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Palm... Or "how to blow your lead by wasting half a decade doing nothing". I _loved_ my Palm Treo 600, that was released 5 freaking years before the first iPho

Palm... Or "how to blow your lead by wasting half a decade doing nothing". I _loved_ my Palm Treo 600, that was released 5 freaking years before the first iPhone. It had everything I needed, but the OS felt anachronistic even in 2003. So I was eagerly awaiting for Palm OS 6 to come, so I could upgrade. And waiting. And waiting. And then Palm died.

nicolas_t 2y ago
Same. I did really like webos when it was finally released, I got one of those HP touchpad and happily used it. But it was too little, too late.
Nevermark 2y ago
I was so frustrated. The number of times companies take the lead then sit on their lead until it dies has often bothered me deeply! The downside to being a passionate customer & engineer. — I felt similarly with Netscape. If Navigator had been consistently both web browser and editor, it would have been a better product, a real service in keeping the web a two way tool for most people. Tim Berners-Lee’s vision tied creation & browsing together, which is why the web happened at all. Staying true to that would have produced more value, and maintained enough (constructive) lock in for Netscape to keep innovating in a way that mattered. Instead they announced their imagined threat to Windows, before that threat was realistic, then drowned in Microsoft’s response. And the disparity in their emphasis on browsing vs. creation left a big hole in the side of their boat, leaving them extremely vulnerable to browser competitors. Microsoft was convicted in court for product tying & other over anti-competitive behavior. But Netscape was convicted in the market for not fulfilling the full circle value of the web they were pioneering. They commoditized themselves. And the web has never recovered from the unnecessary creation/browsing dichotomy. I was so mad at them! (Laughing tears emoji)
ndiddy 2y ago
Palm didn't have anything to do with Palm OS 6, they spun off Palm OS development to a company called PalmSource (later ACCESS). Palm OS 6 was finished around 2004, but never shipped on a device because the performance was horrible compared to Palm OS 5. This was due to poor software architecture. PalmSource threw out the kernel used by previous versions of Palm OS and replaced it with a microkernel that focused on message-passing between processes. Most of the Palm OS API got re-implemented using IPC. This meant that each API call would require at least two context switches, more if the API implementation needed to make another API call that was implemented with IPC. The ARM chips that were available at that point flushed their caches on each context switch. The result was that doing something like opening an address book with around a thousand entries went from taking a few hundred ms to taking seconds, as displaying each entry required an IPC call to the service responsible for handling contacts data. It's definitely a shame, as Palm OS 5 is a stopgap OS that got shipped on devices way after the point it became obsolete. Third-party developers couldn't even write native ARM software, they had to compile for 68k and add small chunks of ARM code for performance intensive areas where the 68k->ARM emulation became a bottleneck.
- cyberax 2y ago
  That's interesting. I've read before that it was mostly due to licensing disagreements rather than performance problems. I'd love to read more about that period.
- r00fus 2y ago
  Palm not having anything to do with PalmOS6 is entirely a problem with Palm.
deanCommie 2y ago
But...literally part of the explanation is this email and what it represents? Apple participated in an illegal anti-competitive anti-worker chilling of the market. If they hadn't, perhaps some of the people that worked on iPhone over the next decade might have joined Palm, and improved it. Instead, Apple retained them and artificially deflated their wages at the same time. Don't get me wrong, Palm is still more to blame. But...there's a reason Jobs perpetuated this policy. He knew the value one or two key people can make in changing the entire history of product and technology.
ActorNightly 2y ago
The landscape of mobile devices shifted from business to consumer, and companies just didnt care enough to start appealing to the new market.

nicolas_t 2y ago

Same. I did really like webos when it was finally released, I got one of those HP touchpad and happily used it. But it was too little, too late.

Nevermark 2y ago

I was so frustrated. The number of times companies take the lead then sit on their lead until it dies has often bothered me deeply! The downside to being a passionate customer & engineer. — I felt similarly with Netscape. If Navigator had been consistently both web browser and editor, it would have been a better product, a real service in keeping the web a two way tool for most people. Tim Berners-Lee’s vision tied creation & browsing together, which is why the web happened at all. Staying true to that would have produced more value, and maintained enough (constructive) lock in for Netscape to keep innovating in a way that mattered. Instead they announced their imagined threat to Windows, before that threat was realistic, then drowned in Microsoft’s response. And the disparity in their emphasis on browsing vs. creation left a big hole in the side of their boat, leaving them extremely vulnerable to browser competitors. Microsoft was convicted in court for product tying & other over anti-competitive behavior. But Netscape was convicted in the market for not fulfilling the full circle value of the web they were pioneering. They commoditized themselves. And the web has never recovered from the unnecessary creation/browsing dichotomy. I was so mad at them! (Laughing tears emoji)

ndiddy 2y ago

Palm didn't have anything to do with Palm OS 6, they spun off Palm OS development to a company called PalmSource (later ACCESS). Palm OS 6 was finished around 2004, but never shipped on a device because the performance was horrible compared to Palm OS 5. This was due to poor software architecture. PalmSource threw out the kernel used by previous versions of Palm OS and replaced it with a microkernel that focused on message-passing between processes. Most of the Palm OS API got re-implemented using IPC. This meant that each API call would require at least two context switches, more if the API implementation needed to make another API call that was implemented with IPC. The ARM chips that were available at that point flushed their caches on each context switch. The result was that doing something like opening an address book with around a thousand entries went from taking a few hundred ms to taking seconds, as displaying each entry required an IPC call to the service responsible for handling contacts data. It's definitely a shame, as Palm OS 5 is a stopgap OS that got shipped on devices way after the point it became obsolete. Third-party developers couldn't even write native ARM software, they had to compile for 68k and add small chunks of ARM code for performance intensive areas where the 68k->ARM emulation became a bottleneck.

cyberax 2y ago
That's interesting. I've read before that it was mostly due to licensing disagreements rather than performance problems. I'd love to read more about that period.
r00fus 2y ago
Palm not having anything to do with PalmOS6 is entirely a problem with Palm.

deanCommie 2y ago

But...literally part of the explanation is this email and what it represents? Apple participated in an illegal anti-competitive anti-worker chilling of the market. If they hadn't, perhaps some of the people that worked on iPhone over the next decade might have joined Palm, and improved it. Instead, Apple retained them and artificially deflated their wages at the same time. Don't get me wrong, Palm is still more to blame. But...there's a reason Jobs perpetuated this policy. He knew the value one or two key people can make in changing the entire history of product and technology.

ActorNightly 2y ago

The landscape of mobile devices shifted from business to consumer, and companies just didnt care enough to start appealing to the new market.