Palm hires ex-Apple developer for product design

[Joel]

Palm hires System 7 Finder designer for product design [details (http://www.1src.com/?m=show&id=1843)]

[Alan G]

Personally, I think this just goes to show that Palm is serious about the Palm OS, and more specifically bringing us the Palm OS II, a new refreshed interface, and new core applications for the Palm handheld and Treo product lines.

Alan G

[Church Punk]

i hope you are right, Alan. :)

i wanna see what this guy comes up to now in palm devices... a Mac touch to the Palm world will be a nice hybrid, i guess :rolleyes:

thanks for the news :D

[dragonsgames]

"Samsung's Z5 MOP3" ;)

Now if they could get Ive... now that would be something! ;)

[philpalm]

Looks like Palm is investing and looking for a buyer, is that conflicting or making sure they have a backup plan?

[bh77a]

great news
looking forward to seeing what comes of this

[janricr]

This is great news for Palm! However, you have to wonder what happened to Rob Haitani? So where will he fit in? What role will Rob have right now? Also, they just hired the guy 3 weeks ago, that either mean that they are just starting with Palm OS II or they need him for the final touches for Palm OS II. Just makes me wonder.

Also have you guys noticed that every week (since January 07), Palm sends out information to the media and blogs, whether this is a new partnership, seminar, T680 launch in a new carrier, newly hired people, Jeff's interview, etc? This is not the same Palm last year. It seems to me that the Palm PR machine is trying to make its presence known with every bit of information, except anything about their product line, in order to avoid the onslaught of the iPhone.

[Alan G]

Looks like Palm is investing and looking for a buyer, is that conflicting or making sure they have a backup plan?

Let me be clear about this, Palm is not up for sale. Ed Colligan has stated this. Andy Brown has stated this. And Jeff Hawkins has stated that the company is in the best shape it has been in the last 5 years.

Alan G

[Alan G]

Also, they just hired the guy 3 weeks ago, that either mean that they are just starting with Palm OS II or they need him for the final touches for Palm OS II. Just makes me wonder.

I was thinking about this also. My personal opinion is that any Linux OS would be "skinable" and that is what Paul Mercer will be doing. Additionally, I believe that Palm is building their own web browser (so long NetFront!) and Paul will likely have a role to play there. And we know that Marc Blank has gone to work for Palm. I would expect that VersaMail is due for an update soon also.

Alan G

[JAmerican]

Look who fell from the Apple Tree into the Palm Tree.

JAmerican

[ballistic]

This looks like it might be the job posting Paul Mercer filled, or a position that falls under him:

Sr. Visual Designer (http://recruit.trovix.com/jobhost/jobhost/ViewJobPostDetails.do?title=SR.+VISUAL+DESIGNER&jobPostId=597172&accountId=8c7a6bdda14fca4be3ce19634698d598530b9e78&button=&action=viewDetails)

Job ID 2983
Location USA - Sunnyvale
Category
Date Posted Feb 19, 2007

Overview:

Palm is looking for an outstanding visual and human interface designer to work on the next generation of Mobile Computing. The Sr. Visual Designer will be part of a team responsible for the look-and-feel, visual design and information flow of all mobile device applications.

The designer will be responsible for conceptualizing, designing, and prototyping new application designs, creating design mockups, producing visual assets and writing documentation required for proper design implementation.

The Sr. Visual Designer will work with the product marketing and engineering teams to create intuitive and compelling experiences across mobile devices and the web.

The ideal candidate needs to be an exceptional visual designer, and enjoy interaction design, and information architecture, and be able to demonstrate experience designing complex applications with extremely elegant visual treatments.

Duties/Responsibilities:


Lead product design sessions with a cross-functional team of product managers and engineering to develop new products and enhancements to existing products

Create task analyses, use cases, UI models, information architecture, wire frames, mock-ups and prototypes, screen layouts, design specs & guidelines, and screenflows with little direction

Translate product requirements into compelling, innovative design solutions

Develop and maintain design flows, usage scenarios, prototypes, design specifications, navigation maps and other design documents

Develop expert-level knowledge of competitive and complementary products and bring new ideas to the team

Create simple interactive Flash prototypes

Foster a constructive environment for brainstorming and idea exploration


Skill/Experience:

Five (5) or more years experience as a key member of a user experience team or design firm

An outstanding portfolio that includes mobile, web or desktop based application experience, and demonstrates a variety of styles

Proven track record and a passion for designing compelling, award-winning user interfaces for consumer-based applications

Brand identity experience is a plus

Excellent communication skills & collaborative skills

Solid understanding of user-centered design principles, careful attention to detail

Ability to communicate effectively with product managers and engineers about objectives, requirements and design constraints

Proven ability to balance multiple projects while meeting tight deadlines

Expert use of standard graphic design applications such as Illustrator, Photoshop and Flash

Formal design training


Travel:


Up to 25% travel


Brian

[lmame]

It can be a good news still there's one thing I don't get :) . Why is it Palm Inc who hired this guy and not Access?
Correct me if I'm wrong but it's Access who's responsible for the "future" of Palm OS, not Palm inc so I guess he wasn't hired for the brand new "perhaps it will be released during our lifetime" Palm OS 6 / Cobalt / ALP but more for a IHM that will be based upon the OS. And this OS could be Palm OS, Windows Mobile, ALP or the three of them.

The article of New York Times speaks a lot of mobile phones / brands and of course the new Apple Iphone, so could it be possible that Palm Inc hired grafX guys to give a future Treo some cool GUI software?

[ballistic]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's Access who's responsible for the "future" of Palm OS, not Palm inc so I guess he wasn't hired for the brand new "perhaps it will be released during our lifetime" Palm OS 6 / Cobalt / ALP but more for a IHM that will be based upon the OS. And this OS could be Palm OS, Windows Mobile, ALP or the three of them.

The article of New York Times speaks a lot of mobile phones / brands and of course the new Apple Iphone, so could it be possible that Palm Inc hired grafX guys to give a future Treo some cool GUI software?

Palm purchase a perpetual license to use/modify/innovate on top of Garnet OS source code for $44 Million USD. Palm does not have to share their changes/innovations with anyone else, and will use their modifications exclusively on Palm devices. Palm also owns the Palm OS name. Therefore, Palm can modify Garnet and call it Palm OS. Many people (myself included) believe Palm is creating a next-gen Palm OS with a Linux kernel and a Garnet compatibility layer. There is significant evidence that suggests this, including Palm job postings for Linux software developers.

AFAIK, Rob Haitani (http://www.designinginteractions.com/interviews/RobHaitani) (the creator of the original Palm UI) is still working at Palm, and the hiring of Paul Mercer (http://www.designinginteractions.com/interviews/PaulMercer) is very encouraging (video interview links from Designing Interactions (http://www.designinginteractions.com)) as it suggests that Palm is working on a new user interface design for "the next generation of Mobile Computing".

Recent statements by Palm CFO & SVP Andy Brown and Jeff Hawkins have been sending a clear message: Palm has the Palm OS back and they now are in control of their own destiny. ACCESS is not responsible for the future of the Palm OS, Palm is.

[Dick Tracy]

It can be a good news still there's one thing I don't get :) . Why is it Palm Inc who hired this guy and not Access?
Correct me if I'm wrong but it's Access who's responsible for the "future" of Palm OS, not Palm inc so I guess he wasn't hired for the brand new "perhaps it will be released during our lifetime" Palm OS 6 / Cobalt / ALP but more for a IHM that will be based upon the OS. And this OS could be Palm OS, Windows Mobile, ALP or the three of them.

The article of New York Times speaks a lot of mobile phones / brands and of course the new Apple Iphone, so could it be possible that Palm Inc hired grafX guys to give a future Treo some cool GUI software?
All indications are that Palm has no interest in ALP.

Palm's CFO stated that WM is not their primary business, it is for attracting European and corporate (enterprise) customers.

PalmSource's incomplete effort on PalmOS6/Cobalt is dead and gone--finished; it will not be resurrected and nobody will license it. PalmSource gave up and started fiddling with something on Linux before they were acquired by Access. Third-party Palm OS applications are the only thing Access is interested in and that is why they are building an emulator in ALP, much like StyleTap is for WM.

The future for Palm is their own OS with their own UI and compatibility with Palm OS5.4 (Garnet).

[lmame]

Then I was right at the time when I said that Palm did the split PalmSource / Palm Inc on purpose to kill PalmSource :)

Now I'll see the "brand new OS" when it'll be released, it's been a lot of time now, it better be a killer OS.

[ballistic]

you can't put a "skin" or UI on the top of PalmOS and make it
"cool". The underlying OS is simply too limiting. It is also a sad testament
to Palm that they are just getting around hiring talent.
Palm's only save in grace today that its phones are slightly better then
the competition, meaning everyone sucks. My T650 is barely usable.

As it's been noted in this thread and elsewhere, there's mounting evidence suggesting Palm is building a next-gen Palm OS with a Linux kernel, "shoring up the foundation" of the Palm OS.

Who's to say that Paul Mercer is the only talent at Palm?

[ielfilab]

you can't put a "skin" or UI on the top of PalmOS and make it
"cool". The underlying OS is simply too limiting. It is also a sad testament
to Palm that they are just getting around hiring talent.
Palm's only save in grace today that its phones are slightly better then
the competition, meaning everyone sucks. My T650 is barely usable.

[lmame]

you can't put a "skin" or UI on the top of PalmOS and make it
"cool". The underlying OS is simply too limiting. It is also a sad testament
to Palm that they are just getting around hiring talent.
Palm's only save in grace today that its phones are slightly better then
the competition, meaning everyone sucks. My T650 is barely usable.

Why that? There are some very sweet launchers on Palm OS and it's possible to skin quite well Palm OS (Skin UI for example) so I guess it's not impossible at all to make a software to make a launcher...
For example, Sony made a specific launcher on the VZ90 and a 3D launcher on the UX50 so you see it's not impossible to make something that would look good.

For the rest, I hope Palm Inc hired good developers to make the missing libraries.

As for the new Linux OS, everytime I hear this it makes me laugh... But it's just nervous :)

[Alan G]

you can't put a "skin" or UI on the top of PalmOS and make it
"cool". The underlying OS is simply too limiting.

That's just it...Palm has been building a new OS for the last two years.

Alan G

[lmame]

That's just it...Palm has been building a new OS for the last two years.

Alan G

And how many more to come? :p and don't come and tell me they need 4 years to release a new OS. They have done some for two years, and never released them :(
I don't blame them (yes I do actually) but they simply hesitate too much and make too much bad calls for two years.

[Dick Tracy]

lmame you are confusing Palm Inc. the hardware company (formerly PalmOne) with Access the software company (formerly PalmSource).

Palm Inc. finally has the freedom to modify the Access product to their desire and not share it with Access, nor do they have to wait for Access to do what has been unfinished and required in previous license agreements.

[lmame]

lmame you are confusing Palm Inc. the hardware company (formerly PalmOne) with Access the software company (formerly PalmSource).

Palm Inc. finally has the freedom to modify the Access product to their desire and not share it with Access, nor do they have to wait for Access to do what has been unfinished and required in previous license agreements.

I know and that's what I'm talking about, pure schizophrenia :)
Now a little question, what will happend if Palm Inc really does a great "new" OS like I saw "Palm OS II"? Will they license it to other constructors? Then why split into PalmSource in the first place?
I don't understand those guys or their last moves, that's all...

[Dick Tracy]

The pressure to spin off PalmSource came from licensees and prospective licensees claiming that a company owning the OS and selling hardware might be unfair competition.

I have no idea what Palm's plans are about licensing anything they develop. I do not know if the license they have from Access will permit this. The competition thing again.

[lmame]

The pressure to spin off PalmSource came from licensees and prospective licensees claiming that a company owning the OS and selling hardware might be unfair competition.
Come one, who could possibly fell for that?
At the time of the Palm (Inc / Source) split WM was already gaining large % in mobile and PDA... They don't care about mixing soft and hard, the just wanted to crush Palm, same for blackberry or Symbian.

Now, Palm Inc splitted in two just to drop off the bother of designing Palm OS and so he can use whatever OS he wants and he just can do whatever he wants ;)
Everyone knew at the time PalmSource would die (or at least have a LOT of difficulties) eventually due to some unknown problems (competence,means, money, fill in the blanks), there are precedents in computer history where OS and hardware were splitted for those reasons we're not speaking of AT&T or IE.
Somehow I can't blame Palm Inc since they were right in the end, PalmSource was simply incapable of releasing something which works (I speak about Cobalt 6 and 6.1 which were somewhat released but with too much problems and then the magic Linux turn) and now ACCESS has all the troubles and Palm Inc is quite fine, has cash money and release Treo :)
Magic isn't it?

The problem is that they should have worked harder on Palm OS 6 Cobalt to improve it and then work calmly on Linux OS, but hey, that's just my opinion :)
Now we coulb says that Palm Inc is just doing what Sony did at the time since Clie, using Palm OS and tweaking it for its DSP and some Sony only softwares.

[Dick Tracy]

Come one, who could possibly fell for that?
Evidently the Board of Directors and Shareholders of Palm Computing, Inc. (predecessor to PalmOne and Palm Inc.) did.

[lmame]

Evidently the Board of Directors and Shareholders of Palm Computing, Inc. (predecessor to PalmOne and Palm Inc.) did.

Ok, I'm not here to argue, I had my share my Apple fans, have a nice day ;)