Filed under: OS Updates, Palm, Mobile Minute
Access begins to show off its PalmOS replacement
If you're tired of looking at the turn of the century operating systems on your Palm Treo, you're not alone. It's been years since Palm (once the industry leader) has managed to push out a major update to its antiquated mobile operating system. And now there are two companies working on replacements for Palm Garnet.We haven't heard much from Palm Inc on the company's next operating system. But Access, the company Palm had selected to write the next OS before deciding to do it in house appears to be ready to roll with ALP or the Access Linux Platform. The only problem is that the company doesn't seem to have any major phone makers/wireless carriers signed up yet.
Ed Hardy at Brighthand got a good look at the new ALP operating system. Basically, it's a full fledged mobile Linux OS with a compatibility layer that lets you run older Palm applications. There's also a Java machine, which means that you can install PalmOS, ALP, or Java applications on the phone. They all show up in the launcher menu and you'll never really know what's happening under the hood. Applications will just pop up when you hit their icons, the way it was always meant to be.
ALP also supports true multitasking, so you can run programs in the background while using other apps in the foreground. Little icons will show up in the task bar showing you which programs are open and letting you easily switch from one to another. Overall, ALP doesn't look seem particularly revolutionary when compared to Symbian or Windows Mobile devices. But it makes Garnet look like a bit of a dinosaur. Not that that's a difficult thing to do.
[via jkOnTheRun]
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Colin said 9:46AM on 11-10-2007
Hmm. FTA:
"I can attest to the fact that it really works. The guys from Access showed me a Palm OS application running on an evaluation device, and it worked fine, even though the smartphone had a QVGA screen. This is a different screen resolution than the software had been designed for, but ALP scaled it down."
I sometimes wonder about the bloggorhea DLS contributes to. This is pretty much a pingback article with some fluff attached, couple with some pandering to people who like shiny things.
Article summary: Someone looked at something and we threw in some extra keywords and tossed it up as a diggable.
Rant over Access seems to steal all the bad from Windows Mobile and throw out the good from PalmOS.
Gradients? Check
Outdated UI holdovers?* Check
Disjointed icons? Check
Why are all the status icons shoved in the top right? What's an "AB"? Why is what I assume is the "find" icon in the middle of the status icons?
Why is everything black? What's with the circa-2004 shiny title bar. What's the point of pointing out you're in "Launcher"?
Thanks for leaving the "Program Manager" menu in the right. Possibly the most useless PalmOS element has been brought forward.
I look forward to the inevitable death of PalmOS brought on by Palm's ineptitude. Way to sit on a good thing.
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Colin said 9:47AM on 11-10-2007
Apologies for the lack of punctuation and glyphs in that last post. The form seems to strip things randomly.
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