Brighthand's First Impressions of Palm OS Cobalt

[Ed Hardy]

I've had an intensive education on the next version of the Palm OS at the PalmSource Conference and I'm ready to share my first impressions.

Read more at http://www.brighthand.com/article/Fi...ions_of_Cobalt

[Mike Cane]

No landscape in the core OS. Absolutely stunning.

And these people *dared* to take the final two weeks of 2003 off? Do they think *Microsoft* sleeps?

What about fonts, Ed? Can you drag and drop TrueType? Or must they be converted? How many fonts are in the core OS?

[robrecht]

Thanks, Ed. Especially glad to hear it may not be as slow and buggy as feard.

Surprise about landscape switching--guess that means pa1mOne has the inside track over SONY for my next PDA.

Summer! Can I wait that long?

[dorelse]

I'm most interested in seeing how the multitasking is presented to the user.

How can I switch between the apps running? Is it presented in the bottom status bar? Is it like PPC's WisBar where there are icons for everything running? Or is it like iPaq's iTask? push a button, and then select from a list?

I can see PalmSource's desire for it to be stable first, flashy second, but if it all looks the same...I dunno, I guess I was hoping for revolutionary, not evolutionary...

[crass]

Originally posted by dorelse
I dunno, I guess I was hoping for revolutionary, not evolutionary...

My feelings exactly. The whole story was just a big disappointment. So actually what is new?

Almost unchanged GUI.

Multitasking? It's been years that we have it at PPC's.

Support for higher resolutions? IMHO no lisencee is going to release anything higher than 320x480 unless they are sadistic against the developers who have to write apps for 3 different resolutions already.

Native file support? I guess not. Probably minimal file support as already exists and conversion via this drag and drop "new" feature.

Better Outlook support? Certainly not better than a PPC or a current Palm with Dataviz Beyond Contacts.

I know some may claim that there are important ameliorations under the hood but if I can't see them an an end user I am not actually excited. If this is actually the new OS, then it would have been better if Palm (allright Palmsource) kept it secret and announced it perhaps a year from now when they could actually offer sth significantly different AND better. What they have actually managed IMHO is to hurt perhaps current sales of the 5.x PDAs and dissapoint the PDA community altogether.

I think I'll wait to see what MS has to offer, provided of course they are still genuinely interested in PPCs.

[halcyon]

Here's what I'm wondering:

How long does an upgrade usually take?

The GUI is very important. Maybe not to functionality -- but because it looks cool. If we don't see Cobalt devices on the shelf until summer, that gives them 6 months to come up with a slicker interface. Perhaps this "under the hood" first run allows developers to do their work which isn't really effected much by the GUI.

Also, would this type of upgrade be readily available/downloadable after purchasing a Cobalt 6.0 unit?


I am happy about scaleable fonts -- that's annoyed me for a long time.

[crass]

You have some valid points but the question still remains: What else is new? For instance Mike Cane mentioned TT fonts. That's important. And most important to many non-English users is whether they have finally supported unicode. You simply can't understand how problematic Palms are even with 3rd party language extender apps.

My Palm V is very old, my Palm IIIc has a broken infrared and my lousy 3630 barely manages to fill my needs. I sold my 3870 in order to buy sth better and I was expecting Palm would deliver it. i love PDAs and I love change but I guess for my needs PPC is still the way to go.

[Ed Hardy]

Originally posted by Mike Cane
What about fonts, Ed? Can you drag and drop TrueType? Or must they be converted? How many fonts are in the core OS?

It supports TrueType fonts. I haven't seen the method for installing them but it is described as "easy". That's pretty vague, I know.

[Mike Cane]

I hope by TrueType they mean systemwide. No more having to deal with, say, converting TT fonts into FineType for something like WordSmith.

And, please dear God!, no more having to shell out extra bucks for fonts for Palm Reader Pro!

One more thing about these fonts -- they *did* say they could be anti-aliased?

All in all, the OS6 news has been very underwhelming and very disappointing.

The TH55 looks better to me every day.

[altema]

Originally posted by crass
I know some may claim that there are important ameliorations under the hood but if I can't see them an an end user I am not actually excited. If this is actually the new OS, then it would have been better if Palm (allright Palmsource) kept it secret and announced it perhaps a year from now when they could actually offer sth significantly different AND better. What they have actually managed IMHO is to hurt perhaps current sales of the 5.x PDAs and dissapoint the PDA community altogether.

I think I'll wait to see what MS has to offer, provided of course they are still genuinely interested in PPCs.

You make some good points, but it's also good to get the core OS into the hands of the developers ASAP. Multitasking has not been a big deal for me, as the primary purpose of multitasking is to let the user do something else while waiting for another task to complete... kind of a moot point when 99% of everything is instant anyways
Web page downloading is where I could use THAT feature though.

Native support? That belongs on the application layer, and not in the core OS. Both PalmSource and MS understand this. Besides, currently the best solution for this already ships on several palmOne devices.

Regarding better OutLook support, they are referring to the new default PIM when compared to the current version. As far as the scoop in the new OS hurting current devices, think about the alternatives: They release info about Cobalt with a drop-dead gorgeous, mind blowing UI... and all sales of OS5 devices take a dive.

It would be wiser to get the new OS out there as mentioned before, so the developers can get busy, and save the icing on the cake for later. That way we don't spoil our appetite for what's on our plate now

Just as a side note, rumor has it that MS is shifting away from PPC, and focusing on SmartPhones and Tablets instead.