Palm going Nova next month

Palm will demonstrate their new operating system at the Consumer Electronics Show on the eighth of January, betting the future of the company on a new platform that's going to have to change the world if the company is going to have a significant future. Nova - the new Linux-based OS developed by Palm and offering backwards …

[Joel Mansford]

Have IT companies learnt nothing?

....from the OS wars (OS/2 Warp anyone?) of the 90s?

I'm quite happy with Windows Mobile as an OS, it's the hardware that still isn't quite there for me. I use an Orange E650 running WM6.1, if it had a touch screen and a higher-resolution screen I'd be completely happy with it.

Then rather than re-inventing the wheel why don't these companies put more effort in to the applications that people _ACTUALLY_USE_ ? This is where Apple are doing well, not necessarily on the OS but the UI in general.

[Jerry Masterson]

Applications not important?

"end users are still not selecting phones - or any other consumer electronics - on the basis of what applications they run."

The only reason I ditched a two month old Treo for an iPhone was because of the apps. Same with using Treos for the last three years. Once your calls are completed and your email checked, the question is what else can it do for me? This is why Apple has bitch slapped Blackberry. "Oooh, I can update Facebook from my Curve" Who really cares about an app dedicated to a site for no life wankers? If it doesn't have usable apps I'd rather have an old RAZR.

I wish Palm the best of luck with their new OS. If it came out a year ago I would have been interested.

[D Leachman]

The apps are important for me

I originally bought a Palm many years ago to host a database to manage my CDs and DVDs, and I still use it for that, as well as managing my shopping list and other check-list type requirements (Christmas cards at the moment, packing when I go on holiday), and storing and viewing photographs. I use it as an ebook reader, and it is configured automatically to download magazines and newspapers from the internet at appropriate intervals and is very much easier to read than a newspaper on a crowded Tube train, or in a cinema during the endless advertisements. It runs Tomtom navigator and is a very good music player, with most of its 4Gb SD card storing music, It also stores, encrypted, all my password and logon ID data, and replicates it to the desktop for the day my Palm is stolen or broken. It is backed up every day and I could restore all my set-up to a new TX from my desktop backup in 30 minutes if I needed to.

I have resisted Palm phones because they have a smaller display than the TX and I find the keyboard very unappealing, being comfortable using Grafitti.or MessageEase. I have been very disappointed by the collapse in activity on the Palm front, and have occasionally looked at which smartphones may host all the functionality I now have in the Palm, and may migrate one day, if I find one that looks suitable (I am very anti-M$, so don't think I would easily adopt a Windows platform, as I suffer enough from Windows in the office). My ideal device would be a Palm TX with phone functionality added. There is a tremendous wealth of apps that have been developed for the Palm and I wish them well.