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Communications Handhelds Software Hardware Linux

Palm OS Apps on Linux Mobile Phones 50

Posted by Zonk from the more-toys-on-the-go dept.
An anonymous reader writes "PalmSource revealed details of its Linux-based mobile phone operating system, Tuesday at 3GSM in Barcelona. Codenamed ALP (Access Linux Platform), the architecture supports Palm OS application binaries, Java apps, and native Linux apps. ALP includes a 68K emulation layer capable of running 'properly written' Palm 68K or 'Garnet' application binaries without modification, PalmSource claims. However, devices based on ALP are not expected until next year -- will it be too late for PalmSource and it's parent company ACCESS to gain a foothold in the mobile phone market?"
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Palm OS Apps on Linux Mobile Phones More

Palm OS Apps on Linux Mobile Phones

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  • PalmSource Open Sources Binder (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eugenia Loli ( 250395 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:34PM (#14718937) Journal
    PalmSource also open sourced today their Binder technology, now called OpenBinder [openbinder.org]. This futuristic architecture technology is described by engineer Dianne Hackborn in her interview [osnews.com].

  • why not years ago? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by penguin-collective ( 932038 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:47PM (#14719048)
    They could have done this 3-5 years ago (using a Linux, BSD, or other POSIX-like kernel).

    One might ask why they didn't do that. Well, for the answer look to the article on Shuttleworth: Palm's engineers had so much more fun designing a new operating system from scratch that the obvious answer eluded them, and because Palm was flying high, they had the money and resources to waste on their hare-brained project of developing their own new operating system.

    Unfortunately, Palm's idiocy probably condemns us all to using PocketPC or Qt/Embedded at some point.

    • Re:why not years ago? (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @05:29PM (#14719406) Journal
      When palm started out they were using those horribly underpowered Dragonball CPUs from Motorola. This was a cut-down 68K chip, with no MMU which ran at between 16 and 33MHz, giving a staggering 3MIPS. The lack of an MMU alone meant that they couldn't go with any Free POSIX-like OS available at the time. The lack of power made it even more certain. They could probably have licensed something like QNX, but then they would have been dependant on a third party for their OS.

      Don't forget, the first Palms were released in 1996. Back then, desktop CPUs were past the 100MHz mark and pushing past one instruction per clock. The DragonBall, in comparison, had less power than a MicroVAX and, while you can run NetBSD on a MicroVAX, you really don't want to - and you'd want to even less if you had to re-write the VM subsystem to work without an MMU.

      The original PalmOS was designed for a platform where features were far less important than battery life. Shoehorning a full UNIX-like OS in would have required a lot more resources, which would have driven the cost up and the battery life down - exactly the opposite of what was required.

      • Re:why not years ago? (Score:3, Informative)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )
        When palm started out they were using those horribly underpowered Dragonball CPUs from Motorola. This was a cut-down 68K chip, with no MMU which ran at between 16 and 33MHz, giving a staggering 3MIPS. The lack of an MMU alone meant that they couldn't go with any Free POSIX-like OS available at the time. The lack of power made it even more certain. They could probably have licensed something like QNX, but then they would have been dependant on a third party for their OS.

        Actually, PalmOS was designed to handl

      • Re:why not years ago? (Score:3, Informative)

        by isaac ( 2852 )
        They could probably have licensed something like QNX, but then they would have been dependant on a third party for their OS.


        They did. Palm OS used the AMX kernel from Kadak.

        -Isaac

      • Don't forget, the first Palms were released in 1996.

        That's why I said "3-5 years ago", not "10 years ago". The original PalmOS was a reasonable business decision

        But as soon as they switched to ARM, they should have moved to Linux or BSD. They could have done so with less effort than it took them to produce PalmOS 5, and they could have preserved full backwards compatibility. They missed the boat again (and wasted even more money) when they developed Cobalt. PalmOS 5 and Cobalt were both big business blu

  • YaY (Yet another Yawn)? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by otis wildflower ( 4889 ) on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @04:47PM (#14719055) Homepage
    This whole 'Linux phone' thing has, to date, sucked for hobbyists. Motorola? Suck.

    At least SonyEricsson has released free toolchains... For Symbian.

    Where oh where is the phone vendor that will release a smartphone with the ability to load custom-written Linux apps ala .SIS files for Symbian, without a great deal of reverse engineering? Pick a toolset and run with it, preferably something that allows for easy porting from existing OSS apps?

    But of course, normal people don't buy smartphones, cell companies do. So it won't happen. Oh well.

    • Re:YaY (Yet another Yawn)? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Where oh where is the phone vendor that will release a smartphone with the ability to load custom-written Linux apps ala .SIS files for Symbian, without a great deal of reverse engineering? Pick a toolset and run with it, preferably something that allows for easy porting from existing OSS apps?

      It is not possible to get FCC type approval for mobile phones if the software can be modified by the user. So as long as Linux is not safely separated from the communication software, just as an application running in

    • Wow, tough crowd (Score:3, Interesting)

      by WebCowboy ( 196209 )
      This whole 'Linux phone' thing has, to date, sucked for hobbyists.

      With all due respect, with that attitude it sounds like the lack of progress for Linux in this market space has as much to do with the hobbyist community as it does with the manufacturers of these devices. If every open-source-related announcement by an ISV or gadget-maker is met with a response like this from hobbyists there won't be much enthusiasm to keep going down the Free Software path.

      Pretty much every company out there in the wireles
  • ...will it be too late for PalmSource and it's parent company ACCESS to gain a foothold in the mobile phone market?

    I sure hope not. Windows Mobile seems to be well on it's way toward taking over a significant portion of this market which needs competition. It will certainly be interesting to see how this market evolves since Linux, and other OS'es have more of a fair chance against Microsoft here than on the Desktop market. Even so I expect Windows Mobile to have a great advantage due to it's high degree of
    • Windows Mobile seems to be well on it's way toward taking over a significant portion of this market which needs competition.

      Microsoft's success in this area is far from assured. I can honestly say that for every Microsoft smartphone I've seen someone use, I've seen five (well, probably even more) based on other platforms...and to put it plainly, the Microsoft-based super-phones totally suck. They are more expensive, firstly. They are physically huge in comparison to a Blackberry device, the user interfac

      • People want to push the ON button and be able to make calls, check emails, text each other and just have it work.

        Then PalmSource is doomed. You can do all that with a generic closed handset.

        PalmOS's value is the strong PDA integration and available third-party apps. You're right that a lot of users don't care about those benefits: Sanyo and Samsung sell better high-end multimedia phones that don't use PalmOS (or WinCE, or Symbian).

        Get cell providers and manufacturers, etc on board and you're set.

        B

        • But U.S. cell providers don't want rich extensible devices, they want to sell you $2 ringtones, $3 music downloads, $10/month online photo albums, and address book backup for $2/month.

          Actually, I think cellphone companies would LOVE to have "rich, extensible devices". When I referred to "circumventing their revenue-generating content-delivery system" I meant in terms of USER-CONTROLLED extensibility--most notably the ability for hobbyists to "hack" their smartphones and plug in their own programs via a loc
    • Most "smartphones" I have seen were Symbian-based Nokias. I've seen a WinMobile-powered phone (all of them Motorolas) only three times in my life. And one of these phones was force-rebooted twice in 20 minutes. You may become quite angry when you were playing a really difficult level in some game and an importaint incoming call froze the phone completely.
  • ...this much stuff [linuxdevices.com] in something as small as a phone! Imagine what PalmSource could do if they wrote the OS for something as large as a microwave oven. Or even a refrigerator.
  • They should have named it PINE - Pine Is Not an Emulator.

  • Gain a foothold? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7NO@SPAMcornell.edu> on Tuesday February 14, 2006 @05:09PM (#14719244) Homepage
    Given that Palm Inc. is one of PalmSource's largest licensees, I would say that PalmSource already has a pretty big foothold in the mobile market.

    The Treo 600 was pretty popular, the Treo 650 is incredibly popular (and is getting huge amounts of product placement in TV shows and movies - even teenagers are packing 650s in Smallville! :) ), and while the initial release of the Verizon Treo 700w is Windows Mobile based, there are lots of rumors with some substantiation that a Sprint Treo 700p is under development. The Treo 750 may likely be using this new Linux-based PalmOS version.

    BTW, a Linux-based PalmOS isn't exactly new news - it's been known for quite a while that the next generation of PalmOS was going to be based on Linux.
    • ... a pretty big foothold in the mobile market.

      Only in the US.

      • And in Europe... I know plenty of people (including myself) that own either Treo's or some other palm PDA... actually... I know only 2 people who have had a Win Mobile phone/PDA's here, one of those got rid of it in exchange for a palm as quick as possible.
    • I saw an apparent Treo product placement in an unlikely place, Strong Bad Email #144 [homestarrunner.com]. (not labeled, but Pom Pom is using a high-tech phone that looks like a Treo, even with the oval by the speaker area) This was pretty cool to me, as I have a Treo 650.
  • Great!

    Now, not only will my new phone be unable to run more than one task at the same time, but it'll also crash a few times a week.
  • Palm et. al. has so embarassingly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory that this won't even begin to make a dent in the handheld market. What this appears to be is a way to generate some buzz about a once great company by throwing the word "Linux" in a press release.

    What PalmSource needs to do is license an embedded Linux OS (embedix, maybe?) or create their own, pretty up the GUI, port their killer apps and come out as a major alternative to Windows Mobile. I would gladly purchase a Linux handheld i

  • It's never too late when you go with linux or java, and especially so when you add Palm apps to that.
  • This is for all those idealists, who were saying that Treo 700w was actually a good move for PalmOS. Unfortunately it was not. Rather it was a beginning of PalmOS's end.

    I say, good riddance. As much as I loved my Palm III, those days are gone and Palm has been wandering aimlessly chasing one target after another and making all kinds of ridiculous mistakes.

    As much as I disagree, the market has chosen features over minimalism (it always does, BTW). No matter how ridiculous it is to watch movies on a 4" sc

    • That was the least coherent post I've seen in a while.

      Have you seen the treo 650? I watch movies on it on it's screen.

      What was your point again? Because I have no idea, but you seem so intent on something, I really am curious :-)

      For the record, I don't think the 700w is a bad thing - there are people that will always use MacOS and people who will always use Windows, would it be bad for Dell to sell them both the hardware? Because that's how the PalmSource / Palm relationship is now. Palm can sell everyone t

      • That was the least coherent post I've seen in a while.

        Thank you. You have a nice day too.

        For the record, I don't think the 700w is a bad thing - there are people that will always use MacOS and people who will always use Windows, would it be bad for Dell to sell them both the hardware? Because that's how the PalmSource / Palm relationship is now. Palm can sell everyone the hardware now, regardless of what OS they want.

        I was not talking about Palm, the hardware company. Those guys will survive - they pr

        • Hey - you could certainly be right, though I would be sad if you were.

          I see it a bit different though, miniaturization being what it is, and the Treo 650 already being so close to a general purpose computer, we'll just see those bizarre MIT Media Lab / Snowcrash gargoyle visions come to pass. And you just can't keep Linux off general-purpose computers - price pressures dictate standardization which dictates open interfaces, and the next thing you know, there's Linux and the BSDs running happily on them.

          All

    • won again? ha ha ha. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by twitter ( 104583 )
      In about 1-2 years the PDA market will be 100% Windows Mobile. The battle will shift into the smartphone space with Symbian and Windows Mobile being the biggest players and everyone else feeding off the table crumbs.

      Steve, just promise me you won't break any chairs of fucking kill anyone when your little wet dream does not work any better than Xbox or tablet PCs.

      the market has chosen features over minimalism (it always does, BTW). No matter how ridiculous it is to watch movies on a 4" screen, this is w

      • PDA's are dead because no one wants them, not because MS killed them. People want their PDA functions integrated into phones.
      • Whoa! From level 3 straight down to Troll just because I didn't drink the Palm CoolAid. I'm becoming a Slashdotter, I guess... :-)

        Steve, just promise me you won't break any chairs of fucking kill anyone when your little wet dream does not work any better than Xbox or tablet PCs.

        Facing such an impeccable logic, I cannot really argue. You won.

        PDA sales are in the dirt right now. I suspect it has something to do with a planned lack of choices outside expensive but underperforming WinCE machines and const

    • If you're addressing idealists, then it doesn't matter who wins. They will still continue on working on the projects that they're interested in. If you mean to discourage them with your words, shame on you. I doubt many of these tech-savvy people are so aloof as not to be aware that one technology or another has become a de facto standard.
    • This is for all those idealists, who were saying that Treo 700w was actually a good move for PalmOS. Unfortunately it was not. Rather it was a beginning of PalmOS's end.

      The 700w is a good move for PALM. Not PalmSource. Nothing says "we're here to make hardware" like running the other guy's OS.

      Oh, and I've got a pair of PDAs that I regularly watch movies or recorded TVs on. Both from Palm. Both, although plauged by an eargly-adopter syndrome (LifeDrive), work as fine and simply as anything I've ever had.
    • I can't believe this is modded troll!
      I know a lot of people that want an uncrashable PDA with support for simple games, books and low power consumption.
      For example, I've switched from a Toshiba e310 to a Palm Zire 71, then to a Sony Clie SJ22 and a separate cd-mp3 player for music.
  • I just hope they'll be more friendly to third-party developers. Nurturing them instead of alienating them. Palm has always had a great rapport with third-party devs. In fact, a huge number of the apps available for the Palm were developed not only by third-party app developers but by free and open source software developers.

    So far, Linux phones like the Motorola ones and many based on QTopia have been met with resentment by 3rd party devs. OpenEZX laments that it can't even access certain functionality thro
  • "will it be too late for PalmSource and it's parent company ACCESS to gain a foothold in the mobile phone market?"

    Well, in my opinion the three best smartphones on the market right now are the Sony P910i, the Treo 650, and the HTC Magician, so they have some sort of a foothold. ;-)
  • It would be interesting to know if ALP can support single core CPUs - where the same CPU runs the GSM/CDMA stack and all the applications as well. This is going to be a critical factor in the total cost of the operating system + handset and is an area where Symbian has a long head start over Windows Mobile.

    Symbian was sold on 10.9 million handsets in the last quarter - making it an attractive target for developers such as myself. I am not denying Palm's product could be awesome but it seems to have a hell
    • Symbian was sold on 10.9 million handsets in the last quarter - making it an attractive target for developers such as myself. I am not denying Palm's product could be awesome but it seems to have a hell of a long way to catch up.

      I totally disagree. While Symbian may have sold 10.9 million handsets, how many of these are bought by people that don't even know what Symbian means? I'm sure most of those handsets are used by people that have never installed a Symbian app and only use it as a standard phone.

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