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November 24, 2003
PalmCorner Weekly Feature--Zen of Palm Part II
Hopefully, by now, you’ve been thinking about Zen of Palm as much as I have been for the past few weeks. So, let’s fast forward our clock to 2004 from 1996. So, where are we now? In 2004, Palm is no longer just one entity, but two separate entities. PalmOne, the hardware company, still makes Palm-branded devices, but Palm Source, the OS company, is now the brain of any Palm OS device. Now there are many Palm OS licensees including Sony, Tapwave, Garmin that produce their own unique Palm OS devices. So, we no longer have one company that does everything, and in one sense, that is great for having more diversity, but what about Zen of Palm? Let’s briefly review what happened in the past few years to see if we can make sense of what’s going on today.
For many years since 1996, Palm has been making steady improvements with its devices. Around April of each year, we could count on Palm to introduce a new device, and when the new device was released, we could count on an upgrade path for existing owners. That eventually had to stop. However, the ever-popular Palm Vx still epitomized Zen of Palm, but as we heard, “For the times they are a-changin”
In 2001, Sony surprised the Palm OS community by releasing a new device that revolutionized the Palm OS device as we had known it. The 710C had a high-resolution color screen (320x320), a MP3 player, a memory card slot. This was truly a leap in innovation that the Palm community hadn’t seen in the past. Sony did not stop there, but continued to innovate, releasing a new device in every few months. A few months before that, Handera released the Handera 330, a monochrome (240x320) device that was much superior to other monochrome devices from Palm. The race was on, and it was only a matter of time before other companies would be releasing their new devices.
With the introduction of Palm OS 5.x, new Palm OS devices have new ARM-based processors that can hum at more than 100 MHz (400 MHz to the fastest) and finally broken the 8MB RAM barrier. The latest Palm Tungsten T3 is powered by Intel 400 MHz X-scale ARM processor and 64MB of RAM. The new Tapwave Zodiac now boasts 128MB of RAM. Remember my Pilot 1000 only had 128K RAM. So, how much is enough?
Speedier processors and an increase in RAM size are only the tip of the iceberg. More and more Palm OS licensees are offering unique and specialized devices to their customers. The Tapwave Zodiac is geared toward gamers in the market while the Garmin iQue is designed for those who want GPS technology in their Palm device. So, we the consumers are better off with more diversity of features and styles, right?
Well, adding more features and complex programs often mean that things can break down more often and easily. Also, diversity of features from different Palm OS licensees also mean more complexity in terms of programming and potential complications in compatibility. If you have been talking to any of Palm software developers recently, you would know that most developers hate having to deal with so many proprietary API’s and hardware idiosyncrasies these days.
So, what’s going on with Zen of Palm? I believe simplicity in learning, simplicity in use, and portability have been more or less honored and preserved over the years, but the current trend toward more sophistication and diversity seems to threaten that continuity–that simplicity we once enjoyed might no longer be there in a few years. The Tungsten T3 is still a joy to use, but the recent problem with the SD card corruption makes you wonder whether this is the bellwether of things to come in the future.
Interestingly, in 2004 we saw Handspring merging with palmOne, and who says you can’t go home again. So, who is to say Zen of Palm is going to disappear into oblivion in the future. It may have nine lives and may continue in another incarnation. Only time will tell . . .
Posted by Ken in PalmCorner