Palm Kills the Foleo

I guess a lot of people won't be surprised by this, especially after all the comments about how limited it would be compared to a laptop in the same price range. If only they had put the effort into a 320x480 smartphone/PDA-phone with WiFi instead...
 
The Treo should have been modified before now to have the screen size of an iPhone, a collapseable Graffiti area, wifi and all of the business applications that you can't get on the iPhone. Then Palm would have a killer device ala the Treo 650 platform.

Palm will have to do some magic because once Apple starts going after the business segment with Exchange Server builtin to their device and some more robust business apps - Palm is going to be playing catch up.

The rumored Gandolf/Centro platform floating around - isn't it. It looks like it's the Zire of Treo's and well with the annoucement of the new iPods and the price lowering of the iPhone 8GB to $399 - lets see do I want a brick of a phone with 64MB of memory that doesn't play vids without some additional software and doesn't have wifi and can't..........

The birth of the Foleo should never have happened. I'm afraid that if Palm doesn't knock some socks off in the next 6 months with a device that can compete against the iPhone that a downward spiral is going to insue and may not be recoverable.
 
So many people post that they would buy a Palm OS smartphone with a 320x480 screen and WiFi and a virtual thumbboard... why Palm even started on the Foleo instead is a mystery. (If Palm makes a GSM Centro that sells for $99 without carrier subsidy/locking, I'd probably buy one just for giggles--but use it primarily as a phone, not as a "converged device.")

I've caught myself eyeing "the dark side" a time or two recently, though my two Zodiacs would have to die first.
 
That part about "catch up" is absolutely correct and frankly understated.

Forgive my ignorance - but what's wrong with a "simple" T4? A Tx with a home icon and faster processor?

Assuming that Apple will dominate the phone/email/pic viewer market in the next 12 months, despite the broo-ha-ha over the sudden price drop - so what? There are still some of us (ME) that wants simple palm based business apps. There should be plenty of room for Palm to continue to offer, basically, the "same thing," with a few tweaks.

Let's just allow Palm the Foleo screw up - "you don't make calls, you don't make sales" - that was just a call no one answered. There's still hope if they stick to what made them big in the first place - multi function, small, computer synch organizer with versaitle and inumerable application options from around the world. Everyone I talk to or hear on "TV" hates their iPhone anyway, and apparently AT&T isn't even set up to handle everything it does til next Spring. So Apple's "phone call was answered," but now a lot of people are steamed they paid $600 for something that didn't work that well.

At least Palm didn't take everyone's dough - I'm just sad Tealpoint have all those new Foleo versions of their software for naught. Oh well - I'll keep the faith a little longer, and obviously we'll just have to see, and I'm baby-ing my T3 like it's the last Palm I'll own . . . .
 
The TX is now almost 2 years old - and we haven't seen anything new in the way of a straight handheld.

Although I think there is still is room for such a device - I'm afraid you'll have to baby your T3 for awhile longer. The price drops at Palm on the TX and the remaining handhelds - signal a possible new device but if that's so then it's the best kept secret.

And here's another kicker - add in the latest iPod's from Apple and let see the iTouch with wifi (need I say that Palm hasn't yet produced a Treo with wifi builtin) and they are behind the curve.

Sad - perhaps focusing on their core business and dropping the Foleo will be a good thing in the end and they are still capable of putting the iPhone on its knees but I think we've seen the last handheld for awhile yet.

Remember the LifeDrive? It had potential but not much more. If they would have taken it to a flash memory instead of a hard drive and tweaked the interface via a software update - it could have been the device of choice.

Palm will need to open it's own music store or partner up with a good provider because the world is moving in that direction.
 
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