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]
Notice how we don't talk
much about Palm apps around here? I used to be the biggest Palm fan out there. That was before the dark days of lousy
hardware, bloated OS updates, and bugs from here to the 10th planet. Riddle me how Sony was able to get Flash on their
PalmOS devices years ago, but Palm's own still don't have it? Explain why the OS has to be stuck at 5.x.x.x.x ad
infinitum? Oh well, they lost me about a year ago (that 
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They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
