TamsPalm - the Palm OS Blog

Now that the Centro review is over, it’s time to ask developers about their Centro-related feelings. Ever-talkative Jan Slodicka from Resco was willing to share his knowledge and feelings with you - tune in for an interesting look at the Centro’s effects on software sales!

Please tell us more about you and your company
Hi Tam, first - thank you for the pleasure of being interviewed by one of the top Palm OS bloggers.
Some of your readers will know my name and even more of them will have some association when hearing the name Resco. Well, it’s primarily a PPC company, but we have created also couple of Palm OS titles that have a broad audience. Resco Explorer, Viewer, Backup and other titles are all leaders in their respective category. Plus there is attractively priced Resco Suite - the all-in-one package. (Old Resco users have interesting discounts).

Have you already handled a Centro yourself? If yes, how do you feel about it. If not, why not!
Unfortunately, I did not. First of all we have a lot of Palm devices in-house and as far the Palm OS modifications are concerned, Centro should behave more or less identically to the latest Treo models. Hence I don’t feel a real need.

Do you feel like the Centro could become a mayor source of income for developers given the target demographics
That’s the main problem - the user demographics. Centro sells wonderfully and acc. to the specs it is a very good PDA. Unfortunately, we do not see corresponding impact on the sales.

To tell the truth, Centro ranks as the device #3 in our sales stats after Palm TX and Treo 755p and more or less on the same level as other newer Treo models - T680 and T700p. But since the Centro is the top-selling Palm handheld…

Acc. to Palm 95% Centro users get a data plan, i.e. they buy the relatively cheap locked version. These users will hardly buy software.

Have you seen users migrating to the Centro from other devices? If yes, which were the most affected? Would you migrate yourself?
I got occasional user reports of such migration. Of course - the old Resco users asking for a new registration. But I can’t judge if there is any trend.

I would migrate - if my old device stopped working. Of course - unless we decided to say farewell to the Palm OS programming.

Do you think that the Centro’s camera is good enough?
I am no big photoshooter. (Despite we created an excellent photo viewer - added by yours truly). I take pictures a few times a year and then my requirements are higher. In other words - nothing for me.

Has Palm done a good job helping developers to get their apps Centro-ready before release?
Was there any such action? And was there any need for it? The OS is the same since years and there are only very few things where you would do something Centro-specific. For example all our titles have just one Centro-dependent thing - reaction to the Home button. (I apologize to Resco News users that the promised patch was not yet released - it is ready and will hit the road soon).

Have you experienced technical issues porting your apps to the Centro? If yes, of what kind have they been?
Partially answered above. But it is basically the same as for other new Treo
models: For example if the Explorer user opens an html file in the Blazer, then the Home button needs to be handled specifically.

One small thing is the run-time device recognition. Palm broke the rules applied to the last Treo models. (I mean companyID and deviceID.) If they went the old way, there would be no need to patch our apps.

Which device do you currently use yourself(and why)?
I am still a Treo 650 user. It fits to my needs and I am a bit lazy to change the device if there is no real need.

Feel like giving us a sneek peak at your upcoming apps which are optimized for Centro?
If you tell me some substantial difference, we could consider it. Maybe the point is that the Centro apps should be designed differently - with stress on UI rather than on the functionality. This isn’t the best message for us as our apps always tried to be the leaders in functionality.

We were thinking of adding for example sweeps to the Viewer, but I would like to first see that Centro really starts selling software.

Anything you’d like to add?
Thanks for running this great blog.

After a few delays, the editorial part of our Centro review has finally come to an end. In case anyone of you missed any parts, here’s a quick overview:
Centro unlocked GSM review - unboxing
Centro unlocked GSM review - physical
Centro unlocked GSM review - size
Centro unlocked GSM review - screen
Centro unlocked GSM review - system and performance
Centro unlocked GSM review - camera

The overall review was rather negative…even though the box is said to sell by the cartload. How does that go together?

I personally thank everyone who talked back about how he was happy with his Centro - comments are what keeps sites such as this one alive. However, I still stick don’t like the box…read on to find out more.

Palm’s Centro sells very well…to teenagers, soccer moms and other people who aren’t interested in the technology behind phones. For them, the Centro is interesting because of the keyboard that speeds up typing - any everything else is in the lands of dragons.

For them, the Centro is ideal. However, for people who really stress their handheld with things like video playback, spreadsheets, PDF’s,.. - the device IMHO is too small. People who currently have a Treo should carefully evaluate the Centro’s size - as sweet as the small size may appear, as annoying it becomes when using the box for an extended period of time.

The Centro definitely is a great device - but it’s not a great device for a power user like me. And this is what I tried to express in the review…not more, not less…

But this isn’t the end of our Centro coverage - stay tuned for a bunch of interviews with leading developers!

Palm has recently announced that it plans to end it’s “Minimum Advertised Price(MAP)” policy effective June the 1st. Cutting a long story short, an MEP is a manufacturer’s policy that aims to hinder retailers to sell devices at price points lower than a specific point(to prevent price battles).

Apparently, the orange folks never did too good a job at enforcing their policy - all recently-released Palm devices have fallen significantly below the list price very quickly.

Seeing Palm give up this policy is great from my point of view - it shows that the orange folks finally start to understand that they are not Apple(even though they have many ex-Apple employees :-)). Having list prices that are sky-high and rock-bottom over-the-counter prices(sometimes as little as 50% of the official MSRP) is a very bad sign IMHO…and seeing Palm understand this definitely is a step in the right direction…

The Austrian branch of Expansys currently does a blowout on b-stock of a special edition of the original
Palm Zire(the DragonBall-powered one):

In case anyone of you still needs such a box for his PDA collection, it can be had for 23€ via this web site…

P.S. In case you do get your hands on one: PLEASE send me a few pics!

Long gone are the days of Palm’s classic TV ads(anyone remember the one for the Palm V). Nevertheless, sometimes, a carrier helps Palm’s products to get on TV - and Sprint apparently plans to do just that!

The folks at BrightHand’s managed to get their hands on a film that they claim is made by ad agency Stardust and that shows the Centro - unfortunately, the film currently does not play on my workstation(all I can see are a few images of a Centro surfing the web).

In case anyone of you wants to take a look, please give them a click here and scroll to the bottom of the page…

Over the years, two types of screen protectors have been developed: reflecting and non-reflecting ones. Like with laptop screens, reflecting(glossy) screens offer better contrast, while matte screens are better outdoors. Unlike most other manufacturers, Proporta never entered the market for glossy screen protectors - can their matte offering stack up?

The screen protector ships in a huge blister inside of Proporta’s standard envelope:

Proporta included a special screen cleaning cloth, the protector and an application card:

Applying the screen protector is rather easy: first, the the old protector is removed. After that, the screen is given a good rubbing with the orange side of the cloth - the final step involves gluing the protector onto the screen and hoping that no dust was captured(I didn’t have such luck).

Once the protector is on the device, the screen’s reflecting properties change. Reflections are gone for good;the maximum contrast and brightness sink by approximately 5 to 10%. However, the lack of reflections significantly improves outdoor usability - look at the images below for a quick comparison:

In the end, the Proporta Advanced Screen Protector definitely is worth having; as it significantly improves the outdoor readability of the Treo’s screen(less glare). If you have a Treo and use it outdoors, definitely get this 10$ thingy….you’ll not regret it!

Palm’s phones never were famous for their imaging capabilities - in fact, the Treo 600 was almost universally loathed due to its gruesomely bad VGA “noiseograph”…but nobody really cares about the camera on a business smartphone anyways. Palm’s Centro is targeted at consumers who do care about cams…is it worth it?

The Centro’s camera has a native resolution of 2MP, which leads to 1600×1200 images. The lens is a classic fixed one(no autofocus here); and don’t even ask about a flash LED.

Here are a few sample images from the Centro’s cam - click on the icons to see them in their native size.

As for the 2x digital zoom - its effect is illustrated in these indoor pictures:

In the end, the image quality of the Centro’s cam won’t make anybody happy - Palm definitely wasted money on the ad in the JPG photography magazine. Yep…the Centro does make better pictures than a 680…but other boxen remain miles ahead.

Stay tuned for your final verdict and an interview series with leading developers!

The German c’t magazine reports that Asus has begun to replace the 5200mAh battery in its eee device with a smaller battery having a capacvity of just 4400mAh. This is said to reduce the endurance to 2.8h from 3.3h - Asus claims that the reduction is due to a fire at its battery supplier LG Chemicals(ever heard about second sourcing, folks?).

Anyways, the c’t claims that the outside of device’s boxen are not altered in any way - while some may call that an oversight, I feel that this smells a bit like wilful deception and fits well into the overall picture of a company that can not handle its recent success…

P.S. I have not bothered to send this article to Asus for a comment - the folks in their German press department have proven themselves useless for any kind of productive cooperation multiple times in the past! I don’t want wine and food - I want devices and valuable content for you guys!

The folks at Opera’s have updated their Opera Mini browser once again. The latest update is said to bring the improvements shown below:

The Opera Mini 4 servers have been upgraded with quite a few improvements. To begin with the servers should now be nicer to phones that are low on available memory. but what we are are especially pleased with the new feed system and hope you will like it too:
* Improved feed (RSS/Atom) viewer to support for bidirectional text and layout. Oh, and it’s faster.
* Fixed bug with select items being wrongly positioned.
* Fixed problem with images in object tags not being rendered correctly.
* Made sure image maps gets rescaled to fit the screen width.
* Fixed problem with page being zoomed in when going to page which is in history.
* Fixed problem with some phones with little memory getting too many images.
* The server now prioritizes sending images at the top of the document if the phone’s too low on memory to display them all.

And for those of you using the 4.1 beta client:
* Downloading of files which require authentication now works (gmail etc).
* Redesigned the file download page.

Please let us know if you feel any changes on your Treo!

A Palm insider has given us access to information that definitely and finally confirms the existance of two Palm devices currently codenamed Zeppelin and Skywriter.

The document that we are looking at covers a developer program that allows Palm’s favorite developers to make their applications ready for the two new devices AND maybe even comarket them with Palm. All applications must be submitted by May the 30th - this could point at a launch of the device(s) in Q3 2008.

Last but not least, a mock-up of the devices has been included and can be viewed at our sister site TamsPPC along with a copy of the original text!

Usually, the EFF’s newsletter is a rather boring, legalese thing that one reads to stay current. However, their last issue contained the gem below:

A bit of explanation: in Austria, a weird sect called Watchtower Society/Jehova’s Witnesses has plastered the streets with critters who hand out weird free “newspapers” called Watchtower and Wake Up! The funny thing(and where UMG gets into the picture) is that these peddlers always try to talk you into holding onto such a paper forever and never throwing it away(as if it were a handheld ;)):

In a brief filed in federal court, Universal Music Group
(UMG) states that, when it comes to the millions of promotional CDs (”promo CDs”) that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs, and other music industry insiders, throwing them away is “an unauthorized distribution” that violates copyright law. Yes, you read that right — if you’ve ever received a promo CD from UMG, and you don’t still have it, UMG thinks you’re a pirate.

This revelation came in a brief for summary judgment filed by UMG against Troy Augusto. Augusto buys collectible promo CDs at used record stores around Los Angeles and resells them on eBay. UMG sued him last year, claiming that the “promotional use only” labels on the CDs mean that UMG owns them forever and that any resale infringes copyright. EFF took Augusto’s case to fight for the proposition that a copyright owner can’t take away a consumer’s first sale rights just by putting a label on a CD. In other words, EFF believes that if you bought it, or if someone gave it to you, you own it.

For EFF’s legal perspective on the issue of “promo CDs” in UMG v. Augusto:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/umg_v_augusto/AugustoMSJBrief.pdf

For this complete post by EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred Von Lohmann:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/04/umg-says-throwing-away-promo-cds-illegal

Nice to know that the UMG now adopts sect-like marketing techniques. I guess that Gong! now has an entirely new meaning…

After having looked at the Centro’s hardware, it’s now time to move over to the device’s interior… . Do we see a completely overhauled box, or just a tiny incremental upgrade?

Looking at the Centro’s launcher, one can see that little has changed. The Camcorder app known from the Treo 650 is back, and PocketTunes was upgraded to the DeLuxe edition.

Unfortunately, Palm rehashed the Treo 680’s phone app on the GSM Centro:

Also, Palm’s Voice Dialing Software is included for free:

Performance-wise, the Centro is very much on par with the Treo 680 - which is unsurprising, as they are all based on the same 312MhZ iPXA processor. The images below show its Speedy results:

Interestingly, the Centro writes to memory cards very quickly - the ratings achieved with the stock SanDisk card from my Qtek 8500 is the best I have ever seen on a Palm device:

Here’s a shot of the memory sizes - as one can see, the device has plenty of RAM and DBCache:

In the end, the Palm Centro is little more than a Treo 680 with PocketTunes Deluxe in ROM. The device’s performance matches the Treo’s almost 1:1 except for the significantly faster memory card access - tune in soon for a look at the device’s camera…

Just in case anyone of you wonders about what became of Aceeca’s Windows Mobile-powered Meazuras - the MEZ1500 is now starting field trials with a few nice special offers.

Please head over to our sister site TamsPPC for the full scoop!

Use the discount code CHEAPYPUS to get 20% off the product in the TamsShop! This discount code is also valid for the PPC and WMS versions of the game!
AstraWare’s side-scroller Zap2000 remains one of the most popular Palm OS action games ever - it was bundled with some versions of the Treo 600 and is included into the ROM of a lot of GSPDA phones. The title’s age has provoked a few new launches including the excellent - now, AstraWare tries to reclaim the crown..

The game is organized into levels; each of these contains a few areas:

Each area contains primary and secondary targets - while secondary targets can usually be taken apart with a single shot, primary targets can take quite a beating(and have cool damage textures):

There is a huge variety of primary and secondary targets - players will definitely not get bored with this game:

At the end of each area, a ‘tally’ is made and bonus points are awarded:

Platypus’s power-up system unfortunately isn’t based on money - instead, special waves of enemies drop colored stars that provide approximately 30secs worth of one of four advanced weapons. Unfortunately, the timer starts to tick immediately after the object is picked up and keeps running even when you shoot - not exactly amusing for a shooter pro:

Some bonuses can be shot. Weapon stars sometimes change their color under fire; bonus fruits break up to provide more points(but are more difficult to catch):

The graphics are comic-like, but provide an amazing amount of details in some scenarios. Volcanoes in the background erupt, ships fly along…someone spent a lot of time tinkering with this:

This review looked at version of Platypus on a Treo 680. The game was exceptionally stable in the reviewing period, although the Treo powered off a few times while the game was running. Platypus needs 4MB of RAM, but can be run off an external memory card.

In the end, Platypus definitely isn’t an epochal work that changes the face of the shooter genre forever. However, it nevertheless is an excellent game that will surely make all shooter freaks very happy. Some tactical subtleties like bonuses that transform when shot add tactical depth - as for the comic graphics…these are a love-or-hate thing. If you love sidescrollers, definitely get this 20$ game in the TamsShop!