PalmOS: simple, elegant, beautiful
Written: Mar 02 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: simple, fast, stable
Cons: a bit quirky in its programming, a bit too simple at some times
The Bottom Line: The PalmOS is a very simple and elegant operating system which made great decisions when it came to utilizing the power of the hardware platform.
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| Tibullus's Full Review: Palm Computing Platform |
First of all, to qualify this review, I must state that I am a Software Developer who works almost exclusively on the Palm, so I know a bit more about the background of it than the actual part that everyone uses (though i do use that quite a bit).
The first thing that I will point out is that the PalmOS is really a beautiful system. Its able to operate a GUI which is extendible on a paltry piece of hardware. When you look at it, the average palm at this point uses a 10mhz processor (a modified version of the processor used in the original Macs -- it has enhanced power saving features) and a menial amount of RAM, I believe some of the newer devices may have around 8megs of RAM. If you look at these capabilities, this is state of the art hardware from about 1985 (give or take a few years). So, the next time you pick up your PalmPilot think about what you are actually holding in your hand and how much you are able to do with it (could you do that back in the day with your old computer... I think not). Compare this with WindowsCE and you'll start to understand a bit more... windows CE requires a 200mhz ARM processor (I think that's what they're running) to run, which explains the differences in battery life between the two platforms. The typical palm can operate on a couple of triple A's for about 2 weeks or so whereas as CE device will only run for a day or so.
But, enough of the comparison bashing (you can tell I'm a bit biased). Beyond this, I think Palm made a wonderful move when it decided to dump complete character recognition in favor of its own graffiti system. The graffiti system allows for the PALM to use a modified handwriting recognition system for manual entry of data rather than true handwriting recognition. Again, when you think that all of this is done on an 8-10mhz processor, its really damn impressive. It is admittedly a bit annoying to learn this new system, but overall i think its worth it once you get the hang of it (and it doesn't take all that long to get the hang of it) and its worth it for the saving you get in power consumption that is required to push a full handwriting recognition program that probably wouldn't work as well.
Underneath the user interface, the PalmOS is also quite nice, though I won't spend long boring you with the details of how its set up. However, I'll just leave you with the fact that if given the choice of programming for PalmOS or WindowsCE, I would choose the PalmOS every time.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Tibullus
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Member: Marc Chapman
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Reviews written: 69
Trusted by: 76 members
About Me:
Sometimes I like to look up and smile for the satellite pictures.
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