February 10, 2008

Apple iPod Touch Games?

There is a job listing on Apple Corporate's website that makes it highly likely we are going to see more handheld games on the iPod, iPhone, and iPod Touch in the coming future. Note the "deep appreciation" for casual games line.

Qualifications:
-Proven track-record in the areas of game design and production.
-6+ years of Game production / Game design experience.
-Possesses a deep appreciation for casual games and demonstrates a strong understanding of genre and marketplace trends.

May 05, 2007

T-Mobile Blackberry 8800 Impressions

I bought a Blackberry 8800 from T-Mobile recently to replace my Treo 600. Over the years, I've gotten sick of the Treo's instability, random crashes, and inability to handle my 1300 contacts. Its gotten to the point where I have to delete contacts and calendar entries on my Treo because it couldn't handle the quantity. I heard that Blackberry can scale to thousands of contacts.

So far my impressions are mixed. It certainly is an upgrade over the Treo 600. The positive attributes are great slim form factor, clear colorful screen, good battery life, and stability. On the negative side, I'm not wild about the trackball vs. the scroll wheel on previous Blackberries and EDGE isn't exactly a speed demon 3G upgrade.

I'm satisfied though. The PIM isn't as intuitive as the Treo, but overall it works well. It hasn't crashed yet and the IM messaging programs are much better on Blackberry (Yahoo messenger and JiveTalk Beta). The push email also works better and with the battery life, it's an excellent messaging device. I'm not sure on where I stand on the keyboard yet as I'm getting used to it.

February 05, 2006

Palm Treo 700p Specs and Details

A lot of leaks and pictures of the forthcoming Palm Treo 700p are starting to come out. The most specs and details are right here:

-312 MHz Xscale CPU
-Palm OS 5.4.9
-BT spec unverifiable, BT 1.2? not sure
-1.3MP camera
-320x320 screen
-FAT32 driver support
-EVDO radio
-can receive call while on 1xEvDo, but cannot call and browse at the same time (limitation of 1xEvDo)
-new web like picture album interface, new facelift for alblum and pic apps
-menu key moved to bottom left shift spot
-was able to make receive call via Scala 500 BT headset
-flashing asterix replaced b little golden bell icon
-green button is talk button, phone button for contacts
-new “fast mode” in blazer
-No WiFi drivers installed and no ability to test a WiFi SD card
-HUGE NEW DBCACH SIZE!! >> 10MB!!!!
Meminfo results:
Flash total size: 64,336
Flash free minus couple apps installed: 54,172
NVFS dbCache size: 18,431
Dynamic heap: 10,240

January 17, 2006

The New Fresh Gear Ventures to Online TV

Screenshot

Did you like Fresh Gear on Tech TV? Well many of the people responsible for that show are offering their expertise for free and have produced an episode covering 2006 CES. The quality is surprisingly just as good as the old cable TV show. I wonder who paid up for all the hotels, airfare, and video editing. I wish them well and it is definitely worth the gander. Go check it out.

January 03, 2006

Garmin iQue 3000 GPS Handheld Specs

Garmin announced a new GPS handheld today. The specs are:

-Operating system: Palm OS 5 (Garnet)
-Processor: Bravo 2.0 200 MHz with built-in GPS correlator
-2.8“ x 4.7” x 0.7“ inches / 5.2 oz
-320x320-pixel; 54x54 mm screen size
-Internal Memory: 32 MB RAM and 32 MB ROM
-Expandable Memory: microSD card included
-Rechargeable 1050 mAh lithium-ion battery

October 08, 2005

Palm Tungsten TX Specs



The Palm Tungsten TX will have 320x480 color screen with 65,000 colors, 802.11b Wifi, Bluetooth 1.1, 128MB of memory, 312mhz processor, SDIO slot, and Palm OS Garnet 5.4. Where art thou Cobalt? Picture Source: Engadget

Palm Z22 Specs



The Z22 will have 32 MB of memory, 160x160 screen, 2.7x4.06x0.6 inches, 3.4 ounces, 200mhz processor, and run Palm OS 5.4 Garnet. Picture Source: Engadget

Motorola Wants PalmSource to Pay Up

According to the Chicago Times, Motorola was also a bidder for PalmSource. Motorola contends they are due a $8.7M breakup fee because PalmSource actually accepted their $17.25 share bid and then reneged days later. I'm a bit disappointed that both Palm and Motorola lost the bidding war. It would of been nice for a U.S. based company to take the lead in operating systems for smartphones. Who knows what this Japanese company that actually won the bid will do in the future? The prospect of a Palm-based RAZR phone looks like only a dream now.

Motorola has asked a judge to award it an $8.7 million breakup fee from PalmSource, which Motorola said reneged on a $17.25-per-share buyout agreement last month.

September 18, 2005

The History of Palm Computing

I still remember buying the U.S. Robotics PalmPilot Personal Edition. I tip my hat off to Jeff and Donna for changing the world with their product.

Donna realized that Palm did not have enough money to manufacture and market the device (she calculated at least $5 million would be required). VC firms shied away from PDA companies, so Palm would have to find a partner or buyer. The first company Dubinsky spoke to was Motorola, which was developing a two way pager. The head of the project was interested in using the Palm OS, by Dubinsky feared that Touchdown would be gutted for the pager. She turned to Compaq, which demanded outrageous terms for a relatively small investment. Palm would be relegated to selling a Mac-only version of Touchdown, while Compaq sold to the rest of the market. Off a tip, Dubinsky began talking with US Robotics which showed great interest in the company. US Robotics acquired Palm for $44 million, and set it up as a subsidiary.

July 28, 2005

Tapwave Zodiac is Dead

Another Palm OS device bites the dust. Tapwave has announced they are going under. Tough look to all those people that spent $200-400 on Zodiac handhelds. Doh!

We are sorry to inform you that the Zodiac business was discontinued and service and support are no longer available as of July 25th 2005. We thank you for your past interest and support and apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. If you have an outstanding claim with the company, Ueker and Associates will be contacting you shortly.

July 18, 2005

Palm Cuts Prices on Three Handhelds

Brighthand has the scoop: "Palm, Inc. has cut $50 from the price of two of its handhelds, and is offering a $50 rebate on one of its newest models. The Tungsten T5 $400 to $350. Zire 72 from $300 to $250. Tungsten E2 with $50 rebate."

May 18, 2005

PalmOne LifeDrive Mobile Manager Review



BargainPDA has one of the first reviews of the Palmone LifeDrive launched today. Early reviews are mixed due to its high price point, slow speed, weak multi-tasking, and memory management issues.

The biggest feature of the Lifedrive, the 4 GB internal hard drive, is a mixed blessing. I love the huge storage capability, which offers a lot of different options. But the performance hit in both speed and battery life is disappointing. Still, if you want major storage, this is the only way to go on Palm OS.

May 11, 2005

Windows Mobile 5.0 Released

Microsoft released Windows Mobile 5.0 yesterday. The new version of the smartphone and handheld OS offers better one-handed operation, network support, support for push-to-talk, video-calling, video conferencing, better security, and multi-media playback.

This new version of the Windows Mobile software platform delivers on partner requests, including more platform flexibility to customize devices and solutions; productivity enhancements that include updated Microsoft Office software and persistent memory storage for more efficient data management; and a powerful multimedia experience with Windows Media® Player 10 Mobile and support for hard drives.

April 18, 2005

PalmOne LifeDrive Actually Tungsten X?

According to a Brighthand source, the new PalmOne handheld will actually be called Tungsten X, not LifeDrive. The source said the unit will come with 64MB of memory, 4 gigabyte hard-drive, and Normsoft's Pocket Tunes media player. Additional specs are Wifi, Bluetooth, 416mhz Intel Xscale processor, 480x320 display, and a $499 retail price. The size will be about the width of two Tungsten T5s.

If they get the user interface right, it could be an interesting device for consumers that want MP3 player, TV show video playback, and PDA functionality. As usual, software is everything. And using Garnet as the media OS is definitely a set back. The expected release date is mid-May.

March 29, 2005

PalmOne Life Drive?


A picture of PalmOne's next supposed handheld is making the rounds today. The unconfirmed report is that the new model will be called Life Drive have 32 megs of RAM (pathetic), 416mhz XScale processor, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 320x480 display, Palm OS Garnet, and cost $500. Yuck, talk about a non-incremental upgrade.

March 25, 2005

Treo 650 Update

PalmOne has released a ROM update for the Treo 650. The patch is 1.08 and improves voice quality and memory space optimization. You can read all about it here.

-Overall voice quality improvements and enhanced call clarity -Internal setting modification to allow correct access to Sprint
-Affiliate roaming partner networks (previously released as Sprint PCS Treo 650 Roaming Patch)
-Optimizes memory handling and frees up more memory with non-volatile file system improvements TTY (also known as TDD or Text Telephone) optimizations and improvements
-Optimizations for data calls
-Includes VersaMail 3.0c which provides greater stability and improvements
-Bluetooth Carkit drivers are now included in ROM (previously released as Carkit Update for Treo 650)

February 22, 2005

Sony Dumps Clie Line

Sony announced today it will stop making Clie handhelds. The company will focus on smartphones made by Sony Ericsson and the Playstation Portable handheld game machine.

Sony started off slow, but near the end of its lifecycle, the Clie was the best designed multimedia handheld on the market. However with fierce infighting between the Clie and Sony Ericsson divisions and the trend toward smartphones, stagnant handheld growth, Sony chose to dump the Palm OS and Clie. It would of been fascinating to see what the innovative Clie engineers could of done with a Palm OS smartphone, but alas we shall never see it.

January 05, 2005

Fossil Releases Palm OS PDA Watch


Fossil has released the Palm OS PDA watch they announced in 2002. It was one of the prime examples of gadget vaporware until today. Although it is quite tiny, the watch still runs a full version of Palm OS 4.1 on a 66mhz Motorola Dragonball processor with 8 megabytes of RAM. It runs for 3-4 days without recharging and will cost $249. Specs include:

-160x160 pixel 16 grey level screen
-EL backlight
-Typical Palm OS apps like address book, date book, to do list, memo pad
-IRDA v1.2a wireless connection to beam apps and data
-internal lithium ion battery

December 26, 2004

PalmOne Sells 15 Million Tungsten E Handhelds

PalmOne announced it has sold 1.5 million Tungsten E handhelds world-wide in just 14 months. Business users and consumers alike have both gravitated to this mid-range PDA which costs about $200. A lot of companies like the basic PDA functionality, nice screen, 32MB of RAM, and multi-media capabilities like MP3 listening, photo viewing, and video.