I hate to say that it is inevitable, but it is inevitable. Back in the day I was a big fan of PalmOS, if only for the uniformity of experience. The DB layer and UI paradigm meant that all the apps had to behave in a roughly similar manner, so you knew what you were getting into.
Contrast WinCE/PocketPC/WinMo, which from day one had the curse of Windows: too much UI flexibility. Even now my WinMo5 PocketPC Phone Edition has soft buttons that developers happily ignore, destroying my user experience when I try to use the left soft button to open a 'File' menu.
One day Windows itself will got the same way as PalmOS: death by a thousand backwards-compatibility cuts. Someone needs to have the balls to make a break and make it fast. I wonder if compatibility with Palm's massive back-catalogue was the thing that broke Cobalt?
Stu
· 3 years ago
The thing that killed Cobalt was no handset manufacturer on the planet gave a flying fig about it.
Handset manufacturers are like sheep. None of them will take a punt on a new OS.
Windows Mobile is only a 'success' because of the Microsoft behemoth behind it.
Symbian OS exists solely because Sony/Ericsson needed an OS that was mature enough to support cellphone useage ... but wasn't made by Microsoft or to a lesser extent, Palm.
All Comments
Contrast WinCE/PocketPC/WinMo, which from day one had the curse of Windows: too much UI flexibility. Even now my WinMo5 PocketPC Phone Edition has soft buttons that developers happily ignore, destroying my user experience when I try to use the left soft button to open a 'File' menu.
One day Windows itself will got the same way as PalmOS: death by a thousand backwards-compatibility cuts. Someone needs to have the balls to make a break and make it fast. I wonder if compatibility with Palm's massive back-catalogue was the thing that broke Cobalt?
Handset manufacturers are like sheep. None of them will take a punt on a new OS.
Windows Mobile is only a 'success' because of the Microsoft behemoth behind it.
Symbian OS exists solely because Sony/Ericsson needed an OS that was mature enough to support cellphone useage ... but wasn't made by Microsoft or to a lesser extent, Palm.