Which mobile OS will survive?

Palm News 4 Responses »
May 022009

2009 04 30 Temp Poll Result MobileOS Which mobile OS will survive?
Clemens Schuchert is well-known among German mobile computing heads – his PUGCast podcast has featured the Tamoggemon Content Network and its staff multiple times.

His latest field of activity is a large survey which looks at how device users perceive the future of various operating systems. Even though he has not quite reached the number of participants he needs for a statistically valid result, his findings so far are interesting:

Thus, until now, two third of you believe iPhoneOS to be the most future safe mobile operating system. This underlines Apple success of the iPhone introduction about 2 years ago.

Followed by Windows Mobile, which even more than the half of PUGcast readers believe to be the one to run future devices with.

Sybian and Android is equal about 40 % and it’s hard to argue which one will succeed: Both are open source and address a huge developper community.

Surprisingly, Palm’s new webOS (the successor of 15 years old PalmOS), is only of interest for about one fourth of the readers, which leaves room for interpretation. Do people not believe in the new mobile operating system or do they simply do not know enough about it at this stage to argue about it’s future?

Let your readers tell us what they believe?
Go here http://tr.im/k5yu and vote

P.S. When asked about where the RIM OS was, I got the following reply from him:

BlackberryOS is considered in the poll, however it is not in the summary due to nill votings so far…

Posted by Tam Hanna, Site Founder at 7:32 pm

Sony PRS505 – Kindle, European Style

Hardware News No Responses »
May 012009

So far, ebooks have been a non-issue for European book sellers: nobody cared about them, nobody wanted them and nobody talked about them either. The release of the Kindle changed it all: suddenly, ebooks were hip.

In Austria, everything tech is suspicious – but the bookseller Thalia nevertheless started to market the PRS505. Here is a box shot:
0a Sony PRS505 Kindle, European Style

Size-wise, the device is big but thin:
1a Sony PRS505 Kindle, European Style 1b Sony PRS505 Kindle, European Style

Screen clarity is ok, contrast is insane:
2a Sony PRS505 Kindle, European Style

The screen sometimes is refreshed “partially”. If this happens, artifacts remain visible:
3a Sony PRS505 Kindle, European Style

This one is especially interesting for long-term Palm heads – Kinoma was involved in the development of the PRS505:
4a Sony PRS505 Kindle, European Style

Don’t ask me why, but the device can be “powered off” with a switch at the top of the device. This clears the screen => useless extra power consumption. BTW: memory sticks can be used to expand the storage capacity of the device:
5a Sony PRS505 Kindle, European Style

Here is a video showing the (sometimes somewhat slow) UI in action:

According to a helpful clerk, less than 10000 units have been sold all over Austria as of this writing (sales began on the 1st of April). Nevertheless, the store is extremely happy – according to them, sales have “exceeded expectations by far”.

Customer reactions were cool: a lawyer from Austria’s Hauser Partners LLP was extremely impressed, but missed the touchscreen and wondered “where the touchscreen was”.

In the end, Austria definitely isn’t the market of choice for all things high-tech – but the PRS505 seems to fare surprisingly well despite the insane price of 300 Euros. The e-paper display is nothing short of impressive…if Sony would only be able to improve usability…

Posted by Tam Hanna, Site Founder at 1:08 am
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