The Palm Centro has now reached Latin America – and Palm has chosen to celebrate this with a little press party(with a bunch of important attendants including Ed Colligan).
Anyways, the folks at PoderPDA’s have a somewhat detailed report with a bunch of pictures – find it all here:
http://www.poderpda.com/content/view/4567/1/
The PalmGear -> PocketGear merger has caused pain and agony for many developers(I have heard many horror stories, and also had my fair share of bad experiences). However, the story sent in by developer Dan Nabutovsky truly puts morphine icing on the valium cake developers need to stay calm – read on:
Ok, here is my story. Hope this helps me.
At the end of 2007, palmgear created new site, Pocketgear.com. My program has not been moved to the new site. After a careful search, I found the following sentence in their site:
“While we have eliminated much of the outdated and freeware listings, actively selling current titles have been migrated to the new PocketGear.”
(http://www.pocketgear.com/en_US/html/developersGuide.jsp)My application (Agushka Backgammon) was neither free($9.95) nor outdated (I upgraded it at the end of 2007). Its last sale on palmgear.com was on October 10, 2007. It is also remarkable that they removed freeware programs, while at the same time they claim to “provide our customers with the premiere place to go for all of their smartphone content.” As we all know, customers just hate freeware.
Nobody bothered to inform me about my application not being accepted at the new site or about a new site at all. Pocketgear.com simply told that “There is no customer with the e-mail address you specified.” All my e-mail requests about the issue were ignored. I should myself discover what happened and how to get into my developer address (throw developers.palmgear.com)
For some obscure reason, sales of my application stopped on palmgear (but continued on handango). This is in spite the fact that my application can be found on palmgear or pocketgear as easily as before.
I don’t see why should I keep an application which, according to pocketgear.com, does not bring any revenue. Therefore, I disabled it, but to no avail: it is still visible on palmgear. My emails about the issue were ignored.
Finally, I decided that I am fed up with palmgear. I increased the price from $9.95 to $19.95 and wrote them to remove my application because I have copyright on it. They, guess what, ignored my emails, AND they did not increase the price. Here I am, totally pissed at them, and don’t know how to get rid of this site.
Even though I personally can not complain about them ignoring my emails(of course, being the webmaster of a Palm Os web site does help a bit); many of the things Dan reports have also been confirmed to me by other (big) developers immediately after the switch.
Anyways, I have now forwarded the whole story to my contact PalmGear and expect a reply soon(will be published here). As always, MobiHand remains a cheap and unproblematic alternative; HandAngo remains expensive as always(but also is said to work well).
Do you have any horror stories to share? If yes, please send them to Tamog@gmx.at and I’ll see what we can achieve together!
Dear Readers,
we are proud to announce that TamsPalm now has a forum(shared with its sister sites). Even though we haven’t yet decided about the final design yet, we feel that the time is ripe to let you all loose on it.
Please visit the forum at http://forum.tamoggemon.com/; and get yourself an account(can take up to 30secs)! Then, hit the forum hard – please send bug reports and suggestions to Tamog@gmx.at or leave them as a comment here!
Best regards
The TamsForum team!
The folks at BrightHand’s have managed to get an official statement from Sprint’s – the 755p is not discontinued (yet):
The Treo 755p continues to be a strong product offering in Sprint’s lineup of Palm products which also includes the Centro and the Treo 700wx. Sprint has not discontinued the Treo 755p from its smartphone portfolio, however, we are currently addressing temporary outage of inventory which is why the handset is not currently featured as part of our online store at www.sprint.com. Sprint plans to continue offering these handsets and investing in new Palm products throughout 2008.
TreoCentral goes on to state that Sprint has had inventory problems – this could mean either insane popularity of shipment errors in Palm’s manufacturing process.
Anyways, responding to reader comments about Treo 680/755 vs Centro: folks, it is not a matter of going slimmer, less heavy, etc. For me, a device must have a minimum size to be used comfortably – too small a keyboard makes typing a pain in the neck. This is why Palm’s Treos have shrunken so slowly – in fact, most BlackBerry’s are as wide(but less thick).
The Centro is a device that appeals to casual users(irregardless if they purchase them or get them from corp IT) – people looking for a serious business device will look at another manufacturer’s (bigger) offerings…and this is where developer’s come into the equation.
Casual users do purchase software – but not the kind of software TamsPalm is writing about. They go for cheap Java games(ah, sorry, Palm hasn’t got a Java VM anymore); love heart indicators and flashy logos – stuff that established companies aren’t very much into…
Action-loaded 3d tank combat in the pocket of your hand…sounds like a perfect time waster if done right. RESETgame’s Tank Ace 1944 plans to be exactly this – can it stack up?
The game contains three different campaigns, containing a bunch of missions each:
All missions begin in a terrain map similar to Command&Conquer’s – the map displays the squares currently under combat. A quick tap begins your mission:
The tank can either be controlled with the 5way or via softkeys on the screen:
Terrains can be viewed from the top and in a 3d perspective; enemy tanks are rendered in impressive 3d:
Once you actually start driving around, the engine starts to ‘redraw’ the terrain whenever you leave a ’tile’. Since each redraw changes the view angle(and field of visibility), not loosing control is almost impossible. The 1-2sec lags don’t really help the game either:
Even though the developer took an insane effort attempting to create realistic graphics and varying terrain types, the gameplay is lackluster. Most of the time is spent looking for tanks – fighting them is rare:
This review looked at version 1.0 of the game on a Treo 680. Tank Ace needs approx. 750KB of memory and was stable in the testing period.
In the end, Tank Ace delivers its promise of 3d graphics – but at a high price. Finding enemy tanks is extremely hard(radar, anyone). The permanent ‘engine redraws’ happen at the worst possible moments(e.g. in a battle) – furtherly draining the already boring gameplay of fun. The company definitely tried hard – but Tank Ace is one of these games that should be avoided by all non-freaks…
Jan Slodicka from Resco’s has just informed me that his excellent Photo Viewer has seen an update!
Version 3 of the program improves the product’s fax support, makes cropping easier and is significantly faster when handling large folders. Owners of Treos with a green “call” key also get a new feature – they can now use this key in order to open the context menu.
People who have purchased the program in last year can get a new unlock key for free by following the procedures outlined on this web page. All other Resco Viewer owners must pay 50% of the regular price – more information on this option is to be found here.
Recently, there hasn’t been much good news coming out of Palm’s(except for the occasional Centro success story) – anyways, I am sorry to report the following new bits of bad news:
Sprint Treo 755p possibly EOL’d
The folks at treocentral’s report that Sprint representatives have informed them that Palm’s Treo 755p is now discontinued – the intended replacement is the Centro.
However, a silver 755p is rumored to be rereleased on April the 20th…
AT&T kills 680 on the 1st of June
In the same thread, another user claims that an AT&T Business Care Manager has informed him that AT&T will EOL the Treo 680 on the date mentioned above.
Treo 680 price falling
Amazon Austrtia currently lists the Treo 680 at just 250€, with prices falling fast.
In the end, the trend seems to be clear to me: business devices running Palm OS are on their way out of the marketplace. Even though the Palm OS may still stay alive a little longer due to the Centro; developers must look for alternatives immediately!
Like I promised before, I bought a copy of Dimitry Grinbergs “PowerDrive” two days ago.
Powerdrive allows (among other things) usage of any CF Card instead of the internal Microdrive.
The first part is fairly simple: Put PowerDrive on a SD Card and start the application. PowerDrive will then patch the OS on the Microdrive and will then copy the operating system to the SD card.
Now we come to the tricky part: PowerDrive will power down the Microdrive and you have to exchange it with the CF Card – while the LifeDrive ist switched on! (Don’t use any metal tools to pry the Microdrive loose…). After that is done, PowerDrive will repatition the CF Card and write the OS ono it. At this point you are given the option to change the size of the memory-portion used as “RAM” – everything between 16KB and 4GB is safe.
Twice the memory of an ordinary LD (Hands still shaking)
128 MB internal memory – big enough for me
I can’t show you the size of the internal drive since PalmOS refuses to display the size of drives > 4GB properly. But since I filled my LD with 7,5GB of pictures, videos and mp3s it really works as advertised.
Next thing to talk about is speed: According to VFSMark my CF Card is more then three times faster than the old Microdrive! This won’t make the LD as snappy as a TX – there’s still some lag when you start a big application – but you can hardly notice it (TCPMP needs less than 1 second to load its 2.1MB into the real Ram). The remaining lag might be the result of the LD still powering down the drive. That’s a great way to conserve energy when you still use the Microdrive – with a CF Card installed, this should be obsolete. Maybe Dmitry can fix this in a future version.
What’s left is a long-term test of the power consumption after the surgery. Since CF Cards draw a lot less power than a Microdrive, I expect a huge increase in running time.
My conclusion so far: 16 bucks (about 10 Euros, if you live in Europe) that are worth every single penny. Just imagine the money you save on cheap CF Cards (you can get the 32GB Card from Adata for around $150).
After my tests with the small Card are done, I’ll switch to a 32GB Adata
Aceeca has just changed the version number of the update to 600
Aceeca is one of the few manufacturers who still release firmware updates for their devices regularly. Unlike other companies, they also provide detailed change logs – in case anyone of you owns an Aceeca Meazura, please head over to Aceeca.com and get an update changing the following:
-Corrected battery dip issue which would turn the device off requiring two key presses on power to turn it back on again
-Corrected the screen blanking issue.
-Corrected issue where if device is on charger and battery is removed the charger would cause a high voltage on VBatt.
-If battery ID is wrong and plugged in, the device will now show plugged-in charging inhibited. Previously was showing not plugged-in and not charging which was confusing.
-Modified KeyCurrentState to query the keypad controller each time it is called, instead of just looking up a global. This way it is reflective of the key directly, not based on the global being updated.
-Increased the robustness of communications between the main processor and the keypad processor.
-Updated ROM to incorporate MeazuraLib_v306.
-This ROM now incorporates telephony APIs and SMS application.
-Modified serial driver to have added turn on delay time to ensure that the transceiver starts up correctly.
P.S. As usual for Aceeca – this is a free upgrade available to every Meazura owner, worldwide!
P.S.2 Kudos to the boys for their excellent customer care!
Thanks to our reader Peter from the UK, we now know that VersaMail 4 indeed can no longer sync. After reading about the problem on TamsPalm, he sent an email to the big orange folks, and found out the following:
“The functionality of being able to Sycronize your Centro, with the Palm Desktop 6.2 and HotSync Manager 7 with VersaMail, is not supported.”
They refer to KB ID 11149 which spells it all out in gory detail. It’s rather disappointing and curious since this facility was available in earlier versions of HotSync Manager.
Another reason to stay far from the Centro…Mark/Space really should port Missing Sync to Windows…
Apparently, things are very rotten in the state of T-Mobile – after the weird stories reported by TamsPalm readers some time ago, the company now decided to attack Engadget…
The reason for the bad blood is simple: the Engadget Mobile logo is magenta, just like T-Mobile’s logo. Someone in T-Mobile’s legal department decided to fight boredom by sending a letter requesting a name chgange(does that remind anyone of OZ Communications???).
As of now, nobody knows if T-Mobile plans to actually sue Engadget – if they do, the backlash could IMHO turn out to be extremely painful for the carrier…
Get the full scoop at Engadget’s – let’s stay tuned how it all turns out…
Opera has recently begun porting its desktop browser to various mobile devices(S60 review here, PocketPC reviews here and here) – the Palm OS was ignored so far(for various non-technical reasons not to be discussed here). However, Palm OS users that have the Palm Java VM installed on their device can use Opera Mini – can the latest beta release stack up?
As usual, a newly installed version of Opera Mini displays a page containing a quick “changelog” and the EULA – it must be accepted before the browser can be used:
Entering an URL now brings up an autocompletition tool – its recommendations are helpful even when visiting unknown URL’s:
Once an URL was visited, finding it again is really easy:
Another new feature is the integrated “download manager” – Opera Mini can now download files without forwarding them to the native browser. This has worked decently on my Treo, however, the Java VM’s permission dialogs became more and more garbled as time went by(forcing you to navigate them blindly with the 5way nav):
This “review” is based on beta 4.1.10781(downloadable here), and was performed on a Palm Treo 680 in T-Mobile Austria’s GPRS/EDGE network. The program was exceptionally stable while I tortured it a bit(not a single crash or hangup) – Blazer is significantly more troublesome to use.
In the end, Opera has clearly shown its commitment towards its mobile browser – each version gets significantly better. Opera’s excellent URL autocompleting was rated excellently in our review of the S60 version; and seeing this come to the Palm OS definitely is great! Blazer haters will be relieved to hear about Opoera now handling downloads itself – while downloading has never been much of an issue for me(I use the Nokia N71 for that as its on UMTS and thus faster than my Treo 680); I can imagine quite a few of you celebrating…
Proporta’s Mobile Device Charger started the ‘charge-on-the-go craze’ a few years ago. PPC Techs now tries to enter this lucrative market with the Lil’ Sync USB Mobile Power Pack – can it break the Proporta dominance?
My MDC arrived via FedEx in a large envelope. I didn’t have to pay any customs initially, but a small bill was later delivered to my house…
Inside the envelope was a small box containing the charger, a small USB/MiniUSB cable for charging and a manual:
At a first glance, the device feels rather small. And indeed, it is rather compact…although a bit fat and rather heavy(images next to Palm Treo 680, Proporta MDC and MDC micro):
PPCTechs stuck to the usual behavior – charge via MiniUSB, discharge via USB. However, no tips are included into your shipment box – use your sync cables or buy new ones…:
Unlike the MDC’s, the Lil’ Sync USB Mobile Power Pack is powered on and off with a switch. While this allows you to keep the device on for as long as you wish, the switch has a nasty habit to turn on alone while in your bag:
Three LED’s are used to indicate the remaining capacity. The top led also serves as charge state indicator – orange means charging, green means full. Unfortunately, the color switch happens gradually…and a full charge can take 10h or more:
I tested the Lil’ Sync USB Mobile Power Pack with a variety of devices and can confirm that it reliably charges them all. The insanely high capacity of the device(4400mAH) is significantly higher than any other device that’s currently on the market. I have attempted to discharge the device once – and failed miserably. My ipod, Treo(with radio on) and somewhat discharged ipaq all got refilled – no issues whatsoever here. Expect at least 2 charges from the device(unless your device has a very high battery capacity)!
In the end, PPC Techs Lil’ Sync USB Mobile Power Pack is the best portable charger for power users. Period. Even though it may be a bit heavier than its competitors, doesn’t ship with any tips and has issues with the power switch turning on accidentally, the insanely high capacity and rather compact form factor make this the king of chargers. Congratulations to PPC Techs – the price of 60$ is worth it!
P.S. The purchase link above takes you to a page on PPC Tech’s web site stating that this is a version for an ipaq 11x. This is due to the PPC tech’s web shop system’s need to bind each product to a device – but is completely irrelevant for what you actually receive.
Apparently, someone at Palm’s must be a fan of Eiffel 65′s evergreen, Blue(youtube link). Anyways, the Palm Centro is now available in blue(pictured below):
But, like with everything from Palm, there’s a hook to the matter. It’s only available to people in Mexico…
P.S. Want more pictures? Get them here…
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