Finding a Foleo

[authorandrew]

Do these things even exist to buy, anywhere? Is it even possible to buy them? Not that I'm interested in doing so...just curious. A quick eBay reveals one for sale at 800 dollars :P

AA

[Mi An]

Do these things even exist to buy, anywhere? Is it even possible to buy them? Not that I'm interested in doing so...just curious. A quick eBay reveals one for sale at 800 dollars :P

AA

I'm actually stunned it's only $800. I remember reading someone's impressions of the device, so at least some were produced, but I wouldn't think there'd be many of them.

[hal]

AFAIR, the Foleo never totally made it to production run. Therefore, all of which may exist are only to be considered prototypes. In an open sales place like eBay, I would even doubt the authenticity of the offering. There was a limited production of finished Foleos, but I don't remember the figure, production intended to be delivered to those personalities in and out the Palm corporation, that with a good level of certainty could influence the opinion about the device. Such as the business-level officers at Palm and at allied or would-be-allied corporations. In several conferences, Jeff Hawkins has been spotted using a Foleo. For, even though it had been long since he had stepped down as Palm's CEO, he had kept a constant but low key presence and influence all across Palm. Say, he kept a lot of folks around. Most of the existing Foleos mustabeen delivered along with a NDA and a safe-return clause, cause they were still prototypes.

The Foleo was initially dubbed a sub-notebook, even though as the digital tech terminology evolved, the very term changed meaning. Had it made it to production run, it would have initially been considered the first netbook ever, while it's actually neither a sub-notebook nor a netbook, it's a mobile companion. It's not a sub-notebook, nor a netbook, cause it doesn't run a full-size desktop OS, like Win7 or something. It's not a tablet-category device, cause it doesn't run a mobile device OS (not to mention it sports a laptop keyboard). It runs a kinda crippled version of Linux only intended to be a "blank OS" in order to mostly run applications and data fed from a smartphone. Like the Celio RedFly, only incomplete

IMO, the very danger of bidding for such an article, is the very chance that you get one It's a very dumb terminal. It can't run many things on itself. It's ideally paired with a Palm smartphone of the era, necessarily a Palm OS model, and on this relies many of its then-enabled capabilities. There are no stable applications for it, even though several developers still list them, such as TealPoint Software and Normsoft, most of them were either announced but unfinished, and others offered in a jumping-the-gun release. The SDK and similar were delivered and I'm sure you can get your paws on them, it'd be pretty much a matter of diving into the net, but I wonder to what extent does your coding stamina really reaches.

In its own time, the Foleo was a very promising concept, and I still think Palm should have pulled it further. Especially cause it was say 3 months ahead of the segment of netbooks. Mobile companions would emerge with force and Palm could have kept the Foleo allowing it to evolve into something yet better than what these prototypes were. Shoot, it didn't happen.

[authorandrew]

It would have been ironic if in addition to inventing the PDA and the smartphone, Palm had invented the netbook too I can only wistfully think what would have happened had the Foleo been running webOS and it had preempted all the other netbooks out there :P

AA

[hal]

It would have been ironic if in addition to inventing the PDA and the smartphone, Palm had invented the netbook too I can only wistfully think what would have happened had the Foleo been running webOS and it had preempted all the other netbooks out there :P

AA

I think you'll never know how RIGHT you are there. Well it invented the PDA, the smartphone, and the mobile companion. What went wrong, and a corporation so innovative went down? Think we got a case study here. Now, I bet you kid, that for the time when the Foleo was already a prototype, the WebOS was already in the works and they would have met in an excellent merge Just imagine, WebOS in a kinda-laptoppie thing, in a smartphone, in tablets...

[authorandrew]

Ah well...what's done is done, eh? Maybe HP has some treats for us :

[Hook]

I think you'll never know how RIGHT you are there. Well it invented the PDA, the smartphone, and the mobile companion. What went wrong, and a corporation so innovative went down? Think we got a case study here. Now, I bet you kid, that for the time when the Foleo was already a prototype, the WebOS was already in the works and they would have met in an excellent merge Just imagine, WebOS in a kinda-laptoppie thing, in a smartphone, in tablets...

Actually, I suspect not. As I recall the sequence, Rubenstein was brought in and I believe he killed (or at least provided the final death knell) to the Foleo and began development of WebOS with former Apple people while the Palm Old guard, who would not last long, mumbled vague allusions to backward compatibility.

[authorandrew]

What I would like to know is just how close Nova was to the beginnings of WebOS. Wait, was Nova what Rubenstein began? Or was that already going on before he was brought in? It would be interesting to know if WebOS actually is modified Nova or if Nova was scrapped in favor of WebOS.

Backwards compatibility with PalmOS would be an awesome for WebOS, but impractical for Palm to include. The classic emulator just doesn't cut it :P

AA

[Hook]

I believe Nova was the early code name for WebOS. It was bandied about in 2008, about the time that the Treo Pro, the first phone designed by Rubenstein's folks I believe, came out.

Actually, from what I gather , Classic was pretty good, until Palm threw it too under the bus.

[authorandrew]

OK, I see. The Treo Pro was the first 'new' phone, yes. The Centro and the 800w were really the last from the 'Old Palm'

AA