) you'll need to cold start again the next time. All in all, it's not really worth looking at when compared to other existing solutions.
Faithful to its innovation policy, Sony has released the first hires
device (the N700C) and its later declinations, but the fact is that their
dedication to multimedia, while opening new perspectives to PalmOS PDA users,
have logically shaped the latest devices released by Sony, and made them in my
opinion closer to the Walkman than to a true PDA.What we get now (but that's a general trend, to be honest, not just Sony does that) is bigger, faster, bulkier, heavier, features-full devices, when many of us are dreaming of a small PDA. Even the late released TJ series are still not exactly what many users are looking for: a lightweight, no frill, keyboard-less Hires+ PDA.
Palm fired the first shot at this Grail with the T3, and I'm really impressed by the result. Well, except the few nasty bugs like the SD card problem and the 25% perf decrease after a soft reset... Ultimately, that was taken care of, and I must say that even if PalmOne initial attitude (refusing to admit that there's a problem, not recalling any devicesold to end users, not communicating at all about these bugs) was kind of lame, they did it "the right way" (tm) by providing a global fix which reflashes the ROM instead of cluttering the RAM with hundreds of Kb of patches.
The problem with Sony right now is that they seem to be "stuck" with nothing really innovative to include into their handhelds... OK, let's admit it, the UX was a good move (having both Wifi and Bluetooth is a neat idea, and it'll take a year or two before this starts to become the norm), but come on, Sony, why rush another half-finished device onto the market?
What's the point in having a tablet mode for the UX50 if the screen can't be switched to portrait mode, like on the T3?
In general, month after month, release after release, it was all I could do to notice how great the Sony PDA hardware generally is, and how poor their software is!
As a matter of fact, Sony almost didn't make any valuable addition to the builtin PIM applications (let's not talk about the ability to add a picture in the address book entries... While a nice idea, having to store in RAM each and every picture is just stupid on a MS-slot equipped PDA which precisely lacks a decent amount of RAM, as have been all the Clie devices). Even worse, their customization to support their own hardware (namely the jogdial) was poorly done, and you needed third party applications (PowerJog, etc...) to really benefit from it.
And I don't mention problems with third party applications bundled with the Clie, eating RAM like crazy (any NetFront user in the audience tonight? What do you feel about those 2 Mb RAM taken by your browser?) and/or not fully crash-proof?
Even in the multimedia area, Sony could have done better. The builtin AudioPlayer, while good enough for basic use, will just bark at you an obfuscate error message if the MP3 track you're trying to listen is not properly encoded, and this can be a hell to figure (yes, I know, it's all in the manual, but let's face it, most people don't read them before posting for help on the various groups and boards). You can't (or couldn't until a very recent past) properly manage your files with playlists, for instance. The video taken by the digicam-equipped models are stored in an obscure format (.mqv, a special QuickTime format. Not everyone has QuickTime 6 installed on his computer), and even on recent devices like the NX73V or NX80, you couldn't use the CF slot to record pictures or video. I know that Sony's trying to sell his MemoryStick Pro cards, but they're pretty expensive when compared to the CompactFlash cards, so in the end it's not necessarily a better value for the money for the end user!
When Sony first entered the PalmOS area, they did try to provide the third party developers with the needed API to make a full use of the new hardware, but their tremendous new device release rate has now made it impossible for them (I understand that there is actually surprisingly few people working in the Clie division of Sony) to release the API needed, for instance, for digicam and music applications. If you want to have a reasonable choice when it comes to choosing your multimedia applications, then Sony is NOT the way to go!
Even on more technical issues like FlashROM-related stuff, Sony's been particularly mouth-tight, refusing to distribute tools that would let users modify the content of the ROM, as was possible in the past for Palm brand devices, back in the PalmOS 3/4 era. Granted, now with PalmOS5, no PDA brand lets you really hack much into the ROM, but at least on PalmOne devices (Tungsten...) you can use programs like JackSprat and remove either the unused languages or the unused applications. This may seem a bit strange to do that, but it can give you a few Mb of FlashROM in which to store YOUR applications and/or data (with JackFlash), and 2Mb is definitely not something to be ignored when you just have 16Mb RAM (of which 11 only are actually available to the user)!
I don't know, maybe Sony is working on something in their labs that will make my eyes brighten with excitation again in the future, but for now their devices have lost most of their interest. I really enjoyed my NX70V, especially for its builtin digicam. While definitely not "pro" in its features, it was a big plus to be able to carry a digicam everywhere with you without having to think about it, and I'll miss it if my next device doesn't have one. But it didn't completely replace the need for an actual separate digital camera with a good optical zoom and a flash... And no thanks, I don't want that kind of features in my PDA (at least, I don't want it if this makes the PDA bigger and heavier. I'm definitely no NZ90 fan)!
Also everyone now is talking about smartphones, and indeed my next PDA will be such a "converging" device. I'd gladly trade my 220 grams PDA plus a 90 grams mobile phone (I don't mention the cases weight) for a 150 grams PDA-phone...
Since Sony has merged with Ericsson to produce nice, feature-full mobile phones, one could have expected that Sony would someday add wireless connection capabilities to their PDA, too. But nothing yet, not even rumors, about a future PDA with mobile phone capabilities in the Clie range. :-(
Don't argue that with a UX50 with builtin wifi, who needs CDMA or GPRS anyway. While that may be true in the US (in urban areas, at least), the Wifi coverage in other countries is anecdotal at best, and the free Wifi hotspots are even more difficult to use, and for the non-free ones you have to juggle with many (expensive) plans and carriers, making it definitely not a trivial thing. On the other hand, in many countries, GPRS coverage is largely sufficient to let you actually connect from nearly everywhere in populated areas (albeit at a much slower speed, I admit, than Wifi), without having to care about subscribing to various carriers or operators but your usual mobile phone carrier with a data plan...
Loyalty is not something earned easily. There are of course thousands of Palm, Microsoft or Sony zealots, but there are even more users who will not necessarily stick to one particular brand for ethical or philosophical reasons. They want proven facts, measurable figures, actual useful features.
I've long been a Sony supporter (having created one of the first non-US and non-Japanese Clie website, EuroClie, and owned three Sony Clie PDAs including the (not) famous S500C, first color PalmOS PDA featuring a memory card slot - but which didn't make it outside of the Japanese market. I've actually used a Japanese device for a few months, although I don't understand Japanese, that should show how deeply interested I was in Sony devices! ;-)
I've demonstrated the extraordinary capabilities (music, pictures, videos, hires screen...) of my Clie PDA to many people / friends / colleagues, a lot of whom have bought a Sony PDA afterward. I won't pretend that I always advised people to buy a Sony (quite the contrary, I often recommended non Sony PDA in cases where I had the feeling that the future user wouldn't use the multimedia capabilities of the Sony anyway), but when people looked at my Clie, and what I was able to do with it, most of them were easily convinced that they needed a Sony, too! ;-)
There have been some sore points occasionally, like the complete and utter ignorance Sony displays toward the non-professional web sites dealing with Sony PDA. Damn! I don't beg for being given the opportunity to test new devices for a few days and write a review on my site, although that sure would have been nice, but if only they'd at least send me the "official" information when a new device is released, that would save me the hassle to have to go hunting for news on the net whenever there are rumors of a new device release! I've irregular and infrequent contacts with Sony reps, and such simple requests remained largely unanswered, even if Sony's staff is generally friendly and helpful. :-(
It seems that it's just not in Sony's policy to deal with non professionals... I don't think that this lack of consideration is going to succeed, in the long run, to build a community of faithful supporters.
All in all, I think that the word which defines best Sony is "proprietary". When your proprietary format/standard is better or equal to the rest, there's not much wrong to stick to it, but when it become apparent that the above is not true, that some equivalent solutions are better and/or more "open", then I think it's time to reconsider. Proprietary memory card format, proprietary multimedia software, proprietary connector (yes, there's been only two of them in the Sony history, when Palm has had three, but given their respective market share, Sony's connector is still a proprietary minority), proprietary development resources (like those missing API). All this adds up and the final result is: are the Clie devices better for Sony financial results? Sure! Are the Clie devices better for the end-user? Not necessarily, and every new model released shows that more clearly.
Sony doesn't focus on the end-user. They rush new devices to the market every couple of month, acting as if people had an unlimited supply of money to upgrade every now and then for no particular reason than just having the latest model, like you'd do for a (now inexpensive) walkman or other consumer devices. But while this may work with some users, I've discussed with a lot of users who feel somehow cheated. They buy a "state of the art", top-notch PDA, only to discover three months later that their device is outdated by a new model (not a big deal, except for those looking for the "Wow factor"...), and even worse: Sony won't release much software improvements (bug fixes only, when needed, in the form of patches which gradually eat bits and bits of your precious RAM) for those old models.
If you want a software feature present in the new device... you've got to buy the new device, there's no software upgrade! The only case in which this wasn't true was when N700C could purchase a software upgrade that would let them listen to MP3 (instead of just ATRAC3) music files. Otherwise, you've got a NX70V, and would like to use Picsel Viewer on your PDA? It's technically possible, but not commercially, as this product is not sold separately, but only when you buy a new device like the NX73V or NZ90... :-( Even if people have to pay for the latest 3.0.1 upgrade to Palm's WebPro browser, at least people have an opportunity to buy the upgrade, whereas Sony users are basically asked to keep quiet and forget about the upgraded or improved software, or search the net for illegal, pirated versions of the said software...
The overall feeling is that Sony labs engineers are creating nice devices that please them, but I'm not 100% sure that they are listening to the market and the end-user feedback... So as long as they pack their new devices with tons of new features and gadgets, everything is fine, people will rush to get a new toy, but as soon as the novelty factor fades, when you compare the pure ease-of-use in the everyday life, I fear that Sony may not always provide the best value for your money...
It's a very good thing to have Sony amongst the PalmOS licensee, regardless of my criticisms, as they did bring some needed innovations to a too slowly evolving platform. As things have turned out, though, PalmOne has begun innovating again, and I'm still waiting for Sony's secret weapon to get back to the first rank (as far as innovation is concerned)!
As for me, after hours and hours spent on my (humble) Clie website, I've progressively slowed down things. First of all because I've kids to take care of now, and also, let's be honest, because the sheer volume of Clie-related news, devices, software, etc. has made it almost impossible to cover everything properly (as a "homepage", non professional webmaster, anyway) as was previously the case with just a couple of devices and a restricted "niche" audience of Clie users. That means that I may pull the plug soon, unless I can find an idea to somehow refocus the site and find another "niche" to occupy!
I've just sold my current Clie device (US NX70V) this week, and unless Sony finally moves (quickly) will certainly grab a Handspring (sorry, I meant PalmOne (grin)) Treo 600. Going back to a low resolution screen will certainly prove difficult after having used a 320x480 screen for a year, but I'm confident that this device will actually improve my productivity and ease of use, even if it'll be less impressive to show to colleagues and convert them to the pleasures of PalmOS! ;-)
It's been a pleasant ride with Sony during those last couple of years, but it seems Sony dropped me along the way or just slowed/stopped their car, or took a turn in the "wrong" direction as far as I'm concerned. But I certainly expect to see them back sooner or later! :-)
And to those who still have a strong faith in Sony right now (I'm sure there are plenty in that case!), don't get me wrong: I don't just rant for the pleasure of some Sony bashing, and the competitors may not be actually that much different in many regards - I have no favorite brand to transfer my so call "loyalty" to. I just wanted to state some obvious facts and broadcast my feelings which, admittedly, contain more than just a bit of disappointment about how things have evolved...
Where have all the standards gone? (17/11/03)
Owning a Clie UX series really has an effect on someone who has used Palm OS PDAs for a few years. It makes you realise just how nice a machine like the one above was (and could be now).
Up to a couple of years ago you could upgrade to the latest Palm PDA and have no worries about the software you were currently running- admittedly there was no easy way to move all of your software over but you could guarantee that after a couple of days of hassle you would be back to feeling at home with your new device- these days it is not quite so easy.
Sony started it all with the N series hi-res machines and in many ways it's a good thing they did as I personally can't imagine using a lo-res Palm now. That was all well and good as there were software fixes to cover any incompatibilities but now we have a problem...
I'm going to start with an extreme example- the UX40/50.
Some people have complained on forums regarding software developers not supporting the landscape wide-res screen yet (namely iambic and Agendus). Well, what do you expect them to do??? They have to take account for the fact that there are no normal Palm buttons on it, the screen is landscape only and there are many other small differences.
Add to this the fact that the following non-standard machines are also available-
Tapwave Zodiac
Garmin iQUE
Treo 600
Alphasmart Dana
Tungsten T3
Lots of new smartphones arriving as well
How on earth is a software developer supposed to take account for such a diverse range of machines when the market for PDA software is tiny anyway? I see this approach as damaging and will only deter programmers from getting involved and may even send some of them over to the Pocket PC side.
Palm needed a good kick to get some innovation into the Palm OS PDA market and they have managed to come out on top and still be the defacto standard for most developers and users. It's just such a shame that it's almost impossible to decide what to choose now as you have to tally up which software will work with your choice and which will not.
Personally I would love to see the Palm licencees get together and decide on some standards including-
Buttons
Screen dimensions
Processor type
This would solve a lot of problems for us lowly customers. Whilst writing this article I received the following email from Gilles which just about sums up the problem (go to the link and count the number of manaufacturers involved)
"Have you seen the 1st comment below the article? "Make sure you check out http://www.palmevolution.com for a nice timeline of Palm OS history." The Evolutionary Tree is extremely interesting and shows the variety of Palm PDAs we currently have on the market." Gilles
Perhaps it's not so bad after all... (12/11/03)
The other day I wrote an article called Do you remember a time when the PDA community (Palm and especially Psion) was a very nice place to visit? which looked at the seeming decline in friendship within the PDA community and I thought that I should detail some recent happenings that go against my thoughts at that time.
I received an email from David at Astraware the other day offering help with PDA247's bandwidth problem- he not only detailed lots of ways in which I could reduce the current bandwidth usage but had even asked his IT manager if they could help out by offering some server space. At the same time he advised that in no way would this site's independance be comprimised. He is from the company that gave £100, two SD game packs and various registered games to the Danny Crawley fund. Now, Astraware are not exactly a small developer and are responsible for a huge range of games including what must be the biggest selling PDA game of all time, Bejeweled, but they still seem to hold onto a friendly, non-corporate attitude which is unusual and nice to see. Speaking to them on the phone only confirmed what a nice bunch of guys they are. I have no tie in with them re advertising or anything else but felt that their 'behind the scenes' help should be mentioned. And anyway- how can you not have respect for a company who's CEO (Howard) looks like Jom Morrison:)- he will probably ask for all support to be removed if I keep posting this picture...:)
A lot of you offered help this week with regards to hosting options and also advice on how to cut down on the traffic coming through. This is really appreciated and will be used if required. The ideal situation for me is still to have my own server and have 'complete comtrol' of the site and it's future. This is not because I am a control freak (well, maybe just a little bit:)) but because I am commited to keeping this site going and am confident that it will outlast many of the other sites out there. The need to have control was highlighted to me last wekend when the updating system crashed. XD, who built it for me was not around and I was stuck- my knowledge was not up to scratch and thus I had to rely on posts to the Coranto forum and a helpful person who managed to re-build it for me. I will learn what I need to and do not want to rely on hosts or even other people who have offered server space- it is my site and it would be unfair to expect them to support it when there is a problem. There is no hidden agenda to make money from PDA247- I genuinely get a buzz from the emails and interactivety with people all around the world and have no reason to want to stop that. There will be slow periods when things happen (birth of number two child in January will have an effect:)) but long term I expect the site to grow and get bigger and better. If the site grows enough to make a profit then good for me- I will happily take the money for doing something I enjoy.
Finally, I received a few donations over the past week which have been tucked away to go towards the 'control freak' equipment mentioned above. It's nice that people make the effort to recognise the work that goes into this site and I would love to be in a position to give something back to people like David Eaton, XD, Bert and Michelle who do so much to help out. This email from Daniel Eaton (the man behind the Danny Crawley appeal) summed up how far some people will go- "As you know, I've been out of work since May. I checked and had $6.47 in my checking account. I just sent $5 of it to you to help cover the site expenses. If I can do it, anyone can. Please post this on your page. My hope is that it will encourage others. Most folks drop $5 for lunch and think nothing of it. It's not much to ask." It made me feel slighly uncomfortable that he did that but I guess that's the kind of guy he is- 'kind'. Once all of the equipment is sorted I will remove the donations button as the running costs should be considerably reduced. Thanks to those of you who donated!
Well, that's it for today- just wanted to show that the PDA community can still be a nice place to be.
By the way, totally unrelated but the new 'Pink' album is just brilliant (has been playing on my Clie for the past hour). If you buy it and don't like it I will give you your purchase money back. OK, I won't, I will just say that you have poor taste in music...:)