Talking the Palm Foleo With Jeff Hawkins

[Joel]

The Palm Blog posts an interview with Jeff Hawkins regarding the Foleo. [details (http://www.1src.com/?m=show&id=1928)]

[Josser]

I find it odd they used Alans' 1src podcast bumper music for the intro. :eek: (any payola Alan?)

[bulls96]

Yeah that music tripped me out :) Nothing new on that interview though. Obviously scripted too :rolleyes:

[makraw]

Well I have not followed the interwiev, but there is one thing that bothers me. The Whole Foleo thing is sexy thing to me. Downside is that as I understood it can be paired only with Treo phones. This sucks. I do not find treos very appealing.

[intellidryad]

That music comes standard with every copy of Apple iLife. It's really fun to find out that the whole collection (well, except for the SD slot beep...) of the music used in the 1src podcast is right in your own MacBook :D

So, the Foleo is ment for the fraction of people who would love to work on their Treo, and wants a big screen. That sure is a tiny market. It's already hard to find people with smartphones, harder to find people that use functions beyond calls and GPS, even harder to find people that are "happy" doing most work on them, and imagine what fraction of that group has the money to buy a 600USD Foleo. Jeff is betting that this market will grow eventually, we'll see.

[keithwwalker]

Wouldn't it make sense from Palm's viewpoint to give those people a Treo with a 3.5" screen (I feel 3.5 is big enough, Sony NX)? That way you could sell them a new phone....


So, the Foleo is ment for the fraction of people who would love to work on their Treo, and wants a big screen.

[bulls96]

I doubt they are gonna come out with a Treo 680 type phone with wifi anytime soon... or else it would eat up t680 sales.

[harps]

The more I think about the Foleo the more I want one!
Last night when nothing was on the box (TV) I ended up web browsing on my T5 via wifi (wife was hogging our Mac), but whilst doing I would so much prefer to do so on a 10" screen with a full keyboard, but having a light and portable device - the Palm Foleo!
However, this is subject to it being able to sync automatically with my BlackBerry re e-mail, calendar, address book & tasks.
They have talked about this happening with Treos, and being able to do with other devices but not details as yet.

[Gazpacho]

Having to explain your product is not a good thing. Maybe Hawkins and Palm's management in general are too pragmatic: they do develop a lot of nice solutions, but people nowadays want a solution *and* a bang.

"It simply works" is not enough, it has to be pretty and nice to use as well.

[lkj]

Yes, *and* a bang;
but if I have to select one out of the two; I'll have to pick "simply works". Now both the iPhone and Foleo are on my list. If I can only have one; I'll have the Foleo.

[bulls96]

If I can only have one; I'll have the Foleo.

Now that's the spirit!!
:D

[PDAJah]

I have a Vision of the Foleo becoming an 'information hub' (what the mobile manager should have been). What does this mean? Well for me and my family it means when we are holiday:

- My wife can check her emails and send replies via the Foleo
- My wife can manage the SMS threads for her contacts by connecting her phone to the Foleo
- My daughter can sync the pictures and videos on her phone with the Foleo
- I can surf the web using my phone as the 3G modem

If we had other mobile devices (e.g. digitial camera or camcorder) we would want to download the media to the Foleo for later review.

The Vision is that the Foleo becomes a 'hub' for managing information on many portable devices and has software designed for this task. With the instant ON and flash memory the Foleo could be more portable and practical than a laptop/UMPC.

This is the Vision for private use not business use. But I really think the Foleo has a great future if the software can be developed and Palm keep developing this concept.