I've had my fair share of bleeding-edge software and hardware over the years, but honestly, I'm not sure I've ever really been an early adopter. When I got my first Palm, it was a Kyocera 7135, running OS4. And OS5 was already out at the time. I moved up to a Treo650 when it was still a pretty new release, but that still came with years of software available. I've been around for the development (and beta testing) of quite a bit of software on my mobile devices, but in most cases this software wasn't a completely new idea, or the only piece of software that could accomplish a particular task. On a new platform, though, I'll likely encounter lots of cases where there simply isn't any software developed for a particular purpose.Since Palm has such an enormous software base, and as a very satisfied power user, I have incorporated quite a bit of software into my daily life. Some of it I'm sure I could replace with comparable software on another platform. HandyShopper, for instance, is one of a great many shopping list apps. I really like it, but I could probably give it up without tremendous discomfort.
Moving to the new, latest and greatest, though, really shouldn't come with a backward step in functionality. Why should I give up my Centro for a flashy new Pre if I can't do some of the essential things I can do now. While I have a pretty extensive list of must-have software, much of it falls into the same category as HandyShopper. As long as there's a reasonable replacement app available, I could switch. But what constitutes a deal-breaker?
At the moment, I can think of two apps that really must make the switch with me: Natara Bonsai and Pocket Quicken. Bonsai is my catch all info management tool. It's an outliner, but it has a phenomenal item attribute sync capability, giving me great ease of use on both my phone and my desktop. I'm sure eventually I could get an outliner on the Pre, but I really want one that'll let me keep using all my Bonsai outlines, and just as effectively as I do now. Similarly, Pocket Quicken isn't the only money management software available, but to be useful to me, it needs to sync with my desktop copy of Quicken.
I know I'm not the only person chiming in about this desire for backward compatibility with GarnetOS. And I feel very confident that a lot of apps will get ported (Palm insists it's easy), and someone will make a virtual machine. I just hope that virtual machine will share the syncing abilities Hotsync afforded many of these apps. Without that, it's of very limited usefulness to me.
I guess what I'm really driving at is, please, Palm, make it easy for me to jump on your new platform without losing all the power and ease of your old platform.