It is so sad to see an Operating System die, particularly one which has been around for so long, and which I’ve grown with and even written programs for.  I’m not referring to Windows XP, but to the Palm OS for handheld computers and smartphones. Some would say that it has been dead or dying for some time. When a Operating System dies, it seems that the software development tools start dying first. A week or so back I logged onto a website of a Palm OS development tool I’ve used to be dismayed at the news that the website and the forums were closing down soon.

The Palm Operating System’s replacement is the Palm webOS as featured in the Palm Pre. At present there is only one smartphone being sold by Palm which still runs the Palm OS – the Palm Centro. With Palm (the company) it is hard to tell how long the Centro will be around. On the Palm website, the Centro is referred to as “Access Powered“, but that merely means “Running Palm Operating System licensed from Access, previously known as PalmSource”.

If the Palm Centro was to be killed off tomorrow, and the Palm OS was officially dead,  people would continue to use Palm OS devices, from old Sony Clies to Tapwave Zodiacs.

Even though the iPhone is getting more useful with each firmware release, I’m still using a Tungsten C which runs Palm OS, while moving to a Treo 680, which also runs Palm OS. Of course, if the Palm Pre or another webOS based smartphone comes to Verizon, I would take a good hard look at it.

The launch of the Palm Pre is coming up soon, on June 6 (see Keith’s Blog posting “Palm Pre Debuts June 6“). This is a couple of days before Apple’s WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) where Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 3.0. Although I have used Palm products for years, and really wish Palm all the best with the launch of their new smartphone and the webOS, the thought of switching to the Palm Pre, or at least trying it has not even crossed my mind. There are a lot of technology experts studying it with interest and ready to jump in. Maybe if the Palm Pre wasn’t being released on Sprint first I would be more interested. Personally I have had one bad experience with Sprint which put me off them totally.

Palm does seem a bit touchy about their webOS though. Several months ago, TealPoint Software came out with a launcher for the Palm called TealOS. It mimicked the look and feel of the WebOS on the Palm Pre. So you could have a your old Treo 680 sporting what looked like a webOS interface.

Now TealPoint develop software almost exclusively for the Palm platform, and are likely to already have some applications in the works for the new WebOS. After a beta testing phase TealOS was released. I tried it and was interested enough to buy a copy. Several point releases later, Palm objected and forced TealPoint to withdraw the software. Now this launcher was basically giving users a taste of what the PalmPre interface could be like, and Palm appeared to get uppity and had it shutdown. Nice one Palm!

After my previous blog posting about the small Sony VAIO P series LifeStyle PC, I was reminded about an earlier Sony micro PC. This one was not a clamshell device,  and it still sells today, although only in the “previously owned” market, where it  sells from around $800 all the way up to $1800!

Of course I’m referring to the Sony VAIO VGN-UX280P Micro PC,  and the other Sony Vaio UX Micro PCs. They were the Expensive Ancestors to the Netbook.  These UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PCs) were wonderful devices several years ago, unfortunately though few people could afford them.

According to Wikipedia and Pocketables.net there were six Sony Vaio UX Micro PC models released in the US. Three of them ran Windows XP Professional and the other three ran Windows Vista.

In my previous blog about OpenMoko and the Neo FreeRunner, I didn’t get around to describing the Neo FreeRunner smartphone.

Firstly, although it looks like an uninteresting slab of a phone, it is actually relatively small, about the length and width of the first generation iPhone, but a bit thicker. Instead of being rectangular, it is oblong, and has a 2.8 inch screen with a VGA resolution (480 by 640). The screen is naturally a touchscreen, and the phone only has two other buttons, bottom right and top left.  As well as 256 MB of flash memory, the FreeRunner can take microSDHC cards up to 8GB. It is a tri-mode cellphone, having either a USA-specific (850/1800/1900MHz) or Europe-specific (900/1800/1900Mhz) bands. For data it has GPRS and 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.0. There is a built in graphics accelerator and two 3D accelerometers. So much for the hardware.

When I placed the order for the phone, I had a choice of two software distributions: OpenMoko or Qtopia. I had read that Qtopia was the most stable with regards to use as a phone. I wanted to try other software revisions out to check out other aspects of the phone.

To explain – the Qtopia dialer software worked, but not the contacts – that was unstable and crashed. In comparison to the T-Mobile G1, this phone is still “Under Development”. Unfortunately, there isn’t a Neo FreeRunner for Dummies book, as I mentioned previously the documentation is all online. It is also helpful to realize that the T-Mobile G1 is a completed phone, the development paid for by Google, whereas OpenMoko is a small company with limited resources.

At CES this month, Palm announced the Palm Pre, which was the toast of the Consumer Electronics Association (CES) 2009 conference. It even got some “Best in Show” awards. This is quite good news for Palm as a company – they have been limping along for a while now.

So what is the Palm Pre? (Or pre-what is the Palm Pre?). Some people would be inclined to write it off as another touchscreen iPhone wannabe. They would do well to remember that it comes from a company that has been making touchscreen devices for over a decade, and touchscreen smartphones for over five years. The main difference is that Palm’s products up until now required a stylus to use the touchscreen (or the navigation key on the smartphones).

The Pre initially looks like a relatively elegant touchscreen device. The hardware keyboard is kept out of sight until you need it. For pictures of the Pre and a review, see CNET’s First impressions: Palm Pre.

The Palm Pre runs on what Palm calls Web OS, which is the first device with a new OS which Palm has brought out since Palm OS 5.0 in June 2002. Web OS (or “palm webOS”) according to this Wikipedia article is “is designed for use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface” and runs on Linux.

Palm had some success last year with the Palm Centro, which was its smallest smart phone offered to date. It needs the Pre to be an even bigger success.

Touch screen interfaces for smartphones are definitely the in thing with cellphones now, especially since Apple wowed users with the iPhone and took a sizable chunk of the cellphone market in a short period of time.

Yet there are still some “old but good” cellphones around which are very usable.

The smartphone under the spotlight is the Nokia E61. This smartphone lacks a camera to make it more friendly for corporate environments.  It runs Symbian OS 9.1, Series 60 third edition, The phone has a candy bar design and a full QWERTY keyboard. The cellphone is quite wide, but fortunately not too thick. It features a generous size screen (320×240 pixel resolution), which is not a touchscreen, obviating the need for a stylus. Instead there is a mini joystick right under the screen. The menu system would be familiar to anyone used to the S60 series OS. Personally I found myself hunting around in sub-menus to find a particular  Wi-Fi option. Once used to the menu layout, navigating around the phone becomes a lot easier.

CNET’s review says the Nokia E61 “boasts a vibrant and sharp screen” . . . “ a full array of wireless options (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, UMTS)The Symbian smart phone also has good call quality, a speakerphone, the ability to view and edit Office documents, and robust e-mail capabilities.“

On Wednesday this week the Google Phone, also called the T-Mobile G1, was finally released. Two of my blogging colleagues have already mentioned the T-Mobile G1. It is one of the many iPhone competitors, but more importantly, it comes from Google, a company to be reckoned with.

As Dian mentioned at GottaHave: “The G1 runs best on T-Mobile’s 3G network“. So the G1 is the phone, and 3G is the name of the network – in fact it refers to a 3rd Generation data network. The previous generation data network was called EDGE, and not 2G, which just adds to the confusion.

Of course, the G1 is not the only 3G phone around. There’s the AT&T Tilt, 3G iPhone and the Palm Treo Pro Smartphone along with a whole long list of other cellphones.

Reviews of the T-Mobile G1 Google phone have been mixed, with some reviewers saying that the phone is only for “early adopters”. They do admit though that it is only the first Google Android phone – that is the first phone to feature Google’s Android Operating System. Unlike the Operating System on the iPhone, Android is “Open” – The Android Developer community has a large say about the applications on the G1, not Google.

I’ve just got back from a much-needed vacation. Prior to leaving,  I had heard the horror stories about iPhone users getting massive bills after accidentally leaving data roaming on while traveling overseas, so I phoned AT&T Customer Support. After all, the cruise we were taking had ports of call mainly in Canada. According to Customer Support, I could make or receive calls on the cruise ship itself, but that would cost me $2.49 per minute. Even if I received a call and didn’t answer it, I would still get charged. The same applied for Visual Voicemail. Onshore in Canada, it would cost less to make a call : 79c a minute, but data roaming was still expensive.

I took my iPhone with me anyway, as it is a cellphone after all. In the packing space allotted for my gadgets I also took a few handheld gaming consoles, including a Sony PSP (an underrated device, according to PC World) and a Nintendo DS. Of course I took my main handheld computer, an aging Palm Tungsten C, as well as its designated replacement.

I really missed having the full functionality of the iPhone. Since most of the cruise was spent out of the US, I didn’t turn it on often, and when I did, data roaming was off, and it was in “flight mode”. Wi-Fi was available in the public lounges of the cruise ship, but that was not cheap either.

The first thing I did after getting back from vacation was to turn on the iPhone with all data services activated.

There are probably only a handful of cellphones available with hot swappable batteries. The Palm Centro isn’t one of them. Granted, this cute smartphone has a user-replaceable battery, something the iPhone lacks. (It also has copy and paste which the iPhone sorely lacks, but that is another story).

The Centro’s ancestor, the Treo 680 definitely doesn’t have a hot swappable battery. Every time you pull out the battery it does a soft reset - a reboot which takes about a minute. In fact, that is the only way to do a soft reset. Now on my Treo 680 this doesn’t bother me, because it is the designated replacement for my electronic brain, a Tungsten C. It just so happens that since it is unlocked I occasionally put in a SIM card so I can make calls.

A hot swappable battery is more of a requirement for a business notebook, or an older PDA which relies on AA batteries. With the Sony Clie PEG-S300 you had fifteen seconds to change the battery before the data was lost.

That’s Opera. It has some advanced features, but just doesn’t seem to gain market share. Possibly the Windows version has too many features, overwhelming the user with what appears to be a steep learning curve?. (I would hesitate to recommend “Opera Web Browser for Dummies” until I’ve read it myself) Up until version 5 Opera was trial-ware; it had an ad-supported free version and a paid full version. Although I know it is a superior browser, and have it installed on some of my machines, I seldom use it. Where I do use it is on Mobile devices where the only other browser is Pocket Internet Explorer. Opera runs on a myriad of mobile platforms, ranging from handhelds to smartphones and even cellphones. Here Opera really excels.

Opera Mobile, which is targeted at smartphones and PDAs is not free. On some smartphones the price of the smartphone includes the Opera Browser, but on most PDAs it costs extra.There is also a version of Opera called Opera Mini. This will run on any device which has a the Java Platform, Micro Edition installed.

Occasionally I run Opera, but then I go back to Firefox version 3. I also occasionally run  Google’s Chrome browser, it looks promising.