Palm is in trouble - the sort of trouble Apple was in around 1996
My latest column for The Independent (which I referred to last week; it’s taken a while to propagate to print) looks at PalmOne’s release of the LifeDrive.
Where other people have oohed and aahed over the features, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and media support, I’m left wondering: who wants it? Without a keyboard (though you can buy one as an add-on), the LifeDrive looks like a piece of jetsam from the late 1990s, a time before the Blackberry, or Treo, or the rise of the PocketPC (which does all the Windows things, but better).
The question is, what is the core function of the LifeDrive? Compare it to a mobile phone, or an iPod. Strip out the games, contacts, calendars from either, and you’re down to their core function. But what is the LifeDrive’s core function? It’s not the same as the old Palm Pilot’s - to hold your contacts and phone numbers - because that has been taken up by the mobile phone. (I contend.)
My conclusion:
I think that the LifeDrive signals that the Palm concept is in trouble; the deep trouble that comes when a company forgets what it’s there for… Palm’s long-term survival hinges on its rediscovering its essence - as Apple did, joyously, with the iPod. Or will it become another victim of obsolescence, along with Osborne Computers and DEC.Who? They were big - in their day. But it passed.
(My point about Apple, made in the unedited version, was that with the release of Windows 95 by Microsoft, the company went into a sort of tailspin, because it was no longer the best at user interfaces, and Windows 95 was ‘good enough’ to make the Mac OS of the time look not that much better. Apple kept going, of course, but didn’t regain its joie de vivre until the iPod, which reminded all the staff, and the world outside, that what Apple actually excels at is not user interfaces per se, but the end-to-end solutions - putting the hardware, the software, and the user interface into one compelling product.)
My previous post, with links to other reviews of the LifeDrive, is here.
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- IBM will crush competition in servers, says Cringley - and Sun's in trouble (13 December 2004; score: 63.15%)
- Want some trouble? Do a religious ad in the style of the "I'm a Mac" ad (8 December 2006; score: 57.79%)
- Apple's Address Book: its search was already broken. And now mine has *completely* broken (9 May 2006; score: 53.38%)
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June 1st, 2005 at 2:12 pm
Hi
I read your comments on the Palm LifeDrive, and was amazed to hear that it has no keyboard. But before I remark on this to other people, can I ask you to confirm that, when you say it has no keyboard, you mean not only that it doesn’t have keys to press, but that it doesn’t have an on-screen keybord either.
If that is truly the case then, as a dedicated keyboard user (using keyboard shortcuts instead of clicking whenever possible) I would certainly avoid it.
I’ve got an HP IPaq, which has an on-screen keyboard, and that gadget I love.
Best regards
Jean
June 1st, 2005 at 2:31 pm
It does have a “keyboard” in that there’s a touch-sensitive screen which you can operate with the stylus (included in price, until you lose it somewhere). There’s also the Graffiti 2 writing system, which can be done even after you’ve lost the stylus (I speak from empirical testing).
However it’s not much cop for writing any sort of lengthy email reply. Or even short ones.
So yes, there is a keyboard of sorts in the LifeDrive. But not the sort, I’d assert, that you need to edit documents. And of course the iPaq (even if its keyboard is worse) will have better Windows integration. I’ll bet it can play WMA and WMV content natively, for example. The LifeDrive can’t.
June 1st, 2005 at 3:17 pm
Actually, I think it was the original iMac that kept Apple alive until it was able to transition over to MacOSX. The iMac delivered on the simple promise of an easy to use, internet-enabled computer. 7 years later, I find it interesting that the latest incarnation of the iMac remains one of the company’s most popular products.
DD
June 1st, 2005 at 3:37 pm
I think PDA’s — of all types– are passe. I was an early Palm adopter, and I have been REALLY disappointed over the years at all the dumb stuff– like crashing and poor syncing– that they never got under control. Using the Palm became like using a Franklin planner– too much bother for what you get.
June 2nd, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Your opinions are your own, but there are some facts that need to be corrected in your article.
The pa1mOne LifeDrive will play video in several native formats – no conversion is required. And it will also play .ogg and wav music and sound files out of the box. (.wma playback is offered for a nominal upgrade fee) You indicated otherwise: “It does all the old Palm things, but it also plays music (presently only MP3s) and (converted) video files viewed on its 320 x 480 screen.”
Also, I am composing this comment on my LifeDrive while listening to The Clash – it may be possible on your mobile or iPod, but it certainly isn’t as easy. Frankly Mr. Arthur, PalmOne and users who take the time to actually use the device know *exactly* what it is; I think it is just you who is in the dark
June 2nd, 2005 at 10:13 pm
Thanks for the corrections, Eric - though which native formats? I didn’t see it doing WMV, which is in essence “native” for Windows. At the demonstration I took in that video was better converted than just copied over, to some Palm-playable format.
Interesting that you’re composing your reply on the LifeDrive. Can I ask - doing what, where? And how long did it take you to write? Did you use a keyboard? I feel sure it would have been faster with a Psion-style keyboard, or a Blackberry.
I stick to my point, though. The LifeDrive isn’t hitting a mass market that Palm[One] needs to thrive. There’s no recurrent licence income from the products it has sold. So it needs people to keep buying new stuff. It hasn’t found any incentive there, I don’t think. I used to use a Palm all the time. Now I don’t. I’m not atypical, I think.
June 3rd, 2005 at 11:12 am
Charles,
I think your observations are spot on. I’m sure for some people this device may make sense, but it’s a declining number. I myself have tried to get into PDA’s (Newton’s, Handspring etc) but I just never got to use them for more than a few months. Not because they weren’t good (Newton2 WAS very good), but they were just one extra device that didn’t do quite enough for me.
Smart Phones is were it’s at. I think it’s a while before they take over the iPod space perhaps for various reasons well-discussed, but they’re homing in on many areas (eg reduced sales of digital cameras). I’ve been looking at the SatNav stuff for phones (eg TomTom Mobile), and this is an ideal app whereby the functionality and cost can lead to an advantage over a seperate device for most people. And, you take it out
What I’m slightly surprised at is the way the phone companies haven’t quite seized the initiative yet. To me, Orange’s efforts with the new Nokia 6680 + broadcast TV completely miss the point for example. 10 stupid channels for £10/month using 1GB (yes up to 1GB). I would use a 1/10 or 1/100th of that bandwidth but perhaps pay the same if they used it for traffic update add-on services, email and web access, rss etc. They seem to be firing shots all over the place in the hope of hitting some sweet spot nobody’s seen, yet some of the real winners are staring at them in the face. And don’t they realise that they’d get a greater take up of these services if they really pushed wi-fi enabled phones AND provided some reasonable price roaming options? T-Mobile is the closest here, but they haven’t got the offering right (they’re afraid of losing voice to Skype+WiFi for instance).
Anyway, drifting off-topic. It’s interesting to look back at Psion. I think (with hindsight!) strategically they were right - moving towards Symbian, giving up on the PDA business etc. But they had some execution hiccups. The Treo is perhaps Palm’s only real shot of hanging on, but I’m not sure that is well-enough positioned against the competition.
Ian