The future of Pleco on Palm OS

[silverwolf0]

I am curious how good of an investment it would be to buy a palm portable with the PlecoDict sotfware as opposed to waiting for the Pocket PC version. Will it just become dual platform or will you be migrating? How long do you plan on supporting the Palm version? Thanks in advance.

 

[mikelove]

We don't currently have any plans to migrate to Pocket PC - we'll be dual-platform at least for the near future. We're also pretty well determined not to add any major new features on Pocket PC that we don't also add on Palm OS - it wouldn't be fair to all of the customers that have supported us so long on Palm, and honestly as I'm still a Microsoft-hater I'd very much like to continue being able to recommend that customers buying PDAs specifically to run our software purchase Palm OS ones. (of course at this point I'm also a Palm-hater, but at least their malevolence doesn't extend beyond PDAs, and I still prefer Palm's user interface)

And really, since we already have a large installed base of customers using our software on Palm OS, even if Palm's market share were to dwindle to practically nothing there would still be thousands and thousands of Palm-using customers to produce updates for. We might have to charge for updates more often than we do now, since we wouldn't be able to break even on the basis of new sales alone, but we would keep supporting Palm OS as long as we reasonably could.

And I for one think it's unlikely that Palm OS is going to disappear anytime soon - see my posting on that. PalmSource may be migrating to the Linux kernel, but it's still going to be the same basic Palm OS with the same interface and the same APIs. We've already tested PlecoDict on Palm OS Cobalt and it seems to work well without any modifications (aside from turning on the slightly buggy "Use Pleco Insertion Point" feature), so if the Cobalt UI and Palm virtual machine are retained in Palm OS for Linux then the same should be true of that.

 

[Anonymous]

Haha, I am starting to see why you hate Palm in general. I guess I'll stick with the Palm for now. I have to have at least ONE device that's non-MS related.

 

[temporary_communist]

I still have the Oxford dictionary on my old Clie but in this case, I'm actually going to take a gamble on the Pocket PC version of PlecoDict when it comes out.

My main reason isn't related to the user-interface or OS, etc...actually, it's all about the battery.

I've always hated devices that have built-in, non-user replaceable batteries. No battery will last forever and it seems as if companies design these kinds of machines solely for the purpose of forcing you to upgrade whenever they cycle into a new product. The iPod is a great example. Replacing the battery is costly and takes some skill in soldering, not to mention jimmying open the whole case and scratching it. I think a battery compartment should be a basic requirement for any small electronic device.

The Palms always seem to come with built in batteries and that just bugs me. The Pocket PCs though can easily be opened and the batteries replaced. I've never been much concerned with matters of interface or anything, I just want a workhorse that's reliable and will last a long time, and the battery is a major component of that.

 

[mikelove]

Palm seems to have decided that the extra sales from replacing devices with faulty batteries more than make up for the loss in sales from people who want extra batteries switching to Pocket PC (a type of logic I suspect Apple applies as well), but I agree with you that it would be nice to have a user-replaceable battery.

There is one Palm with a replaceable battery, though - the Treo 650 smartphone. But it doesn't really make a very good PDA unless you're also using it as a cellphone, so I imagine it might not make much sense in your case.