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PalmOS PalmOS is the palmtop operating system created by Palm Inc. (a spin-off of 3com). Palm Inc. uses PalmOS in its line of palmtops. Palm Inc. also licenses PalmOS to Handspring, Sony, and soon others. Currently PalmOS has more than 80% of the palmtop market. The top 10 best selling palmtops are all PalmOS-based. Palm Inc.'s philosophy is to keep things simple. Except for learning handwriting, they are very intuitive - you can pick one up in a store and start using it. PalmOS models tend to be <$500 (some as low as $150), with 2M-8M RAM. Most of them have monochrome displays. PalmOS palmtops run various versions of PalmOS 3.x - the differences are insignificant. PalmOSes only having 2M or 8M of RAM sounds like a limitation after seeing bloatware fill up your desktop's hard disk, or PocketPCs with 32M, but PalmOS was kept simple so it is not a problem. For example: an employee has more than 400 contacts, 400 appointments (some past and not archived yet), 300 to-dos, and 120 memos, yet is using less than 10% of his PalmOS's 2M RAM. PalmOS palmtops use an application called Graffiti for handwriting recognition. Unlike Apple's Newton, which tried to interpret anyone's cursive writing, Graffiti achieves high accuracy by limiting itself to printed characters, and stylized upper-case characters at that. For instance, the letter "a" is made by drawing a capital "A" without the crossbar. All Graffiti characters are completed in one stroke. The modified printing is easy to master (except for little-used special characters like "%"), though you might start printing on paper in Graffiti. A table of Graffiti characters used to be on the Internet (looking...) and on some PalmOS applications' Edit | Graffiti Help. About.com has a list of alternatives to Graffiti. On PalmOS palmtops, you touch the screen anywhere to click "buttons", etc., but all handwriting is done in a lower portion of the screen devoted to writing letters (on the left) and numbers (on the right). There is a pop-up keyboard and numeric pad, used in difficult cases like little-used punctuation. Palm Inc. has produced about a dozen models, though many have been replaced by newer designs. There's a table at Palm Inc.'s web site comparing all the current models, including prices. The oldest ones are the Pilot 1000, Pilot 5000, and Pilot Professional (hence the "Pilot" nickname for Palms). The main drawback of these models is that the screen is hard to read because of reflections, dim screens, and low contrast. Models more recently discontinued, or expected to be discontinued soon, are the IIIe, V, and VII; they are fine. The m100 is currently Palm's cheapest model at $150, replacing the IIIe. It has all the basic features of other Palms, but it is smaller, has a smaller screen, and has no expansion capabilities. It comes with 2M of RAM, a decent flip lid, and a serial cable with a sync button on one end (more portable than a cradle). It has a plastic, not glass, screen cover, so it might survive a drop better than other palmtops. There are 3 units in Palm's III line. The IIIe, already mentioned, does not come with PocketMirror synchronization software (see below), and its OS cannot be upgraded. The IIIxe is a IIIe with more memory (8M) and a copy of PocketMirror. The IIIc is a color IIIxe with a rechargeable battery. The V was replaced with the Vx (more memory). It is the physically smallest (in all dimensions) of PalmOS devices, with metal bodies. It is cute, more expensive, and aimed at executives. The Palm V/Vx screen is smaller than III screens, but not as small as the m100's. The Palm VII and VIIx (more memory) have built-in wireless capabilities. This appears to use a separate wireless network - it is not based on pager or cell phone infrastructure. Handspring was the first PalmOS-clone maker, and is still the biggest. Their units have opaque colored cases, ala iMac. Their claims to fame are an internal "Springboard" expansion slot, minor improvements to some of the applications (like a world clock), a USB cradle (faster syncs), and being Mac-ready (sort of). The lid, however, is a separate part (it attaches to the back of the unit when you're using it), which is one more thing to fumble or lose. They have 5 models. The Visor Solo is a Visor without a cradle. The Visor is similar to Palm Inc.'s m100 (this table compares them). The Visor Deluxe is a Visor with more memory. The Visor Platinum has a faster processor. The Prism has a color screen and a rechargeable battery. Sony just came out with their CLIE, and a color model will soon be available. Motorola is expected to have a PalmOS/cell phone combination in early 2001. Qualcomm already has one, the pdQ smartphone (they just sold it to Kyocera). |
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