Palm-branded Smartphones Could Return This Year (techcrunch.com) 42
Palm's smartphone return appears to still be on track for 2018. From a report: Last year, an executive at TCL confirmed that the dearly departed mobile brand would be making a comeback as part of the smartphone conglomerate's portfolio, and with a little under five months left in the year, the 'PVG100' has hit the FCC and WiFi alliance. The handset was spotted by Android Police, but we don't really have much more to go on than a name and a couple of WiFi bands. As the site notes, however, the absence of 5GHz support leads one to surmise that this won't exactly be a barn-burning flagship. The handset also looks to be running Android 8.1 -- not really a surprise, given that Android Pie is still limited to Pixel and a smattering of other devices.
All I want (Score:2)
Is a Zaurus phone.
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Or a Philco [wikimedia.org] phone.
You could design it around miniature vacuum tubes [google.com] and market it to audiophiles.
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Will cell phone towers feature sockets for 4/0 cable so I can plug in my audiophile phone and get the best possible call quality?
Yes, exactly... (Score:2)
I was just going to post the same thing - why on earth should I care about something that has the Palm name, and not anything related to PalmOS? It's not like Palm hardware was ever perfect (though the Palm V was pretty good).
I'm not sure who they are targeting with this phone.
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Next up, an Amiga-branded Windows 10 PC!
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WebOS is gone.
It has been out of commission for about a decade now. It will take a lot of R&D to bring it back to modern standards.
The mobile war is done. The OS winners are Android and iOS.
So an other Android Phone? (Score:5, Insightful)
The PalmOS and WebOS were the leading mobile OS's many of its aspects are still in Android and iOS today.
The problem with WebOS wasn't WebOS but the fighting with Apple with its hacked iTunes support, back in the days where the iPod was still king, and iTunes was the best place to get music. Palm hired a bunch of Ex Apple Engineers to hack their phones to look like an iPod so it can sync with iTunes. Causing Apple to block the hack for Palm to make a new one.
What this did with Customers is giving them a feature that didn't work consistently. And failed to differentiate WebOS from just an iPhone wannabe.
What made Android so popular is that it didn't try to be an iPhone but not by Apple, but a different type of device. And a different experience. Sure they may trade some features with Apple and Android but they are very different systems.
WebOS was poorly marketed as an iPhone with Beta features that havn't been fully thought out.
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WebOS was the BeOS of the mobile world.
Ahead of its time in many features, but just lacked the polish and poor timing of its release to gain a foot hold.
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What made Android so popular is that it didn't try to be an iPhone but not by Apple, but a different type of device.
Never used a TouchWiz device.
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Lets hope the place you work doesn't decommission that mainframe you are working on.
There is a case of not liking such devices, but never having used them when they have been out for nearly a decade, is just avoiding new technology without giving it a try.
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What the hell are you talking about? I was disputing your claim by saying you've apparently never used a TouchWiz device since TouchWiz's entire existence seems to be Samsung's attempt at a poor clone of an iPhone.
Re: So an other Android Phone? (Score:2)
Indeed there were a few different options Palm could have taken. They could have written their own program with their own cataloging system. They could have read the iTunes db as I think it was/is an XML file without any encryption. Instead they tried to trick iTunes in thinking that their device was an iPod.
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The most embarrassing thing about that whole debacle was that Apple provide an API for accessing the iTunes library [apple.com] which Palm could have used without bei
From the how not exciting department (Score:3)
The Palm To Do list was the best ever (Score:3)
Their 'task manager' to do list was fantastic. I wish there was something as simple and powerful. You could make unordered lists so easily and sort them by priority. It was wonderful.
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Their 'task manager' to do list was fantastic. I wish there was something as simple and powerful. You could make unordered lists so easily and sort them by priority. It was wonderful.
Yes, along with Graffiti that was actually useful for entering information. I had an expense manager that was pretty impressive - drop down lists for entry as well as free form, export as a CSV and upload that into my company's accounting software. Made it real easy to submit expense reports as well as keep a copy electronically. I now do that in iOS but Palm had it 20 years ago.
Zombie brands (Score:1)
Nobody wants to buy shit from these zombie brands. Attempting to trade on nostalgia for a previous time and product isn't a good business model generally. Every few years you see the same thing with the Atari and Commodore brands. All of the products end up either being vapor ware or just garbage.
Color me unimpressed.
As a Palm phone owner...who cares, that's done. (Score:2)
I had a Pre+ back in the day. Pretty good phone (except for that darn repeating "e" key and GPS that never worked).
But who cares. Palm and WebOs are gone, done, finito. Several OS' now have many of the cool features that webos invented (although I miss their implementation of consolidated email/contacts).
While my HP printer uses webos - I don't get a sense of nostalgia when I select "double-sided color" or "scan to cloud."
Lots of questions....Will they actually invent something, new Android features?
That's how it is (Score:4, Insightful)
TCL has burned a number of own smartphone brands, and threw them out.
TCL has burned the Alcatel brand, and threw it out.
Now they will do the same with Palm
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Maybe it was better in the USA but, when I was working for a European telco back in 2002, Alcatel already had a reputation for producing low cost POS phones.
I really cannot see how TCL could have found any reputation left to burn.
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And they took over the famous Chinese theatre in Hollywood, CA, USA. :P
Actually looks nice (Score:2)
Besides the fact that this is just another Android phone (that doesn't even run a clean version of the OS), I think that it looks pretty nice. Just the design seems to set it apart, somehow. I won't necessarily buy it (I crowdfunded the Purism phone) but I still think it's good to have a phone that is somehow "different" from the pack.
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That keyboard though.