More Than Just Plumbing

Shouts of joy could be heard coming from the Palm user community last week with Palm’s revelation of a project to develop a Linux-based operating system, which I will refer to as “Palm OS II” from here out.  While I believe that the Palm OS II project is critical part of Palm’s future, I also hope that Palm doesn’t skip over “the little stuff.”

Looks Good…

Many customers agree that Palm’s personal information manager (PIM) applications are designed well and are easy to use.  The same goes for the Palm OS user interface (UI).  For as easy as the Palm OS is to use, Palm should set aside some time in their project plan to freshen up the visuals.

Palm OS 5 largely looks like Palm OS 4, which largely looks like Palm OS 3.  With version 3.0, Palm added support for color and changed the way things worked, slightly, from the way things were done in Palm OS 2.0.  I’m not talking about a radical UI redesign here.  Changing the way things work for the sake of change is counter-productive.  What I am suggesting is that Palm update the graphical elements of the Palm OS.

Take for example the work that GX-5 has been doing.  DialByPhoto, TreoMemo, and their new application, Weather, work well and look great!  GX-5 is also responsible for the new look of NormSoft’s pTunes, the inexpensively priced Treo WallPaper packs, and a suite of new skins and wallpapers for the crimson Treo 680 (sorry copper lovers).  I’ve been using some of GX-5’s products for a while now and their software has changed my view of my Treo.  By just adding a new splash of color combined with an easy to use interface, my Treo goes from boring life manger to a cool personal assistant that makes people say “wow” when they see me using it.

You might be saying “So what?” right now.  From a clinical perspective, some people are more about getting their work done and not having to worry about the underlying technology.  That is important.  If Palm wants to move into more consumer oriented devices, as evidence by the Treo 680, then some attention needs to be paid to making their devices and the software that runs on them look cool too.  In short, Palm OS II should work well and look good.

…Works Well

Another area that I hope Palm works on is unifying the feature sets of their handhelds, Treos, and the Palm Desktop application.  Let’s take a closer look at what I’m talking about.

Palm is hoping that people who purchase PDA handhelds like the Z22, Tungsten E2, or the Palm TX will upgrade to a Treo when they out grow their previous device.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the same features of the Palm OS were available on the Treo?  For example, on Palm’s handhelds, you can apply a wallpaper to the application launcher program.  Not so on the Palm OS Treo.  On the Treo 700p, the SD card category is near the top of the selection list.  On Palm OS handhelds, SD cards show up at the bottom of the list.

More important than some cosmetic enhancements, Palm needs to ensure that Palm OS II works well out of the gate.  The first generation of Palm-branded devices that run Palm OS II need to be free of bugs like application loading lag, Bluetooth stack instability, and a browser that won’t choke on large web pages with the dreaded “This page is too large to be displayed” error.  LifeDrive owners know what I’m talking about.  Palm’s mobile browser problems should be mitigated by the introduction of Opera Mobile on the Palm OS platform if the recent news published to the Opera Watch website is correct.

In Conclusion

Palm is preparing a new version of the Palm OS based on a Linux kernel.  This new version of the Palm OS, which I’ve been calling Palm OS II, will bring many desirable features and the flexibility to implement new features that are not currently possible on today’s version of the Palm OS.  As Palm enters the final stages of development of the Palm OS II, they need to keep in mind that the new Palm OS needs to both look good and work well.  By that, I mean Palm OS II just has to work.  There can’t be any lag.  There can’t be instability in the communications stacks.  And the browser will need to tackle websites large and small.  In addition to all the foundational underpinnings, the Palm OS II needs to look good.  The user interface of the Palm OS has largely been the same since the original Pilot was introduced in 1996.  If Palm wants to have a consumer friendly phone, it needs to look cool.  To achieve that, the graphical elements need to look more like those found in Windows Vista and the Mac OS X.  Sometimes eye candy is just as important as functionality.

What do you think?  Let us know in the 1SRC forums.