After a somewhat successful takeover of BlackBerry devices, TCL Corporation is planning on releasing Palm-branded devices next year:
TCL actually bought the Palm name back in 2014, four years after HP acquired the brand and then shuttered its products a year later after they underperformed. That seemed a tragic end for Palm, which had led the late 90s and 2000s consumer device market with its PDAs and early smartphones, like the Pilot and Pre, respectively. But it looks like TCL is going to introduce an undisclosed number of devices under the Palm name early next year.
That's all we really know, thanks to an interview the company's marketing manager Stefan Streit gave to Android Planet1. While he wouldn't divulge what kind of devices would be included, he did tease that smartphones could be a possibility. The only other thing he revealed was Palm's intended place in TCL's portfolio. Rather than try to spice up the brand for new consumers, Streit mentioned that the new Palm devices would be geared toward users familiar with the old ones that ruled the gadget world before the new millennium. Whether that impacts their design or just how they'll be marketed is unclear.
It will be interesting to see if they make anything of it, or if it will just be a rebranded handset like the DTEK line. Perhaps they will ship with StyleTap or something similar for all you PalmOS needs.
[1]: Dutch
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:41PM (2 children)
Oh please update and release webOS based devices. So sad that only TVs use it now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:03PM (1 child)
Unfortuntely LG bought the webOS assets fro HP before they sold off the brand name to TCL. These will most likely be Android like TCL did with Alcatel and BlackBerry
(Score: 1) by Mainframe Bloke on Friday September 01 2017, @07:05AM
my LG TV's not too bad, certainly better than the Sony in the other room (newer by about 3 years). I like that it has a "go back to the previous channel you came from" button, in fact two (!). The program menu is very slow to load though.
WebOS would be nice to see in a tablet again, my old HP TouchPad (that they killed on birth more-or-less) is still going strong after >6 years. I had to mod it with Cyanogen to get more apps, but the WebOS look and feel it had was really fresh in my opinion.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday August 31 2017, @07:42PM (2 children)
Most young people these days would be perfectly happy with a slightly modernized Palm Pilot.
They never make phone calls anyway.
Adding phone functionality to the basic PDA seems an excursion into the unnecessary.
If we had just built out the net, voip would have come along anyway.
At the time, it was the only way to force the building of a wireless network, by having the only people with existing networks (telcos) build them out with radio to every corner of the country. And every POTS and cell subscriber paid for that network with one subscription at a time over decades, The absurdly high fees of one generation funding the building of the next generation.
The geeks with PDAs were the subject of much eye rolling, never far from their syncing cradle, yet always lagging behind the guy with a paper notebook or day planner. Now, most people use their cell phones mostly as PDAs and the network does their syncing. We don't talk on the phone anymore.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday August 31 2017, @08:36PM (1 child)
I really like the bizarre new trend of old people, inept at typing on small soft-keyboards, yelling text messages into their phones.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Friday September 01 2017, @05:29AM
Most of the assholes that I encounter yelling into their phones - for texts, or because shouting into the speakerphone is SO much better than holding it near your ear - aren't old, they're just assholes.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Thursday August 31 2017, @09:03PM
This is not a good idea and does not have a positive effect on me. Ages ago I got Blackberry and my buddy got a Palm. Palm died and he said blackberry was the better choice, that means I won. This means I lose and this four years is supposed to be about winning.
Tactile keyboard please, my blackberries will only last me so long
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @09:51PM (4 children)
Will the beos ever return?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:06PM (1 child)
I seem to recall that the Be Inc asstests remained at HP, but don't have a source for that. They might have been sold off with webOS to LG or who knows during the HP split/restructuring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 31 2017, @11:25PM
BeOS: for quality asses only.
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Friday September 01 2017, @12:40AM
https://www.haiku-os.org/ [haiku-os.org]
Will BeOS ever return? Since AmigaOS keeps coming back again and again like some poor zombie movie I wouldn't rule it out. But perhaps somewhat more unlikely. That said there is Haiku and that has been around for about a decade, give or take a few years. It's probably as BeOS as it is ever gonna get.
(Score: 3, Informative) by forkazoo on Friday September 01 2017, @01:21AM
Sadly, after so many years of neglect, there's no obvious reason for BeOS to make a comeback. It's a shame, in some ways it was very forward looking and ahead of its time. After years of sitting on a shelf, everything else can certainly do what it did. The things that made it special, aren't. If it had been in the level of active development of NeXT or Linux, it'd certainly still be a viable platform. Now it's just sort of a time capsule of what could have come out of the 1990's but didn't.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday September 01 2017, @06:25PM
I'm sure Palm must have a portfolio of patents that can be used to sue innovators. That was enough to bring Atari back from the grave, after all.
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