Pro Foleo

…about the Foleo cancellation. Interesting analysis by David Beers:

I've spent some time with the Foleo operating system and it's a very nice piece of work, too. I'd go so far as to say that Palm's lightweight DirectFB windowing system sets a new standard of responsiveness and simplicity for mobile Linux. As far as I can see, it would have made a great smartphone OS. Given how far Palm had got with Foleo, there's really only one solid reason I can see for Palm pulling the plug on it.

That would be the wireless carriers.

Yes, there are a few black helicopters buzzing around in this one, but eventually somebody has to get it right.

You have to read this thread over at MacRumors. It's from 2001, when Apple first introduced the iPod. The comments are chillingly similiar to what the gadget kiddies were saying when Palm introduced the Foleo.

Good thing Apple doesn't listen to this kind of stuff.

(Thanks, Mike!)

I suppose readers of this site might be checking Ebay for any stray Foleos that aren't making their way to the landfill via Palm. Please make sure you follow all the common-sense Ebay guidelines, like reading the text of the auction. (That one probably won't get any bites, but sometimes the wording can be trickier. Be careful.)

Probably not many legitmate devices will make it to auction. Many of the pre-production units have to be sent back to Palm, and the lucky folks who do get to keep their Foleos won't be letting them go. Apparently the device really grows on you.

But I do wonder how much a loose Foleo would go for on Ebay. More than $1500? $2000?

I still wish Palm would consider a fire sale of the units they have sitting around. After lifting the hopes of this niche market–while everyone else mocked us for defending the device–the least Palm could do is allow us to spend the money we had already commited to giving them. They owe us that much.

Nothing new here, but James Miller at Palm Boulevard wonders what, exactly, Palm means when they insist that "U.S. availability for the Palm Foleo mobile companion will begin this summer."

Technically, that would give Palm until 9:51 p.m. on September 23rd, when the Autumn Equinox kicks in to mark the beginning of fall. Then again, most of us assumed Palm meant sometime between late June and Labor Day, which falls on September 3rd. That's the time when pools close and kids are on their way back to school.

Interestingly, Deutsche Bank's Goldberg said Palm was supposed to have released Foleo last week, well within the range of common expectations.

You'll note that, at the end of the article, James says that the Foleo will cost $399 after the mail-in rebate. That is undoubtedly a mistake, unless James has some inside scoop on a price drop.

Anyhow, I'm tapping my foot impatiently here, waiting for the availability update from Palm. It's getting a little old just looking at pictures… 

James Kendrick has a new op-ed piece titled, "Vista will never run well on mobile devices." Kendrick explains how frustrating the Vista experience has been on all the mobile devices he's tried.

"The dreaded disk thrashing that occurs with too little memory leaves the device unresponsive to the user until it's done doing whatever it's doing, and that takes way too long on the slower processors…

"I do not have a good outlook on resolving the Vista performance problem on mobile devices in the near future."

JK says the Vista experience is better on fast laptops with Core 2 Duo processors, but even then the system will often have slow-downs that leave the user frustrated.

"Who knows what it's doing when it freezes up temporarily but bottom line who cares?  It shouldn't do that."

"If you use Sleep and Resume you quickly fall victim to the dreaded Vista la-la land where the device fails to resume properly.  Sometimes the device comes back fine but without a screen which is oh so useful.  Other times it comes back but hangs the entire device up in just a few seconds."

Kendrick doesn't seem to be a fan of the Foleo, although he has said that a few writer types might find it useful. Still, Kendrick's editorial definitely emphasizes what many Foleo fans don't want in a mobile computer: A bloated memory hog of an OS that is better suited to a desktop workstation with several gigs of RAM.