phil wilson :: a geek commodity

3:22 PM

permanent link to post No Palm phones in Europe? 

Friday, April 30, 2004

I just can’t understand why Nokia doesn’t have an app with similar functionality for its Series 60 phones. Or why some third party hasn’t made one yet – or maybe even an adapter for Palm-to-S60 switchers. I wish I could use an app that was so well written to manage my calendar, contacts, memos, etc. and I wish that installing a new app on my phone (and backup) was as simple as it is on a Palm.

This is so true it’s incredible. The Palm software is awesome – the level of integration and sheer ease of use is phenomenal.

To be fair, the level of the current Nokia Desktop software is about the same as the Palm Desktop software was about two years ago, and they’ve got plenty of time to learn from the Palm Desktop and catch up.

The ease of installation problem is interesting because I think that whilst it is still actually easier to install on Palms than phones, the compatability problems are still there – have you tried running the SCUMM Palm emu? It can be a nightmare to get running on some Palms, but as easy as pie on others.

Frank Koehntopp makes the excellent point in Russ’ comments that PalmOS phones just aren’t available to us here in Europe at the moment, and that

today Symbian is a half-ass phone OS and a bit of organiser functionality. PalmOS may not be any better in the phone functionality, but it kicks ass organsiser wise. I like Symbian a lot, but it lacks quite a bit to make a decent smartphone platform: pen entry, a decent datebook, something like hotsync, and generally better organizer features.

The organiser is what counts to me, and if I could have phone functionality in my Clié I’d take it in a second and it’d finally stop me having to carry two out of synch devices around with me all the time.