Innovative enabling technology; demands 3rd party upgrades
Written: Jun 20 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: simple, expandable, widely accepted
Cons: overly simple, users need to upgrade with 3rd party applications
|
|
|
| kfgecko's Full Review: Palm Computing Platform |
Palm OS gets the fundamentals right but is thoroughly lacking in its interface and applications. But I prefer Palm OS over WinCE because WinCE doesn't even get the fundamentals right.
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely adore my Palm Pilot (IIIx). I carry it almost everywhere, interact with it daily, and almost went into withdraws when it was "in the shop" for a few days. The Palm is so incredibly useful, that I can't live without it now. This usefulness is MADE POSSIBLE by the fundamentals that the Palm OS fulfills. However, it is the 3rd party applications which actually ACCOMPLISHES the usefulness.
The requirements I consider fundamental to a PDA device is an expandable OS that is simple enough that it runs very quickly on the portable device and not suck up too much battery life, is reliable, and is easy to interact with. Palm OS meets these fundamentals, but doesn't necessarily excel at all of them.
The OS has proven to be expandable enough; hundreds of 3rd party applications exist and have turned the Palm beyond just an "organizer" into a mini-portable computer, which is really the power of a PDA. The original system is clean and works, but can get tedious as the experienced user starts to want to do several of these "easy, intuitive" operations as a single, quick "advanced" function. And that's where the Palm devices scream for 3rd party applications. I can't imagine any real user of a Palm device that hasn't found the need to upgrade the applications.
The system syncronizes data very nicely, provided they are related to the original five applications: date, phone, to do, memo, and expense. Once the user has data that goes beyond that, you'll need another 3rd party application (like BackupBuddy) to syncronize ALL your data to your PC.
The basic applications built into the device (datebook, phone, todo, memo, and expense) give you the raw ability to perform those functions. For what they do, they do well. Problem is, they are all completely lacking in the complexity of functions that an educated user will need. I quickly found the need to upgrade every singe one of these functions (except expense, which I don't use at all) with 3rd party applications, each costing $8-$20 each. Maybe this is why the founder of Handspring (one of the original designers of Palm) decided to INCLUDE Datebk3 as the default datebook.
To make things simple, Palm decided that there would be no traditional file system. Thus, you cannot easily "just copy a data file" and move it around. While this does simplify things, as one becomes a power user it becomes apparent that this is more of a limitation as sometimes I would like to be able to backup specific files if necessary.
Very early on I found even the desktop to be lacking and quickly upgraded to Lauch'Em 3, which then slowed down the response time of the OS desktop (but barely within acceptable ranges). With the original GUI, there is a lot of pecking and poking to access information about your palm (like: What applications are in this category? What time is it? What's the date? I need to beam this application. How big is this application? How much memory do I have left? I need to go to the last application I was using again.) A desktop upgrade is a necessity.
Despite all this, I still love my Palm Pilot. Even though I had to spend all the extra money to upgrade the unit, it was the Palm OS that made it possible to even get to use the applications in the first place. So, although lacking on application design, Palm did create a wonderful *enabling technology* through the Palm OS.
And that's why it's good. But it just isn't finished growing up.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
kfgecko
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Location: San Jose, California
Reviews written: 166
Trusted by: 10 members
About Me:
30-something male, born/raised in Northern-California.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.