strider_mt2k

Hoo boy, so many good points, and heroes -on both sides.
(please excuse spelling at the cost of knocking this post out)

I started the two pages of notes I took on this podcast in big letters:
WIN ME OVER TO NVFS, JEFF

Now that the dust has cleared, i'd have to say you have...
...and you haven't.

Data protected by non-volatile ram: good for sure and an excellent point
redoing my phone would suck and was well illustrated

Not needing 3rd party workarounds for this also a great point -
(Don't make me add up how much I've spent on workarounds, it only makes your point.)
However, we haven't eliminated the need for them, have we?
Nope, we just need DIFFERENT KINDS NOW! And the need is GREATER from a hard core -just-making-it-work standpoint!

New buyers are going to be more willing to do THIS more than the other stuff?

Hard Drive for STORAGE: good..but
The reasoning that too many chips are neccessary for running the system with RAM and using a HD for storage isn't strong.
This is 2005, we can integrate, can we not?
I'd like to see some moderately to hard core techincal reasons why not, no offense.

There is a ton of 3rd party software out there, man that's true.
And a very large community that supports that stuff.

My big questions are these:

Did the use of non-volatile RAM to keep our data safe REALLY AND TRULY REQUIRE all these specific changes that Palm made?
Booting from the HD for instance? Isn't our data already in this non-volatile RAM?
Shouldn't it just work like the other stuff did, or at least be made to do that in hardware? So that it works like it did-only better? Doesn't look better still.

Was the need to cater to newcomers and the sales THEY will generate worth alienating (nuking from orbit, if you will) the very (and non unsubstancial) community and developer base that put 'em where they are today?

Is the trouble with Fitaly and G1 workarounds being caused by truly unfortunate programming stuff, or, in more ways that one, is Palm trying to shuck the above mentioned community and it's liking for running the stuff that they want to as individuals in exchange for locking folks in to what THEY sell 'em.

I don't know, to me, loyalty kind of has to run both ways.
(Clie owners are NOT neccessarily LOYAL to Sony, me included.)

__________________
Mike Thompson

archangel

I have to totally disagree with you there. I have no problem with Palm coming up with solutions to deal with the poor battery life their devices have now, but NVFS has never been needed on any PDA I have owned. Its called backing up your device to the memory card and it works a hell of a lot better than losing 4GBs of data if one of the many programs that doesn't work with NFVS cause a hard reset. If users are too lazy or stupid to back up their PDAs, especially if they will be away from the PC to restore it then the problem is with the users not the device.

I've got no problems in theory with NVFS, but Palm did not handle the change to it well at all. I should not have to pay $500 to beta test for Palmone.

__________________
My Current Gadgets:
16GB iPod Touch, PSP 2000, Nintendo DS Lite

Surur

Ok, Jeff is not liking my language, but what else does "Adapt or perish" mean than "Be quite and get with the system. Stop complaining" ?

Either way, despite the desirability of a non-volatile system, Palm really messed up in implementation. If they did it for the sake of new users they have failed. They have not grown their market, and they have shipped 23% less handheld devices than last year, despite the non-volatile T5. Was this worth gaining a reputation for instability and bugginess?



Surur

Jeff Kirvin

Okay, again...

Regular, cell-phone using, non-geeky pwople will NOT futz around with backup cards. They just won't. Period. If you were Ed Colligan, and it was your job to sell more Palms, would you tell this giant untapped market, "Yes, it's a pain in the rear, but that's the way it is. Take it or leave it!" I sure as heck wouldn't.

You don't need NVFS. Fine. Bully for you. But you're not the target market here. This is a business, and they need to sell more Palms. Sticking with volatile RAM isn't going to get that done.

And again with the hard resets. When can we let this paper tiger lie? In normal usage, a spontaneous hard reset shouldn't be any more common than the same phenomenon on your cell phone. How many times has your cell phone forced you to reset it to factory defaults? Never? Hmmm...

Warm resets and stable software, people. Hard resets are bad mojo. Don't do 'em!

And if it really tweaks you that much, newer NVFS devices like the LifeDrive give you the option to back up the entire 4GB hard drive to your PC at every hotsync. So the old "just go back to your PC, hotsync and your're back in business" defense still holds if you absolutely can't resist doing a hard reset.

Jeff Kirvin

Yeah, I've already commented on that. It is, of course, all your fault for making me sound the way you say I sound.



I don't think the T5 has a reputation for instability and bugginess beyond our little insular geek community. And you know as well as I do that those numbers are misleading. Add back in the missing Treos and they're doing just fine, thank you. And the Treo 650 does have NVFS, and I hear it's a substantial selling point for people that had passed on the Treo 600.

Jeff Kirvin

But again, if the applications had been written properly and according to Palm OS programming guidelines in the first place, there wouldn't be any problem at all, would there?

(This is starting to sound like the Jessup cross at the end of "A Few Good Men"...)



Sorry. I get that way when I have to keep repeating myself, but I'll keep at this until I get my point across.



Nope, but then the manual tells you to remove all storage cards before you do a hard reset. And I do. And more to the point, you couldn't remove the hard drive if you wanted to.



Good thing a hard reset is almost never necessary.



Squish. Good point. Still, it's a great quote.



Agreed.

archangel

Are you honestly trying to tell me that NVFS is the answer to poor Palm sales? Funny how Palms were selling very well for years on end with standard RAM. All of a sudden this is a must have technology?

The problem is battery technology and that is where a revolution in the portable device industry needs to be made. NVFS or not if my device is going to crap out after 4-5 hours of use why bother with it. These standard users you are talking about are getting turned off by short battery life a lot more than lost data. Someone somewhere has got to find a new technology or improve the current lithium technology to greatly increase the current battery life in portable devices.

Again NVFS is fine, but get the bugs worked out before dumping it on the market or at least be quicker to address the issues users are having. You keep talking about how Palm is not selling devices to me, but the last time I looked I'm the only one in my entire office with a Palm OS PDA so they had better not forget about me or I will get a blackberry or a Pocket PC like everyone else. I will upgrade my Tapwave at some point and Palm is not currently winning me over with their devices or their concern for customer issues.

__________________
My Current Gadgets:
16GB iPod Touch, PSP 2000, Nintendo DS Lite

Jeff Kirvin

Sith reference?



Wow, taking notes... Even I'm not that geeky... What do you think you are, a Maximum Geek or something?



Thank you. That was the realization that started this whole rant.



Que? What do you need? The LifeDrive is actually pretty zippy right out of the box. Seriously go try one for yourself if you don't believe me. SharkCache just makes it zippier for the 8-Starbucks-a-day crowd. And as far as my T5 goes, the forthcoming ROM update should make things just ducky.



Oy...



I don't know.



This is a common misconception. There is NO flash memory in the LifeDrive. Just the hard drive and the RAM cache. The hard drive is split into three partitions. One for the "ROM" stuff, one that takes the place of "RAM" on an older Palm and the big honking data partition.



Quite possibly, but I really don't think it's an either/or proposition. There's lots of existing Palmheads that either have no strong feelings at all about NVFS, or, like me, actually like it.



<insert joke about tin foil hats here>

All in all, I think this is going to be the best thing Palm could have done in the long run. All changes incur growing pains, but I this should pave the way for more reliable devices and more stable software.

Surur

I'm of to bed. I'll just add that given Palm's efforts to move to the smartphone arena, I can understand why they did what they did. Given the problems they have had with software compatibility however, and the sensitivity of new machines to old software, I wonder if they should not have kept two lines. One with normal fast ram, and one just for Treo's with NVFS. The handhelds would have remained compatible with a large software library, while the Treo would have gotten non-volatility plus a defined software environment.

MS smartphones have been non-volatile from the get go. They are actually carrying over many features from the smartphones over to PPC (e.g. non-volatile storage, signed applications, device policies) but they have had 2 years experience with the platform. I don't expect them to have too much trouble. I personally believe wm5 has been delayed at least one year (but that this has been kept very quiet) due to e.g. devices such as the Mpx clearly being designed for WM5, and devices such as the hp 6700 shipping with wm2003se when the hardware suggest wm5 (with softkeys). Of course wm2003se added features and stability, so people did not complain that much. The hope is that MS used the delay to do it right, and make sure the shipped OS is stable.

In short, by POS shipping such sensitive devices that need even more babying they are invalidating people's software investment, and angering their user base. They could have done it better if they had only shipped it for smartphones, and people would have understood why also. It worked for MS for at least a year or two.

Surur

Jeff Kirvin

Seriously, what babying? All I'm saying is don't run buggy software. This should be about as stupid as saying "don't play on the freeway."

Dick Tracy

This is not so on the E2. My Edit choices are App or Web Link. In App I can only choose from what is in RAM in the drop down and it will not access a card. Version of Favorites on E2 is 1.0.1. Maybe it's different on the pricier models.

Back to the NVFS debate. I like the idea of not losing everything if I fail to charge. Since I'm a long-time Palm user, charging is a routine like brushing my teeth. What I do not like is the current inability of available applications to reliably backup everything to card so that if I accidentally drop and break my E2, I can buy another and reinstall from card and keep going while repairs, if feasible, can be done.

archangel

Yeah, it couldn't be hi-res color screens, music and video playback, external memory, wi-fi, bluetooth, or any of the other features most users actually use. BTW, my Windows CE devices didn't lose all their data if the device died either, it was called a backup battery or simply a battery smart enough not to fully deplete. That is an innovation from way back in the last millenium.

I'm okay with looking at NVFS as a positive especially as we move forward and current issues are ironed out, but the way you are trying to sell it is down right funny.

Anyway NVFS is fine and it will get better as Palm improves their end and developers catch up, but biggest innovation is one you won't sell many people on. For one thing many people will never even use it on their device since many of us keep our devices charged. Its hardly an innovation if people don't even use it.

__________________
My Current Gadgets:
16GB iPod Touch, PSP 2000, Nintendo DS Lite

Jeff Kirvin

Again, it's not for us. It's for new users that aren't us. People that never would have bought a PDA otherwise.

archangel

You honestly think most of these people can't charge a device? I find that very hard to believe in todays world of cell phones, iPods, Game Boys, PSPs ect. I would bet the majority will understand the simple principle of charging the device. If the majority can't handle that they certainly will get little to no use out of a PDA.

__________________
My Current Gadgets:
16GB iPod Touch, PSP 2000, Nintendo DS Lite