[Fully_Amazing]

But it's also to do with how a phone is marketed and priced - the centro is running Palm OS and yet Centro owners don't buy apps, two million new devices didn't lead to a goldrush for developers.

TRUE.

I guess I'm speaking biasly. This is coming from a Palm Junkie.
Like someone just said in the post above.
When people start showing off all the stuff that i.e iphone & HTC can do. I pull my 755 out and say "whats good???"
They are amazed at what my treo can do. But like I said lack of app knowledge and one specific place to buy apps (app store) leaves treo behind when it comes ability and capability of the phone.
But your very right!
there marketing for palm (up until the centro) sucked.

[cgk]

TRUE.

I guess I'm speaking biasly. This is coming from a Palm Junkie.
Like someone just said in the post above.
When people start showing off all the stuff that i.e iphone & HTC can do. I pull my 755 out and say "whats good???"
They are amazed at what my treo can do. But like I said lack of app knowledge and one specific place to buy apps (app store) leaves treo behind when it comes ability and capability of the phone.
But your very right!
there marketing for palm (up until the centro) sucked.

I used to be an app junkie as well but the conclusion I've come to is this - apps mean nothing. Amazing apps will keep a certain level of customers tied to a phone and an OS at a later stage in the cycle but they mean less than nothing at point of sale.The Nova OS has to be a winning proposition out of the box, otherwise it's dead. The value proposition cannot be "jam tomorrow", it has to provide *something* in the OS that demonstrates it's worth a go from a 2 minute play in a shop.

Even then I don't think that the mainstream will ever care about apps in the same way that people like us do.

[palmdoc#AC]

I disagree CGK. Speaking for medical users, the apps are everything. If it can't run the app you want, then forget it.

[cgk]

I disagree CGK. Speaking for medical users, the apps are everything. If it can't run the app you want, then forget it.

But that's a specific subgroup who are well established and have a specific need. The average consumer does not go to the store and say "will it run medical application X?", "what's it like for doing my spreadsheets on?" They go into the store and say "That's a cool looking phone", "I like the eyecandy". The financial numbers I've seen analysts talk about saying that Palm need to sell about two million nova phones (@ $200 a phone) in the first year to meet their targets. That can only be achieved by producing a must-have phone that appeal to the masses, if it's appeal is only to existing groups it's dead.

And to be honest - Palm's attitude if it's choice between the niche groups and the mainstream is to say "forget it" to you. Of course this could be a wonderful phone that appeals to all - but the best sellers don't appear to be the sort of "tinker" phones that Palm people like.

[miles4000]

You guys are crazy thinking that Nova is going to help jumpstart old POS appls.

[west3man]

I used to be an app junkie as well but the conclusion I've come to is this - apps mean nothing. Amazing apps will keep a certain level of customers tied to a phone and an OS at a later stage in the cycle but they mean less than nothing at point of sale.The Nova OS has to be a winning proposition out of the box, otherwise it's dead. The value proposition cannot be "jam tomorrow", it has to provide *something* in the OS that demonstrates it's worth a go from a 2 minute play in a shop.

Even then I don't think that the mainstream will ever care about apps in the same way that people like us do.

I agree and disagree.

The OS needs to be a hit - a complete, well-though out, deliberate product - on its own, right out-of-the-box.

But apps mean something, too, just like they do on pc's. If the question is whether the mainstream users will ever consider their smartERphones the way they do their pc's... I'm not quite prepared to say, "no, never!" but I'm very comfortable with a solid "maybe."

So, maybe.

[west3man]

You guys are crazy thinking that Nova is going to help jumpstart old POS appls.

Are we crazy for thinking that or are you crazy for thinking we did?


Or am I crazy for missing the post(s) where anyone came anywhere near saying that? Oh, I am? Ok. My bad.

[Caduceus]

I disagree CGK. Speaking for medical users, the apps are everything. If it can't run the app you want, then forget it.

I second that. Med apps are one of the main reasons I haven't jumped ship already...

[Caduceus]

But that's a specific subgroup who are well established and have a specific need. The average consumer does not go to the store and say "will it run medical application X?", "what's it like for doing my spreadsheets on?" They go into the store and say "That's a cool looking phone", "I like the eyecandy". The financial numbers I've seen analysts talk about saying that Palm need to sell about two million nova phones (@ $200 a phone) in the first year to meet their targets. That can only be achieved by producing a must-have phone that appeal to the masses, if it's appeal is only to existing groups it's dead.

And to be honest - Palm's attitude if it's choice between the niche groups and the mainstream is to say "forget it" to you. Of course this could be a wonderful phone that appeals to all - but the best sellers don't appear to be the sort of "tinker" phones that Palm people like.

Unfortunately, I agree with you...

[cgk]

I agree and disagree.

The OS needs to be a hit - a complete, well-though out, deliberate product - on its own, right out-of-the-box.

But apps mean something, too, just like they do on pc's. If the question is whether the mainstream users will ever consider their smartERphones the way they do their pc's... I'm not quite prepared to say, "no, never!" but I'm very comfortable with a solid "maybe."

So, maybe.

Looking at the iphone experience (and to an extent google), if you want people to buy apps in significant numbers, you have to provide an proper app store, if Nova has a well thought out marketplace, things could get interesting (well as well as the OS isn't trash + the price point is right + the carriers pick it up + it ships on time + the economy doesn't crash further etc etc :-) )

[cgk]

Unfortunately, I agree with you...

I'm a functional user - all of my apps and my usage of my phone revolves around PIM and access to information (with a little bit of media) *but* most of my day to day work is with mobile workforces and it's a real eye-opener people will literally put up with any piece of crap if it works out of the box and looks nice - and most phone companies know this and this is why most phone OSes (especially the junk ones) are so locked down and so dire.

I think us functional users (and most people who have stuck with palm can be thought of like that) are a bit religious in that we think that if we explain enough how functional our devices are people will get it, but the thing is, people don't want to get it, they don't care - they want shiny things.

[west3man]

I'm a functional user - all of my apps and my usage of my phone revolves around PIM and access to information (with a little bit of media) *but* most of my day to day work is with mobile workforces and it's a real eye-opener people will literally put up with any piece of crap if it works out of the box and looks nice - and most phone companies know this and this is why most phone OSes (especially the junk ones) are so locked down and so dire.

I think us functional users (and most people who have stuck with palm can be thought of like that) are a bit religious in that we think that if we explain enough how functional our devices are people will get it, but the thing is, people don't want to get it, they don't care - they want shiny things.

Indeed. Sadly.

[StickyGreen]

Here's hoping the new OS natively solves the problems that have plagued Garnet for so long. Namely, memory cleanup, proper Java support, native bluetooth dialing, mp3 ringers and alerts.

[cgk]

Here's hoping the new OS natively solves the problems that have plagued Garnet for so long. Namely, memory cleanup, proper Java support, native bluetooth dialing, mp3 ringers and alerts.

Sorry but why would they fix any of that ? I can see the point of emulation but why would Palm waste any cash on fixing problems?

[west3man]

Sorry but why would they fix any of that ? I can see the point of emulation but why would Palm waste any cash on fixing problems?

Please stop scaring me.

[cgk]

Please stop scaring me.

Sorry - I'm a bit of a downer I know - I think people are reading a bit much into the idea of BC - I can see palm apps running in an emulator but it seems a bit of stretch to have apps designed to run elements of the hardware in POS such as the phone running the phone on Nova because that would surely place design constraits on how Nova would have to be written ?

[west3man]

Sorry - I'm a bit of a downer I know - I think people are reading a bit much into the idea of BC - I can see palm apps running in an emulator but it seems a bit of stretch to have apps designed to run elements of the hardware in POS such as the phone running the phone on Nova because that would surely place design constraits on how Nova would have to be written ?

Quite possibly, but my expectations are built on the interviews and whatnot I've ready from Palm representatives about their next generation operating system (stuff from way back). Obviously, I, we, they could be wrong, but I felt confident that they felt they could do it, since they had the guts to put it out there like that.

Don't get me wrong. I'd hope for b.c. either way, but I'm especially hopeful given what's been reported over the months/years. If it really came down to it (barring all these months of bc anticipation) I could probably live with no or very limited bc, but it'd be a mighty bitter pill to swallow... and I probably would take even longer to jump ship than if I knew I could bring my baggage along, with me.


We had similar discussions regarding the Foleo, back in the day (although I admit it's not really the same thing). I did not want to have to buy another suite of applications for the Foleo after already having purchased Palm OS counterparts for the Treo. And, of course, certain elements need to just be built into the OS from the get-go.

That's what I'm ultimately hoping for, though - built-in support for so many of the functions we had to get from 3rd party developers waybackwhen. Here's hoping they do it right instead of bass-ackwards.

Anybody else remember paying for DUN software for the Treo 650, then, after a year or two, Palm/Sprint released an update that gave the 650 built-in DUN support? Y'know, AFTER the replacement models had already come out and AFTER most folks had found other ways to meet their tethering/DUN needs.

[pump142]

I too have a large Palm OS library and a now growing WM library.

Funny thing is though...most of the apps are to correct short comings in the devices.

the rest are pretty available cross platform under 1 name or another.

[west3man]

I too have a large Palm OS library and a now growing WM library.

Funny thing is though...most of the apps are to correct short comings in the devices.

the rest are pretty available cross platform under 1 name or another.

See, that's the kind of thing that would make the bitter pill of no backwards compatibility much, much easier to swallow. I love my Treo's, but I truly think they should've been more complete WITHOUT 3rd party intervention.

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Do you guys think Nova will be more compatible with Linux or Windows?

I think I like the rumored design (save the vertically sliding keyboard unless the screen rotates) but I would have expected something more along the lines of the N97.
http://www.silicon.com/i/s4/illo/pho...7_group_05.jpg

Nova is a version of Linux as I understand it, 99.99% sure on this one.

Backwards compatability - I'm too lazy to go look for this, but Ed C stated POS apps would run on the new platform - back about 2 years ago when they announced the new OS development. Also, since WinMo has an emulator, I think they'd be crazy not to do it. Emulators always have overhead, but here Palm's delays actually help them, since the processors are significantly faster than when the last version of Garnet came out, and of course memory continues to grow.

In most scenarios, apps are EVERYTHING, but I have to admit Apple and Google have gotten away with some pretty big misses with their out of the gate versions, primarily no corp email sync. Chalk it up to marketing excitement in a mobile market that had gotten really boring all the way around. Also, the PRIMARY app FUNCTIONS - maybe not the exact apps, pretty much exist on all platforms; it's really an issue of if you're willing to port you data. If Palm made this part alone easy (historically not so good for SIM data, other stuff), I'd just get used to the new corresponding apps, as long as the function I needed was there.
I'll probably even be willing to do it manually. I'm a former unix admin and Wintel laptop user, between this and lots of alzheimer's on my wife's family, I embrace learning the new stuff. It just seems to get too painful to stay too long on any one heritage platform as apps and support age...
Looking forward to Thursday, hoping - but not holding my breath, for early AT&T GMS model.
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