VisorCentral.com - New PDA: Sony, Handera, or Handspring?

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VisorCentral.com (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/index.php)
- Visor General Chat (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=31)
-- New PDA: Sony, Handera, or Handspring? (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=20973)

Posted by Keefer Lucas on 01-23-2002 01:54 AM:

Carbonize this you.....

Lets all take a solemn pledge right now, that should Palm morph into a Linux/Unix derivitive OS that we shall all refrain from "Carbonizing" any Palm-based apps. I stopped reading MacWorld because the euphemism "Carbonize" as it pertains to porting to OS X started making me nauseous.

Posted by dkessler on 01-23-2002 02:20 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by foo fighter
Another question...where do you see the developer community going right now? Is it true that developers are beginning to transition to PocketPC? I am noticing more and more PalmOS apps for PPC. What are your thoughts?

PocketPC is definitely an attractive market for developers right now. In terms of "numbers" it's still a smaller market than PalmOS, but it's big enough to get a developer's interest. It's also worth mentioning that it's a market with higher profit margins. Selling a $10 app for a $200 Visor is asking folks to shell out 5% of the hardware purchase price. If you ask for the same investment from PocketPC owners you're talking about $20 - $30 ... and that's for an app that was probably easier to write than its PalmOS counterpart.

PocketPC is also an easier platform to write for. Though WinCE's APIs have a very "kludgy" feel (to me at least), it's still less restrictive than PalmOS. Some things that were very difficult to do on a Palm are quite a bit easier. And some of the flashy "bells and whistles" kind of stuff that was too impractical for the Palm is doable on PocketPC. It doesn't necessarily add value, but developers like to be able to show off a little

One last thing that's worth mentioning (before my rambling bores everyone to death

) is that PocketPC development tools, once a several hundred dollar purchase, are now a free download. I don't think this is because Microsoft is suddenly feeling generous

One traditional advantage of PalmOS (or Linux) development over WinCE is that you could do it with free tools. That lead to a lot "casual" developers creating small specialized apps that wouldn't exist if they had to invest several hundred dollars before they could even "learn" how to to develop for the platform. With the cost barrier to WinCE development removed, I think that by the end of the year PocketPC owners will see a significant increase in the number of small, specialized, inexpensive (or free) apps available for that platform.

__________________
<ul><li>Dave Kessler<br>President - Kopsis, Inc.</li></ul>

Posted by bookrats on 01-23-2002 03:33 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by dkessler
The point I was trying to make is that despite the legacy support, those ports must still happen. Users will be glad they can run their old apps, but they will not be content until native PalmOS 5 versions are available. And the longer that takes, the harder Palm will have to work to sell the new devices.

Yup -- I absolutely agree with you there. And getting back to your original point -- Palm can't get there without the developers.

__________________
Jeff Meyer

"And he died like he lived: with his mouth wide open."

Posted by Gameboy70 on 01-23-2002 07:17 AM:

I'm picking up a Kyocera QCP-6035 next week. I need wireless connectivity and device consolidation more than I need expansion or multimedia, so Sony and Handera are out for me.

Since Handspring has effectively dropped support for the Visor development community, I'm saying goodbye to the Prism. Despite the sex appeal of the Treo, a CDMA version appears to be on a distant horizon, so until one makes its debut, it's the Kyocera for me.

By the way, this thread has some great digressions!

__________________
Eye of Gameboy

Posted by yardie on 01-23-2002 10:26 AM:

No more PDA for me anymore

Like Handspring, I will be moving away from traditional PDAs to Communicators aka SmartPhones.

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