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Palm rises from the dead as a zombie brand, launches tiny smartphone
If you recall, Palm, creator of the Palm Pilot and WebOS, bombed out of the smartphone market and was purchased by HP. Palm died at HP after a short run of tablets and smartphones, and eventually Chinese smartphone company TCL snatched up the rights to the Palm brand in 2014, and things have been quiet since then. You might know TCL from running that other smartphone zombie brand, Blackberry.
Today, TCL's Palm presents itself as actual new company with new co-founders, a new logo, and an office in San Francisco. The company is launching the, uh, "Palm" phone (Do we call it the Palm Palm?) and it's taking the "Palm" name literally, with a device small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The Palm Palm has a practically microscopic 3.3-inch display, and it measures just 96.6mm tall by 50.6mm wide, which is close to the size of a credit card. Palm is pitching the Palm as a "companion" device to your main smartphone, allowing you to leave your big phone behind and bring the Palm in a wallet, on a lanyard, or in any tiny pocket.
This tiny phone also comes with a really tiny spec sheet. You're getting a 3.3-inch 1280×720 display with a respectable 445ppi. This is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 SoC (that's eight Cortex A53 cores, usually at 1.4GHz) 3GB of RAM, and an 800mAh battery. There's 32GB of storage, a 12MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, IP68 dust and water resistance, USB-C, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and LTE.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Blymie on Wednesday October 17 2018, @02:17PM (15 children)
Yes.. but...
I have a Treo 650... the last Palm before it was sold off. At least, as I recall.
Anyhow, it has an arrow/navigation button. I can move up/down/left/right, with an OK button in the middle. Icons are SMALL, and have mostly text. Yet, I have more info on that 3" screen, than my modern smartphone does -- with 8x the space.
Why?
Because it's all pictures. Why?! Why do I need an icon 10x higher than the text? Well, because *branding*. It's all about branding... about a corporate image. And, it's about being able to click on the bloody thing... if the icons were gone, the text would be too small to easily click.
I prefer the older interface. Just give me a list of program names, I'm not some animal which can't read...
And when it comes to moving through a list of numbers to call, or appointments, or even playing a game? Give me those arrow buttons, my phone screen is less greasy, and I get the job done faster than scroll, and scroll, and scroll then click.
Modern phone UIs are a joke. Designed for those least able to work with them, a common theme these days.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday October 17 2018, @05:04PM (5 children)
Make it a touch pad and you'll never make it large enough to be usable, while still small enough to carry around like a phone.
The current fashion seems to be ultra-thin and ultra-wide. Which just makes it even easier to flex the dang thing to the point that the screen is damaged, and even harder to carry the dang thing with you so you can take calls. Wasn't that the whole point to a mobile phone?
The people that are designing these things either don't use them at all, or carry purses or something. They're just not practical at all for me.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:10AM (4 children)
Precisely why I use a retard flipphone, with actual buttons. Pocket durable, just does its damn job, and as a bonus, outright purchase price was 12 bucks.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:59AM (3 children)
I looked at the newer dumb phones. Really didn't find anything impressive. I don't like flip phones, but I'd take one if only I could find one with good knobby buttons - but nah, they're all identical, and perfectly flat. I don't want a slider at all, even on a palm the qwerty keypad was too fiddly for my taste and they're usually even smaller, and much more cheaply constructed. T9 with good buttons - not flat, not identical - that's what I'm looking for.
So I have a "smart" phone I've crippled and converted to T9. The 'keys' have no tactile presence at all, of course, but neither do the flat keys on the last few flip phones I looked at, and at least mine are twice the size so they're easier to see.
I'm not saying there isn't something useful out there, I just haven't found it yet. What model is your flip phone?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:57AM (2 children)
Samsung Gusto 3. You could probably find a dumber one, but you'd have to hit it with a hammer a few times to catch up. Locked to Verizon, but for the price I didn't care, and that's the best deal and carrier here anyway. Had it about 5 years and the battery is finally getting tired, but a new one was $5 (Samsung-branded at that). Holds signal a little better than the LG flipphone I had before; a little thinner on features, but no big loss (other than to still have number blocking would have been nice).
Couple months ago Ting had one in their store -- under $50 !! -- that I'm sorry I didn't grab (and didn't save specs for, grrr) -- a smart flipphone -- form factor a little larger (I think the touchscreen was 3.5", so not by much), ran Android-recent, and had real buttons. Unlocked and did GSM and CDMA. Meant to go back and check but by the time I remembered the store had moved on.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday October 18 2018, @02:32PM (1 child)
Looked up the manual, does look better than the ones I saw recently. Keys appear to have slight relief - not as much as I'd like but they don't look to be perfectly flat at least, and there is at least a subtle distinction in shape between right, left and center, so it looks like it could be usable. I might have to talk to my carrier again.
Thanks!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday October 19 2018, @01:58AM
Welcome. Yeah, the keys have enough definition to feel easily with a bare finger, maybe not with gloves. The 5 key has two little points that stick up, making it hard to miss. The rocker thingee (silver square) sticks up enough to be obvious. Got out my old LG to compare and the Samsung is definitely better that way, by quite a lot.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday October 17 2018, @06:44PM (1 child)
I think that all UI and UX designers need to read the zen of palm to get an idea of what they can do to make the customers life easier instead of making a shiny.
Text in a round rect is a valid button. Most kids today don't know what that picture on the save button of most software is anyway (a floppy disk).
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:01AM
And the bestest GUI was called XTree Gold.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Marand on Wednesday October 17 2018, @09:43PM (6 children)
Shit like that is why I like Android. Specifically, I like that on Android the launcher/homescreen is just another program that can be replaced. There are plenty of alternatives out there that present your applications in different forms. Text lists, search-based selection, icons, groups, a mix, even a shell-style terminal launcher [google.com] where everything is done command-line. (That one's more useful on a tablet+keyboard combination.)
Doesn't make the apps themselves less shit, but it's a start.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Arik on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:07AM (5 children)
That's just not historically accurate.
It's not a start, it's the opposite. The boat you perceive to be coming towards you - is going away.
Google took a free system and crippled it with slaveware, turned it into an extension of their surveillance empire. Yes, it looks ok next to the other brand of slaveware. But it looks like utter crap compared to typical computers from past decades.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:09AM (4 children)
It was a discussion about user interface issues, not history or FOSS ideology. Specifically, fixing some of the current UI design trend brain damage on the mobile OS that doesn't lock you out of such things. The implied rest of that comment was "it's a start toward reclaiming function over fashion, one application at a time. Practically everything on Android is replaceable, so it's a first step that I was suggesting should be followed by finding similar functionality-oriented applications to replace the over-sized, over-styled, child-oriented defaults.
I don't disagree, but like it or not (I don't), smartphones currently fall into two categories, "Apple or Android" and "Irrelevant", especially in the US. And of the two, I'd rather use Android, because it's still something like a computer OS, in that you can change most things to suit you and also make use of the Linux underpinnings, whereas Apple is in the market of selling appliances that can only be used in the way the company allows and does everything possible to hide the computer-ness from everyone. I still keep watch for promising alternatives, because I haven't given up the hope that we'll eventually see better options become viable, but for now I make the best of the situation by tolerating Android and doing what I can to fix its retardation.
Kind of going off-topic here a bit but I'm more in the pragmatic FOSS camp, rather than the zealous type of FOSS supporter that wants ideological purity over all other things. (Nothing against the latter, it's just not where I fall on the pragmatism/purity range.) I prefer open source when possible, but I don't begrudge someone else's choice to create proprietary software, and I accept that sometimes it's a valid choice or sometimes even a necessary evil. I think it's important to prioritise and choose the battles that make sense, like OSes are more important to keep free and open (or as open as possible; Android isn't perfect but it's a more open system than iOS) than, say, games. Which is why I have no issue with Steam being on Linux. Games are not a high priority "OPEN SOURCE OR GTFO" target, and their existence on the platform helps bring more mindshare and developer interest, which ends up being a win.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday October 18 2018, @02:55PM
Yes, I understood what you are saying, I simply disagree.
It's NOT a start towards reclaiming anything, it's a faint echo of a better time.
"Practically everything on Android is replaceable"
Too much is not, and each release is further, not closer, to that ideal.
"their existence on the platform helps bring more mindshare and developer interest, which ends up being a win."
It's not a win from my perspective, not at all. More mindshare and developer interest *could* be a good thing, but the devil's in the details.
More often it's a problem. We don't need a zillion Gnome.orgs. We don't even need one of them. Linux would be more useful if the whole basket had stuck with Apple instead of bringing their favorite Apple design flaws to Linux.
I guess there's a fundamental difference in philosophy here, but it has nothing to do with the spurious notion of 'ideological purity' you mention. If there's any room to fit 'purity' into the equation it would be "technological purity" instead.
There are certain abstract properties which make a tool a good tool, or a poor tool. Really good tools are absolutely beautiful to me - the proper combination of function and form, when the tool does *exactly* what it should do, and absolutely nothing else; when it is just so fit for purpose that it cannot be improved - to me that is the height of beauty, the most aesthetically pleasing sight possible.
The opposite of that - when the form is so stunningly unsuited to the function - that is a truly ugly thing.
I used to say very much what you do. What's changed is over the decades I've seen first-hand that what is ugly to me, in this particular application at least, is not *merely* ugly to me, it's actively harmful to everyone in the long run. But that's another story.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday October 19 2018, @02:04AM (2 children)
Speaking of "irrelevant" but possibly promising... Plasma (as in KDE) Mobile.
https://www.plasma-mobile.org/ [plasma-mobile.org]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday October 19 2018, @08:55AM (1 child)
Yeah I'm still keeping an eye on that, I remember originally the idea was a separate netbook and desktop UI back with KDE4 and with KDE5, architecture changes made it easier to adapt Plasma to different UIs, including phone. It's taking ages but it's not a commercial product so there might be hope for a long game approach, as long as it's not on HURD's level of long game.
I also really wanted to see Sailfish succeed, but that one clearly went nowhere. :/
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday October 19 2018, @07:40PM
I like KDE, and generally like KApps, so was excited to see a cellphone interface that might run familiar apps in a familiar way. KDE on a tablet would be interesting. OTOH when I tried Neon on desktop -- ugh, hated it. Well, maybe someday; at least it's an alternative.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.