It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's not Centro

There's been a lot of buzz about the new device our friends across the "pond" are planning to announce on September 12th...and it's not the Palm Centro smartphone!

Check back later for more info.

-Stephanie Richardson

Comments

[rpa]

Glad to hear Palm is listening. Now, for my request: a Palm flip phone like the Motorola Ming, please....

[mstein]

Wow, what happened? Did your Maketing Director use a web browser and see how other people start marketing their product?

A teaser? On your rarely updated blog? We like. When's the follow up? Two weeks from now?

Next thing we'll see all black ads with nothing but the Palm Logo and "coming Sept 12th" with a deep voice that says "A new beginning".

Whether it is on not will remain to be seen. I certainly hope so.

Stein

[bob]

Never mind the hoopla. Fix the 700p, please.

[Pedro Bravo]

Please Make it compatible to sync with ITunes. I have been a treo user since the 180, and a MAC user since the mac color classic. So we can sync with more options and not limited to 3rd party apps. Can you do with MISSING SYNC, the same you did with Docs to Go?

[MB]

An Associated Press story today mentioned using Palm handhelds to help brain injured servicemembers back from the war. You can find it on Yahoo in the news area, look for headline "Thousands of GIs cope with brain damage"

But they still call it a Palm Pilot. Guess some good press is better than none.

[Tomming]

It's like saying, "Stop dreaming! You will not get a Palm Centro anytime soon!" Well, at least, it sounds like that to me and many other Palm fans in the Greater China area...

Actually, what's the point for this blog post? Isn't it better to give people a big surprise (it's NOT CENTRO!) on 12 Sep instead of now?? By 12 Sep, I suppose, the Bird or the Plane can give people something to talk about. But now, people tend to only relate Centro with Foleo...

[Matt Hudson]

I love that Palm has focused and is heading into bright days! I hope that the new releases will be as functionally advanced (having comparable audio, video, & web apps) OUT of the BOX as the competitors are. Things are looking great for the big orange!

[Choda Boy]

How about addressing the MANY PROBLEMS with the 700p??? Is this new phone going to be a free replacement? If not, you should either fix the 700p, or give us a free replacement that WORKS!

[Tony]

New products are great...but where is the "Official" WM6 release for AT&T's Treo 750?!?!?!? It was announced over 6 months ago!!!!

[Brent]

From what I've read it's the Treo 500 (fka Gandolf). Which just seems another step back in time. And not in a good way.

[Concerned Fan]

When you guys at Palm replied to Engadget's recommendations, it made me feel hopeful.

When you guys at Palm cancelled the Foleo, it made me feel hopeful.

But when Apple dropped the price of their 8Gb iPhone to $399, it made me feel sad for Palm.

$399 gets us a Treo 680 with less than 500Mb compared to 8,000Mb in the iPhone.

Palm, please give us the next Treo 680 soon!! Otherwise, our hopes will fade and you may lose us as customers.

[Ollie]

Damn! A WinMob device? Whats going on with you guys?! We want PalmOS!

[Luigi D. sandon]

I am awaiting a new Treo with WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and maybe GPS to substitute my "old" one that reached its end-of-life. But I can't still see any new model but a rumored low-end one I am not interested in.
Meanwhile Palm wasted resources in the foolish Foleo. Should I get an HTC TyTN II instead? I can't wait much more...

[Joe M]

I hoping it's the Treo 800. I'm hoping it's CDMA, 3G, WiFi, more RAM, maybe some onboard Storage. I'm not sure whether I care if it's palm OS or WM OS. I'm leaning towards WM, but the phone functionality must be solid. Bluescreening phones are utterly unacceptable. I just want a new Treo for Verizon Wireless, that's not last years model, still costing $399.

[uka]

I have been using (And carrying in my backpack right now) the Handspring Visor Edge with Palm OS 3.5 for years, it is compact, has a datebook and address book.

Today my 5 year old GSM mobile phone's screen died, so, I was looking for a new all-in-one device with a minimalist design...

The Palm 680 almost fit the bill, except that it doesn't have WiFi and it is 2007, and boasts a huge price tag for what if offers compared with the rest of the options in the market.

Hopefully this new device will have what is needed today: WiFi, bluetooth, Linux or other hackable environment, powerful enough to play h.264 videos at least in QVGA, SDHC support, Palm OS cute interface (Actually, I like it a lot, is intuitive and beyond the time test). And of course, close to $250.

[Roberto bacci]

Nice blog but the user assitance for european user is really bad
(sorry if i post here ) but in europan site (italian) is impossible mail to assitance center.
I have purchased treo750v he broken after 1 months of use.
I receive new one with dif imei and serial number (whitout box and documentation from vodafone reseller)
1) i can't reinstall tom tom navigator 6 because the serial is different
2) i cant upgrade new at windows mobile 6 because the software appear downloaded from other user.
i cant write at anyone for support.
The palm knolowdwge library is a TRAP for dissuasion
not a assistante location

I think is my last pal smarthpone.

[CR Ball]

I saw a pic of it and was not very impressed. Not a full-size screen, same keyboard on the bottom.

Here's what I'd like to see:

Full-size screen
Slide out Keyboard like the HTC Mogul
Linux-based multi-touch OS
Firefox or Opera (way better than Safari) with mobile plugins, and gesturable
Wi-Fi N
Bluetooth
Hot New Desktop Program and Sync
that follows calendar standards
add to that 3rd Party support for
Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote, Quicken, and...DRUMROLL - Songbird open-source music player, and you have THE killer device.

[roman]

so much hype for such a bland new model as the treo 500.

keypads are too small. cute, but not usable.

sigh, still waiting for something good and innovative from palm...

[S. Croucher]

Good morning. It is the 12th and I see no news on the palm website.

Come on, I'm excited!

[victor]

Ah, I just gotten myself an Asus P525 to replace my trusty Palm m505. I couldn't resist to go Win mo route for the device's feature set and price comparision (was on sale). However, I'm still waiting to see the new palm launch, whatever it would be.

[PalmDied]

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's the 'not-got-a-clue'...

Funny that an American company chooses to introduce this in the UK... but then we don't yet have the iphone. Thing is guys, we might all talk funny over here, but we still know stuff too - we know what an iphone is. We know what it can do. We know it's coming here too. Did you think we might, err, doh, buy the 'not-got-a-clue'? Doh indeed.

But seriously, what have you guys REALLY been doing since the 650 to justify your salaries? I mean, other than the 'not-got-a-clue' and the 'folly-oh'? Guys, do you know what it means to fall on one's sword? Form an orderly queue (that's a quaint British culture).

[Patrick]

I don't know how you could say this is not the Centro. It IS the Centro - only running Windows Mobile.

I think someone at Palm needs to stop hitting the snooze button.

[ohboyohboy]

Oh Yawn. Palm has got to stop "hyping" product announcements that feature ho-hum technology. It's an anti-climax and it's crying wolf with your fans.

Now get off the PR soapbox and fix my 700p already.

[Jerry F. Giardina]

I would like to see Palm response to this article in Palminfocenter.com

Is Palm going to make the Treo Faithful wait 6-12 months for our Linux Treo's. (this is wrong)Why did you do all the development on the Foleo and forget about your main source of revenue! Please Palm come forward and give us some real information. Why wait do we have to wait another year for an OS that was supposed to be this year. Why continue to exploit the aging garnet OS. If Ed mentions this in an interview come forward and give us the real deal and real information, when to expect our New Linux Treos and the spec's on them. I see everywhere on Treo Central that your users are unhappy to say the least!

Posted By: Kris Keilhack on Friday, September 14, 2007 11:07:37 AM
In an intriguing article published by the UK's Guardian newspaper, Palm’s CEO, Ed Colligan, admits in an interview this week that “it will be 12 to 18 months” before a Palm smartphone running a Linux-based OS appears. This information, while slightly contradictory to earlier reports, is nevertheless a sign that all may not be well with Palm's in-house OS developmental efforts.

The guardian article, while offering little in the way of new information, does a solid job of providing a nutshell summary of the myriad of reasons leading to Palm’s current doldrums, such as the aging Garnet OS architecture, reduced revenue and consolidation in the PDA market, and the lack of differentiation amongst the Treo line in the face of increasingly fierce competition.

Ed Colligan recently admitted on the Palm Blog that the main reason behind Palm's cancellation of the Foleo was the cost and effort of a two-pronged effort to develop the Foleo and its OS alongside a smartphone-centric Linux platform. Yet the Guardian article goes one step further and offers the suggestion that perhaps even trying to develop one new Linux-based OS in-house is too much for Palm to bite off in its current state. Such OS development is resource intensive, and, as an analyst quoted in the article says, "more of a distraction from the path it should be taking."

The Guardian piece concludes with this final paragraph:

"The risk for Palm is that the company might end up put all its focus into owning a shiny new software infrastructure for its handsets, but lack the resources and attention to build the services that customers want."

[funny videos]

If you do business, and want a "smart" phone, then get a Blackberry, you just can't beat it. Great article by the way.