Right! Imagine the overhead at Tealpoint to overhaul 20 applications (plus) - just to deal with a display! Ran into a store manager I deal with 2 days ago . . . she was sporting the new Treo she'd had about 2 hours. I told her I could burn her the "CD from hell" with some great freewares to help her - and asked if it was "Palm" or "Windows." I wasn't sure if the Windows platform had "hit" yet.
She had no idea. By the launcher I could tell it was Palm. I told her "you know, you might have the last one." She almost dismissed it as "whatever," and went back to taking pictures of a countertop. This is the "masses." There are precious few of us around, and WE care - but most won't. They'll be herded like sheep - and JMckie is absolutely right. It's about the money. The thought of new programs, lean and mean, and that actually make you productive is gone. It had a brief 6-8 year "moment," with "10,000 developers writing Palm software." Now, as I've whined before, it's all about new versions of "Pong" and phone calls while at the mall.
The hell with 'em. TomCatalog, DateDifference, ScreenButton, TealStuff, spreadsheets, mobile database - they all still work. And that's what the TX is affording us - the chance to keep using the programs that make our day easier. Beyond this is unclear, as "huge storage on the LifeDrive" might as well be a USB jump drive. Storage is boring. Apps are what speed up and organize your life. If the commercial developers don't see the potential and the freeware "Gods" aren't excited - it's going to regress to Excel and Word. That's it. That's all you get. And we had those in the 80's.
That's what I mean by "Progress of late isn't." All the fun's going out of it, and 2 years of "OS6 will allow you to multitask" is pure vaporware, it turns out. But now you can't use "NoDotHack" and "Afterburner" and "TealMembrain." You get a slow LifeDrive "dumb storage terminal" or a down-clocked T3. I'm grateful at least that the APPS will work - because as Bill Gates said (at least in a movie): "Without software the PC is a box that lights up." Too bad that's resulted in the lights dimming at Palm.
When I got my 505 the first thing I said was "Man, I wish Palm would make a desktop!" That may be the next "course" for them - Fujitsu Lifebooks on steroids. That indeed would be cool - but away goes the "laptop on the belt" angle. Palm is now no longer a "laptop killer." It's a laptop promoter - because all things considered, you might as well have the 45 second "boot-up" nonsense but have a real machine with real screen and real WiFi and real applications. The idea of handheld efficiency is now, sadly, back-stepping. No reason to panic - but any extra $$ in your pocket might be well spent "guessing" which Palm handheld is the "last of the breed," and acting according to what YOUR needs are. If a used Vx will get it done for you - then REVOLT and use what's best, not what's "shiny." The "shiny" will probably end up being a polished turd that doesn't do half of what your older unit did. Converge that.
