What can be better than Palm OS?

It  saddens many of us that Palm had long since abandoned their Core OS sending it across the board. Palm -> Access -> Palm likewise without ever rewriting it to the new 3G era. Then they married with MS Mobile for the sheer doubt of dying itself out in the crowd. It saved them no long term purpose. Since Apple and the clan came in showing us what we've been missing in our user interface and design ends desires. Now they may be up to repeat the same in function and feature wise when they release the supposed to be native development tools for the iPhone. (SDK)

In the abyss of all this I miss the opportunity to credit the Palm's original developer who came up with the initial Palm Launcher idea for applications handling. I still love the simplicity of it. The rest had all been a history that we forgot. And now I wonder whether my next gadget could still be from Palm.

Palm's abandonment of it's OS in full time paved way others to smack on them in their own lawn. The smartphone business itself. Microsoft, Nokia, HTC and the Sony Ericsson clan leap forward their beauties flooding the market that I almost felt like ashamed and an old fella to carry my Treo to a restaurant. But strangely none seemed to get it correctly in the OS end until Apple came along.

Strange thing is that with all the modern sophisticated functionality and the bells and whistles my Palm still does what it does beautifully. Thanks to it's wonderful software base Palm still shines without having done anything for its survival for the last 5-6 years. After Treo 650 what they did all was cheating themselves, not us, consumers.

Surprisingly they still hold the crown for the biggest apps list yet. Palm's Launcher doesn't even have a decent find features for this 30000 odd growing number of application base which originally written to lie on it. Anyway people still use it in full time. I still live my life and write this stuff with a four year old Treo.

The need arises, while Palm lies in their sleepish form, a few good developers tried to fill in the gap writing their own code borrowing features from various systems on the top of the Palm's own Launcher. But to me none succeed much doing so because they focused on features instead of the Palm's simplicity. Palm's own age old launcher dominates including mine. Is it not that I never tried those # number of launchers. I have virtually tried them all. But I keep none on my device because they all seem to make things complicate on my Treo, deviating from Palm's original concept we all liked. The simplicity. They couldn't implement what Palm didn't offer either. So say WiFi, modern day browser or 3G never seen on Palm, after what, a lifetime had passed with these techs?

Myriad of tabs, buttons, lists, menus, colours, shadows, icons, bars, pop ups, strips, scrollers, skins, themes, plug ins, backgrounds, gadgets, gosh! You name it. It all appeared on this tiny launcher. It's a utter mess when one try to create your Core Duo 20 inch something flat panel on this tiny 320 by 320 beloved. So I stopped trying it.

Most launchers inundate users but never seem to fix the initial problem of Palm's simple yet effective age old launcher solved, until when Apple shocked the industry with their revolutionary OS X engine iPhone interface. It's simple just like good old Palm, but has the modern sophistication .

So as time went by, though many killer apps for mobiles initially emerged in Palm front. I sadly watch they quickly get ported elsewhere better in a blink of an eye loosing my edge. Now people talk big over iPhones nice touch screen, threaded SMS etc, boy, I used it for years silently on my Treo.

But now Palm front is lacking that wow factor, hopes are dire, I feel odd. Within me I know it is still better than most of the rest. Anyway now there are new kids in the block who tries to out-smart everything I knew about mobile computing. Apple seem to lead the gang with what Palm missed. From NextStep, Newton, Classic Mac OS to OS X now Apple has got the most flexible mobile platform on earth at their disposal for the modern era. Even industry mogul MS envy that.

For the moment what lacking is the a way that all the best mobile developers had no chance to port their beautiful apps to this new crown. But soon with the release of Apple SDK for iPhone I am sure we are about to see a flood of new killer apps for iPhone that no one seen elsewhere. Not even on my beloved Palm front.

Palm should have done this but I do not belong on camps. So I am happy to see this day dawned anyhow.

I will keep my Treo cos nothing beats it quite yet. May be will get a Centro to please my senses and I can still keep my Initially big list of applications I kept since 2000. Ewallets, browsing, productivity tools, GPS unit, music & video, some fun games (no dumb consoles please), email, threaded SMS, IR remotes, you name it. My Treo had it all and now everyone's AFTER them. Soon iPhone will get it all the way I want it so I can get in to a restaurant without been ashamed of.

If I were to have some Palm stocks I should be worried now, or may be the Centro will serve them a bit. But when I am having a Treo I am still winning. When their features match or probably outsmart, I will go and grab an iPhone.

I had a nightmare that when finally my Treo dies I may have to switch to MS Mobile or the Nokia clan without even having a choice. Boy, I was happy when I saw the new StyleTap platform for MS Mobile so I could still use some of my beloved software if I ever moved from Palm OS. Now even better they've got it emulated on iPhone too! Anyway Apple solved the problem once and for all raising bar for everyone. Thanks Steve Job for making this day possible. Thanks to thee, who someone brain child the original Palm OS. May be it was Handspring guys.

Now it seems I have industry's best choices up for the grab. I may never be up to the task running naked though on this, but I would say, Eureka!