Palm Inc.
Palm Inc. unveils their second-generation wireless handheld, the i705. The major
change from the VII is the “always-on” features (incoming
email/instant-message notification; live instant messaging). The VII
was strictly “pull”, which made it impossible for developers (or Palm)
to build apps that could report live data or that could receive
information without the user’s involvement. (Actually, that last little
bit is also hampered by the strictly single-tasking PalmOS. A
minor impediment.)
Another big improvement over the VII: form factor. It’s smaller and lighter
than the VII, and doesn’t have the ugly fold-out antenna (although if you
don’t mind the slightly poorer reception, you can remove the antenna on the
VII and rotate it so that the internal switch thinks the antenna’s raised
when it’s really not).
As expected, most Slashdot
readers are underwhelmed.