D Preview: Apple, Microsoft, and Palm

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  • Reply 21 of 48
    porchlandporchland Posts: 478member
    iTunes updated late last night and the content still hasn't rolled this morning, which is a full day and a half behind when it usually rolls.



    Some non-DRM content seems pretty certain, but I think we'll get some spiffy new content to go along with it. Plus, we're inside 48 hours of "40 years ago today" and Paul McCartney has all but confirmed that the deal to bring the Beatles catalog to iTunes is done.
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  • Reply 22 of 48
    mbaynhammbaynham Posts: 534member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post


    God bless Palm. This is no "me too" iPhone competitor.



    For those who aren't aware, Hawkins is probably one of the only people who can match Jobs' talent for product usability and design decisions. And Hawkins has been working on this "third business" for Palm for two years.



    With Palm unveiling a likely strong product and Microsoft being...well...Microsoft, Jobs will be under pressure to announce something, even if it is only a strong hint of things to come.



    Today's gonna be fun!



    yeh, considering '2007 is only the beginning'. or what ever the slogan was... it had better be...
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  • Reply 23 of 48
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,415member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post


    God bless Palm. This is no "me too" iPhone competitor.



    For those who aren't aware, Hawkins is probably one of the only people who can match Jobs' talent for product usability and design decisions. And Hawkins has been working on this "third business" for Palm for two years.



    With Palm unveiling a likely strong product and Microsoft being...well...Microsoft, Jobs will be under pressure to announce something, even if it is only a strong hint of things to come.



    Today's gonna be fun!



    It was Palm's CEO who, in an interview late last November, blew off the iPhone with the somewhat dismissive comment: "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys [sic] are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.'"



    In the following couple of days, Palm's stock price fell by over 10%!
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  • Reply 24 of 48
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpinDrift View Post


    MS make me laugh. Have they no shame at all? Why they try and pass this off as their own I have no idea. Do they really think that 'people' are that blind? Jeff Han must be cringing. Surface even uses 'CoverFlow' as a crucial element of its UI! Smells like the mid 80's all over again!



    Jeff Han's work is not completely original...folks have been playing with FITR a while now.



    MS's use of fiducials isn't new either but a lot further advanced than I had anticipated for a 1.0 product.



    Vinea
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  • Reply 25 of 48
    Well, don't know what to say other than "seen it before". The only differense here is that it is Microsoft software, and it actually looks ok. Not revolutionary or anything.

    And for someone saying "This is much cooler than the iPhone" well let me remind you that the iPhone costs one tenth/one twentieth of that products' price, and it's a mobile, not a fixed stationary computer.

    Apple could match MS's approach in no time if they where to start programming for it now. But if I know Apple, they have looked and researched in this technology, but jsut keep it secret. Hey folks, you know that! Don't you?!

    KR Martin Andreas
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  • Reply 26 of 48
    tbagginstbaggins Posts: 2,306member
    Well hush my mouth, Surface is actually kinda cool. Probably helps that its a very 'un-Microsoft-like' Microsoft product.



    Still, it seems a lot like Apple's MultiTouch in a number of ways. And did not Jobs say that Apple "patented the hell" out of MultiTouch? Surface feels like a preliminary attempt by MS to stake out some touch interface turf while it still can. Does anyone else see an impending legal steel-cage match between Apple and MS on this one?



    Sure, Surface is only on 5-10K $ sit-down 'kiosks' (which haven't even been released yet), but certainly MS would want to eventually bring it to PCs and then portable devices (Zunes, ZunePhones) in a few years. A legal collision seems likely, unless I'm missing something?



    .
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  • Reply 27 of 48
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    I take that all back. Hawkins is insane.



    Palm just introduced a US$500.00 laptop with a 10" screen that can only check email, surf the web and use MS Office.



    Like I said, it's insane. The MacBook is one price cut away from killing this category altogether.



    I hope Jobs has better news for us today.
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  • Reply 28 of 48
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post


    God bless Palm. This is no "me too" iPhone competitor.



    For those who aren't aware, Hawkins is probably one of the only people who can match Jobs' talent for product usability and design decisions. And Hawkins has been working on this "third business" for Palm for two years.



    With Palm unveiling a likely strong product and Microsoft being...well...Microsoft, Jobs will be under pressure to announce something, even if it is only a strong hint of things to come.



    Today's gonna be fun!



    Meh. I just reviewed Palm's Folêo 'computer'... boy, it's pretty weak. It mainly addresses the inherent weakness of their niche, which is, that their normal screens and keyboards are too small to be useful!... something that Apple has addressed in the iPhone!
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  • Reply 29 of 48
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Bingo. The Foléo is a way to add a 10" screen and keyboard to a smart phone. Um... no?
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  • Reply 30 of 48
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,694member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post


    I take that all back. Hawkins is insane.



    Palm just introduced a US$500.00 laptop with a 10" screen that can only check email, surf the web and use MS Office.



    Like I said, it's insane. The MacBook is one price cut away from killing this category altogether.



    I hope Jobs has better news for us today.



    The $499 is just the intro price, it might get higher.



    It really doesn't seem to do much. Not much info on the site yet.



    If that's all it does, I can't see carrying it around with me. I wear my Treo 700p on my belt, inside a leather case. My hands are free when I'm not using it.



    That would have to be a mighty big case to hold this!



    I'm disappointed. I was hoping for more.
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  • Reply 31 of 48
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    The $499 is just the intro price, it might get higher.



    It really doesn't seem to do much. Not much info on the site yet.



    If that's all it does, I can't see carrying it around with me. I wear my Treo 700p on my belt, inside a leather case. My hands are free when I'm not using it.



    That would have to be a mighty big case to hold this!



    I'm disappointed. I was hoping for more.



    I'm more surprised Wall Street hasn't slaughtered their stock today... at this moment it's climbed just over 1%... what kind of clowns don't really understand what Hawkins introduced today?
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  • Reply 32 of 48
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Wall Street... clowns....



    Sorry, what was the question again?
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  • Reply 33 of 48
    aegisdesignaegisdesign Posts: 2,914member
    The Foleo is exactly what Psion did seven years ago with their NetBook/Series 7 and almost bankrupted the company, except it's even more limited than the NetBook and it's bigger and heavier!



    http://www.psionplace.com/hardware/P...sion-spec.html





    They have their place, particularly if you're a jobbing journo who's been through Tandy 100s, Z88s, Series 5/7s in the past but it's hardly the big market Hawkins seems to think it is. It looks a bit limited and a little big to me.



    Still, if Apple did one, I'd be all over it.
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  • Reply 34 of 48
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,694member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    The Foleo is exactly what Psion did seven years ago with their NetBook/Series 7 and almost bankrupted the company, except it's even more limited than the NetBook and it's bigger and heavier!



    http://www.psionplace.com/hardware/P...sion-spec.html





    They have their place, particularly if you're a jobbing journo who's been through Tandy 100s, Z88s, Series 5/7s in the past but it's hardly the big market Hawkins seems to think it is. It looks a bit limited and a little big to me.



    Still, if Apple did one, I'd be all over it.



    Hopefully, if Apple did it, it would than a repository for easier to read and write e-mails that STILL needs the phone to receive and send, so far as I can tell.
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  • Reply 35 of 48
    aegisdesignaegisdesign Posts: 2,914member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Hopefully, if Apple did it, it would than a repository for easier to read and write e-mails that STILL needs the phone to receive and send, so far as I can tell.



    It's got wifi apparently too so why you'd need to sync mail with your phone is a little odd. Perhaps they've just not worked out all the details yet for direct pop/imap access?



    Not syncing with Symbian is a killer though - two thirds of the world's smartphones use Symbian and they've not given the Folio a Symbian sync conduit. Suicide.



    I think the whole syncing mail with your phone thing is plain stupid though and just shows how out of touch Palm is. Nobody has synced mail since the days of the Palm III.
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  • Reply 36 of 48
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,694member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    It's got wifi apparently too so why you'd need to sync mail with your phone is a little odd. Perhaps they've just not worked out all the details yet for direct pop/imap access?



    Not syncing with Symbian is a killer though - two thirds of the world's smartphones use Symbian and they've not given the Folio a Symbian sync conduit. Suicide.



    I think the whole syncing mail with your phone thing is plain stupid though and just shows how out of touch Palm is. Nobody has synced mail since the days of the Palm III.



    I couldn't find out exactly what it is that they plan for the WiFi .



    If they took MS's route, the WiFi won't do much.



    I couldn't find out if it had a receiver and software that can actually go to the internet.



    You would think that Palm would know enough about this to make it work.



    Possibly, like Jobs, with the iPhone, they haven't yet announced all of the features because they aren't all ready?



    After all, it will be released in the summer. They have some time yet.
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  • Reply 37 of 48
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    I don't really understand the Folio. If I have a laptop I don't need another laptop like device to use my phone. Especially if the phone can sync to my current laptop.
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  • Reply 38 of 48
    aegisdesignaegisdesign Posts: 2,914member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TenoBell View Post


    I don't really understand the Folio. If I have a laptop I don't need another laptop like device to use my phone. Especially if the phone can sync to my current laptop.



    The Folio is for when having a really small laptop is important, especially one with 2 days of battery. For instance, I could make a case for one as a cycling journalist as I need something small and light that doesn't have to be plugged in and is going to stand up to some abuse on a bike tour. I imagine many other field journos could too out in the wilds without a plug socket.



    Back in the 90s it would make a whole lot of sense for many more journalists but today when laptops are smaller, cheaper and phones are more powerful and you can add a bluetooth keyboard it makes very little sense. The Psion Series 7 / Netbook I mentioned earlier was much loved by some journalists back in 2000 for it's size and pretty good keyboard but of course everybody else was buying PDAs with touch screen styluses and no keyboards so Psion canned it. It's somewhat ironic that Palm thinks a larger, heavier Netbook clone is going to save it's bacon.
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  • Reply 39 of 48
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,694member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aegisdesign View Post


    The Folio is for when having a really small laptop is important, especially one with 2 days of battery. For instance, I could make a case for one as a cycling journalist as I need something small and light that doesn't have to be plugged in and is going to stand up to some abuse on a bike tour. I imagine many other field journos could too out in the wilds without a plug socket.



    Back in the 90s it would make a whole lot of sense for many more journalists but today when laptops are smaller, cheaper and phones are more powerful and you can add a bluetooth keyboard it makes very little sense. The Psion Series 7 / Netbook I mentioned earlier was much loved by some journalists back in 2000 for it's size and pretty good keyboard but of course everybody else was buying PDAs with touch screen styluses and no keyboards so Psion canned it. It's somewhat ironic that Palm thinks a larger, heavier Netbook clone is going to save it's bacon.



    Except that I think the site said five hours. Now they seem to have updated the site, that info is gone, as far as I can tell.



    I've been looking for a tech spec page, but so far, no luck.
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  • Reply 40 of 48
    aegisdesignaegisdesign Posts: 2,914member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Except that I think the site said five hours. Now they seem to have updated the site, that info is gone, as far as I can tell.



    I've been looking for a tech spec page, but so far, no luck.



    I was sure I read / heard 2 days in an Engadget news piece but now they are saying 5 hours too. There goes another reason to have a Foleo. They've really got this thing wrong.
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