1SRC Podcast Twenty-two

[Jeff Kirvin]

The LifeDrive is the LifeDrive after all. Which actually, makes more sense. Alas, poor Tapwave, we knew you well. New this week: updates to Landscape, FontSmoother, SnapperMail and MobiSystems Office. [details (http://www.1src.com/?m=show&id=1020)]

[ballistic]

A couple of things...

LifeDrive
Jeff - You mentioned the Athena connector, and Ben Combee has spoken about it at Tam Hanna's Blog:Tam Hanna's blog (http://tamspalm.blogspot.com/2005/05/power-and-data-cords-why-proprietary.html#comments) (this is relavent to past 1src podcasts too):

The audio input and output are used on the Treo 650 car kits. There also is a cradle for the E2 and T5 that has an audio out connector for hooking up to headphones or speakers.

There are no video output pins on the Athena connector, contrary to popular belief.

Tapwave & the Zodiac
Nobody seems to be talking about these two important bullets in Byron Connell's email to Scott @ Tapland:

# Developing and closing new business and partnership opportunities. You should hear more about this in the coming weeks since we have recently closed a multi-product business partnership with a leading Chinese company.

# Developing our next generation multimedia platform.
Emphasis is mine.

1st point: I wonder who that Chinese company could be? Lenovo (http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=6281) (who just acquired the IBM Thinkpad line and will be co-branding them as IBM ThinkPads, and who just came out with this PSP-like 3G phone (http://www.engadget.com/entry/6831627748437149/), or two other likely candidates (also Palm OS licensees), Groupe Sense PDA (http://www.gspda.com/) and Ningbo Bird (http://www.chinanex.com/company/bird.htm[/url). Granted, they are not household names, but what if they're the ones building the devices licensing "Zodiac technologies" and a major CE company like HP or Dell offered the device(s)? Byron mentioned multimedia, communications, and navigation functions. Between these three Chinese OEMs, all the bases are pretty much covered.

2nd bullet: Tapwave is still going forward developing their next-gen device, and nothing that Tapwave said excludes gaming capabilities. Dell's rumored Axim will be multimedia and gaming-centric, and it wouldn't suprise me if a major CE company (an HP or Dell) co-branded the next-gen Zodiac.

And Jeff, now that you've lost an important spreadsheet, are you backing up away from your computer ;).

Brian

[madmaxmedia]

It's really hard for me to imagine Tapwave's comments as anything other than spin to try to cover their tracks. They didn't sell like they hoped, and now they're changing horses midstream. Kind of like what Transmeta is doing too.

Maybe it will work out, but I doubt it. Who needs Tapwave's help designing handhelds? The existing companies have been at it longer than Tapwave or use a different OS, and no one else is entering the PDA market. For gaming, Tapwave is a blip compared to Nintendo and Sony.

[GadgetGuru]

If the Lifedrive has holes at the back, then a cover could easily be installed the same way Sony T665 and T3 does.

While G1 is probably never coming back by default. If Palm One/Source wins the lawsuit, then they could sell it as add-on...

Saving a little for not including a cradle is not a good decision, IMHO. True, a cable is pocketable, but a clever design could include a male-female connector in the cradle, so that you could use the cradle at home, and just the same cable on the go. A cradle is sort of an advertising for the PDA. Most people will prop their PDA at the office or home on the cable, and its like showing off the product... at the OEM level, one probably cost less than $10 to make, later on, they could remove it when prices are lowered in the same way Apple do away with the Photo dock on their ipod photo... Then the products are instantly refreshed even if its the same product with very little improvements.

Frankly, I feel less and less about the Lifedrive with each passing day. Sure it got Bluetooth and Wifi, plus a 4gb drive... but if you own a European TH55, and add a 2GB stick, it pretty much everything the Lifedrive is. But maybe there's more than what the rumor mill has uncovered so far... I really which it has user replaceable batteries...especially if this is an end of line PDA as some has suggested. Us, PDA lovers will use them for a long-long time like devoted Apple Newton fans do (at least until full pledged PC can be crammed into a PDA size package at reasonable price and performance...).

[jjesusfreak01]

Its too bad you dont have a TH-55 Jeff. Then you would have more to talk about. The landscape app is cool because the new version allows you to chose the default orientation for each program. It also allows you to choose which API it takes commands from, and it works better with media players.

On a related note, Mobile Stream also reverse engineered the GE2D library on the HHE devices, essentially giving them a video card that can be accessed by any program. TCPMP is the first to take advantage of this, and it has raised speed by about 50%. Im on a crusade to get a few more programs to take advantage of this right now, and it should lead to higher speed in these programs. You should be jealous. And, the TH-55 still has one of the best battery lifes.

[Jeff Kirvin]

I thought seriously about trying to get a European TH55, because I have to have Bluetooth. It's a shame Sony crippled the American TH55.

[jjesusfreak01]

I thought seriously about trying to get a European TH55, because I have to have Bluetooth. It's a shame Sony crippled the American TH55.
Yeah, it would have been a nice feature, though I wouldnt have used it much.

[strider_mt2k]

I thought seriously about trying to get a European TH55, because I have to have Bluetooth. It's a shame Sony crippled the American TH55.

Jeff,

Do it.
I'm curious to hear how you like living with one.
:D

[Jeff Kirvin]

Once the LifeDrive comes out, there's no need, is there?

[Cyker]

No need for what? Living with one? What?

(Apologies, it's late and my brain is trying to switch to standby...)

[strider_mt2k]

Once the LifeDrive comes out, there's no need, is there?

I think you're afraid you'll like it! :D

[Jeff Kirvin]

I think you're afraid you'll like it! :D
I know I'd like it, and in fact thought seriously about getting one instead of a T3 when my beloved E's digitizer went south. I decided against it for several reasons:

1. At the time, there was no way to keep Clie Organizer out of the way, and I didn't like it. I use the stock calendar and Life Balance.

2. Not crazy about the processor or the non-standard mods Sony insisted on grafting on to Palm OS.

3. Bluetooth is FAR, FAR MORE USEFUL to me than WiFi, and Sony didn't offer a unit with BT here in the states.

4. Too many damn buttons.

5. I'd owned a Clie before, and knew Sony's support and accessory availability would dry up in months.

[jjesusfreak01]

I know I'd like it, and in fact thought seriously about getting one instead of a T3 when my beloved E's digitizer went south. I decided against it for several reasons:

1. At the time, there was no way to keep Clie Organizer out of the way, and I didn't like it. I use the stock calendar and Life Balance.

2. Not crazy about the processor or the non-standard mods Sony insisted on grafting on to Palm OS.

3. Bluetooth is FAR, FAR MORE USEFUL to me than WiFi, and Sony didn't offer a unit with BT here in the states.

4. Too many damn buttons.

5. I'd owned a Clie before, and knew Sony's support and accessory availability would dry up in months.
Jeff Jeff Jeff.....

1. Clie Organizer could be disabled from day 1, it just took about 3 clicks, and it was out of your way.

2. Processor supplemented by low power chipset with media components. Its just as powerful as most for media playback.

3. Sure, whatever you say...

4. No, not too many buttons. 4 on the bottom, voice recorder, power, and capture on the side (only one of those is actually a "button"), and the back contains the navigator (I do agree its badly placed for games, but is just fine for scrolling).

5. Sony has kept the same accessories for years, no reason to believe they would dry up unless you knew Sony was going to stop selling pdas. I can still walk into Radioshack, and buy a kit that gives me a USB cable/power cord, car adapter, and wall adapter forb $10. They still sell them. (BTW, they sell the palm version for $20)

[strider_mt2k]

Agreed, I had ZLauncher installed in the first 30 minutes of my initial configuration, but had reverted to the standard OS launcher just prior to that.
I never liked CO.

My only, and I mean only regret is not geting a euro version.

That being said, I still think that IF P1 gets it right the LifeDrive will edge it out for coolness and usefulness.

I've decided that I won't be offing my TH55 to get a LifeDrive (which is a departure from past strategy) so I'm also curious to see how they might be made to enhance one another, even if it is in some non-practical, purely geeky way.

[Alan G]

Jeff,

another great podcast! I can understand your postion on Documents To Go. It is never acceptable to lose data due to an upgrade. I do have a question for you about the 7.006 upgrade. Did you have any pending updates to your documents, ie: changes than needed to be saved during a HotSync operation, prior to installing the update? I installed the 7.006 patch on my T3 without incident, however, none of my documents had any changes to them.

Alan G

[jjesusfreak01]

Jeff,

another great podcast! I can understand your postion on Documents To Go. It is never acceptable to lose data due to an upgrade. I do have a question for you about the 7.006 upgrade. Did you have any pending updates to your documents, ie: changes than needed to be saved during a HotSync operation, prior to installing the update? I installed the 7.006 patch on my T3 without incident, however, none of my documents had any changes to them.

Alan G
IMAO (imao.us), DTG needs a full rewrite. With what you pay for that program, I would expect alot more. For starters, there are way too many modules. Have the individuals, but let us take the whole thing if we want in one file. After that, they need to strip it down to barebones. As Dr. Lecter would say, "Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?"

Once you have found that, what is the easiest way to do that? Why is it slow? The main page has about 10 major functions, and it could be about 10x faster if they rewrote it. It needs to have faster rewrites, and needs AA fonts. They could include many other things and make it fast.

Now, what I propose is a new word processor. An "OpenOffice" for Palm. We have many talented programmers in this forum. Some who can write ARM code in their sleep, and some who know how to write interfaces well, and some who know how to skin.

It could start out with basic functions. Natively edit Word and text docs, with a clean user interface. After this is finished, it could move into other formats, such as spreadsheet and Powerpoint. Last time I checked, "OpenOffice" code is open source, and a stripped down version of its decoding modules could do the trick for Palm.

So, are we a go? Who wants a better alternative for word processing? Who.....IS.......WITH ME????????????

[Jeff Kirvin]

another great podcast! I can understand your postion on Documents To Go. It is never acceptable to lose data due to an upgrade. I do have a question for you about the 7.006 upgrade. Did you have any pending updates to your documents, ie: changes than needed to be saved during a HotSync operation, prior to installing the update? I installed the 7.006 patch on my T3 without incident, however, none of my documents had any changes to them.
Nope, these were freshed, saved documents. Bleh.

However, Mobi-Systems Docs 6.4 is working just dandy!

[jjesusfreak01]

Nope, these were freshed, saved documents. Bleh.

However, Mobi-Systems Docs 6.4 is working just dandy!
Im sure youre busy writing a lengthy response to my last post.

[Jeff Kirvin]

Now, what I propose is a new word processor. An "OpenOffice" for Palm. We have many talented programmers in this forum. Some who can write ARM code in their sleep, and some who know how to write interfaces well, and some who know how to skin.

It could start out with basic functions. Natively edit Word and text docs, with a clean user interface. After this is finished, it could move into other formats, such as spreadsheet and Powerpoint. Last time I checked, "OpenOffice" code is open source, and a stripped down version of its decoding modules could do the trick for Palm.

So, are we a go? Who wants a better alternative for word processing? Who.....IS.......WITH ME????????????
It's a great idea, and I'd love to see it.

But until then, I'm darn happy with Mobi-systems Docs.

http://www.mobi-systems.com

[Jeff Kirvin]

Im sure youre busy writing a lengthy response to my last post.
It wasn't that lengthy.

[tomklaus]

I'm certainly interested in an "OpenOffice for Palm". Unfortunately I can't program, but I can help out testing.

ps.
If you haven't tried OpenOfice (www.openofice.org), give it a try and say godbye to M$ :-). If you are the daring type, download the beta of 2.0 which is much better than 1.4. I have had no problems with stability.

[jjesusfreak01]

I'm certainly interested in an "OpenOffice for Palm". Unfortunately I can't program, but I can help out testing.

ps.
If you haven't tried OpenOfice (www.openofice.org), give it a try and say godbye to M$ :-). If you are the daring type, download the beta of 2.0 which is much better than 1.4. I have had no problems with stability.
Openoffice 2.0 is justy about as unstable as TCPMP.

Anyway, openoffice 2 isnt ported to mac yet, so im stuck with the old stuff.

[Coastermania]

i don't think i will EVER leave my e2 until it dies i love my e2 it's the best palm i have ever owned plus the lifdrive will be 500 $!!! no matter what it could do it can not be worth that price

[Reggie]

Spotted on Laptop magazine: http://www.brighthand.com/article/LifeDrive_Appears_in_Laptop_Magazine

Jeff thinks LifeDrive will be geared towards multimedia. I think it'll be geared towards replacing the laptop. ;)

[Alan G]

If I'm going to spend $350 - 400 on a T5, why not just go for the gusto and pick up the Life Drive? I love my T3, but I want to play with the new stuff damn it!

Alan G

[Jeff Kirvin]

Buy the LifeDrive, Alan. You need it for your collection. Your collection wouldn't be complete without a LifeDrive...

[Alan G]

I was down at Staples earlier. The only computer rep was trying to talk a customer into buying the Staples brand anti-virus software (which looked a lot like a rebraned version of the McAfee software, BTW) vs. Norton AntiVirus 2005. Anyway, I was lurking around trying to get his attention. I wanted to ask him if they hand any Life Drives in stock, since that was how I got my Tungsten T a whopping two days early. But alas, I couldn't tear the rep away.

But I DO need a Life Drive for research for the next edition of the book. I smell a tax write off...

Alan G