PalmInfoCenter recently picked up a story about how the Handera 330 supports 4GB memory cards. The story “provoked” a Handera executive to the following comment(linked above) – I broke it up and added comments:
I can honestly say we did not intentionally design our unit to work with the 4Gig cards, but sometimes you get lucky. We tested the 330 with the 1G Micro drive at the time, so we made sure that it would work with larger SD or CF cards.
=) – there were no such cards back then when this Palm OS device was developed!
FYI, a few quick notes …
HandEra is indeed still around, in fact we still have all the same engineers that worked on our Palm products (all 10 of us
). Today, we work primarily with WinCE and Windows Mobile, however, we still work on Palm OS devices for other licensees.
I’m sure we won’t come out with another consumer type device, but we private label devices for our WinCE customers.
It would be very interesting to know for which licensees Handera is working – although we will probably never find that out!
Oh yes, we did get a color 330 to the preproduction stage. In fact Doug DeVries still uses it here. (sorry, no we don’t have any left)
Here’s the bomb – so all the rumors and photos were true!
We enjoyed our time as a Palm OS licensees and wished we could have remained one, however it did not work out, and we spent the past few years transitioning to WinCE.
I want to thank everyone in the Palm community for supporting HandEra. Hopefully, you’ll be hearing of interesting things coming out of Des Moines, Iowa again.
Often asked questioned of Iowans. “What coast is Iowa on?”
It would be very interesting to know why this screwed up/who screwed them up. If it was an old fight with Palm about licensing the Palm OS, this should no longer be a problem because Palm no longer has any kind of control over the Palm OS(the benefit of the PalmOne/PalmSource split).
As said, it would be very interesting to get a comment here – anyone has a Handera contact?
Thanks to Ryan from PalmInfoCenter for pointing this out!
Related posts:
Content, RSS
Twitter
I still have my H330 (the battery door is broken, any idea to find one ?) and it was the best Palm III device never built !
What a incredible mistake to not have sell the color one…
I too still have my H330. While not the most aesthetic device (though still nice), it was years ahead of it’s time in terms of features.
As far as what ended Handera’s time as a PalmOS licensee, it was PalmSource pricing them out of the game via license fees. PS raised the costs of licensing to the point that Handera would have gotten no return on the investment.
Honestly, Palm, PalmSource, et al have done more to shoot themselves in the foot than any other companies I can think of. First, they alienate their largest licensee (Sony), then they price out all of the “little guys” that are making innovative devices, then buy out Handspring, the only major licensee left, and commence to let Palm die by failing to innovate even the tiniest bit.
I still love my H330 though, even if it isn’t my daily PDA anymore.
Hi,
it probably was Palm going all eeker about their competitors. But now that PalmSource and Palm are seperated again, there is little that hinders Access from making extra money of their essentially now dead Garnet IP…
Best regards
Tam Hanna
[Nieuws] HandEra bevestigt eindelijk bestaan kleuren-PDA…
I found your entry interesting so I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog
…