Phase to Ground

Ya know, instead of being a pretentious ass and assuming people understand what the hell I’m talking about in my comics, I’m going to use this space to educate people.  That was part of the original Lexicon that I haven’t yet published, but will get to sometime. And awwayyy we go!

Palm – this company made the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) popular with their Palm Pilot in 1996.  Most of the other PDAs and Smartphones today are based loosely on the advances Palm made in the 90s with these devices. However, recently, they have been overshadowed by the sheer volume of Microsoft-based PDAs, not to mention the ubiquitous iPhone by Apple.  Their success with the Palm Pilot led to other devices, some that became very popular, and most others did not.

Palm Foleo – One of Palm’s less best ideas. Basically this thing was barely smaller than a laptop, about the same size as the Apple Macbook Air. I know you’re thinking, oh hey, that’s cool, I wonder why it didn’t catch on. Well, the problem is that it didn’t really do anything.  You sync it with your smartphone and you can read the emails on a larger screen that are stored on the phone, not on this device.  So you’re lugging around a $500 (yes, I said $500) device that allows you to read the emails that are already on your phone. Needless to say, it didn’t do well.

Palm Treo – This guy is what has kept Palm afloat for as long as it has. It uses the Palm operating system (which is a plus for many people), a built-in keyboard, email and phone functionality.  They eventually relented and released Windows Mobile version, but a great deal of people have Treos and love them.  The eventual successor to the Treo is the Palm Centro and the Palm Treo Pro, one aimed at the younger crowd that doesn’t want such a large phone, and the other aimed at the Blackberry crowd. One of my favorite features of these phones that I will love Palm forever is the ability to turn the ringer from loud to vibrate via a single toggle switch on the top of the phone. I use this all the time to make sure my phone doesn’t have its ringer on at an unfortunate time.

Palm Pre – This is Palm’s silver arrow aimed right at the processor of the iPhone. It’s also Palm’s last gasp before it goes belly-up. While the Centro and Treo Pro are beloved by many, those are pretty all Palm has left at the moment, and there aren’t THAT many people who haven’t gotten suckered into AT&T’s service contract by our good friends at the fruit stand.  It promises everything that the iPhone has and more, including Palm’s new Web OS, which looks pretty slick. It still an actual keyboard with tiny buttons that you can poke at with your thumbnails which I still prefer that over a keyboard on the screen. Assuming this guy does half as well in the reviews as everyone (especially Palm) is hoping, I’ll likely pick one up to replace my Centro. If not, it’s off to the Crackberry cult for me, or maybe one of the phones supporting Google Android (lol), but I don’t see an iPhone or a Windows Mobile phone for me in the near future. If you really want to know why I don’t like those, ask, but I’ve already rambled enough.

If you’re still with me, good job! Please leave a comment so I know that at least someone got this far.  Let me know if my vapid attempt at education has been useful to you, or at least entertaining.

In conclusion, Palm has everything to gain and/or lose with the Pre, so they’re going to be throwing all their marketing budget at this one device that could potentially bring Palm back as a real contenter to the Smartphone market.