Palm Foleo and Linux OS for summer is what Hawkins is announcing at D?
by Ryan Block 
posted May 30th 2007 at 2:33AM
Woops! Looks like someone was trigger-happy at Palm and shot out the press release for tomorrow's announcement a little too soon! Apparently what Jeff Hawkins is going to announce in the morning at D is called the Palm Foleo (a name we've heard rumored before), and is being positioned as a "smartphone companion". We didn't know our smartphones weren't quite smart enough to need a guide to the interwebs, but the Foleo syncs to your mobile device, providing a full size keyboard and larger display for editing documents and triaging email (among other things). So yeah, basically it's a dumb device piggybacking all your Treo's most useful feature -- its connectivity. Apparently users can expect instant-on access, five hours battery life, Palm's new Linux OS, and a $500 pricetag to round off that Treo kit to about a grand this summer. Assuming all this is indeed the case, we can only come to one conclusion: damned if we need yet another friggin device. Seriously, please Palm, what we need is for you to improve the Treo -- or whatever phone device you expect us to carry and use -- not design the Treo its very own Lenny Small to hack around sluggish handset design. The yet-another-device philosophy doesn't carry, so to speak, and it's sure as hell not the future of mobile computing.P.S. -No, that's a jokey Sony UX UMPC to the right, not the still-unseen Foleo.
[Thanks to Brian and everyone who sent this in]
Read - Screencap of the supposed release
Read - Treocentral thread
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
carlo @ May 30th 2007 3:39AM
Anyone else sick of hype? Looks like Ryan Block is--You go boy!!!!
Seriously, give us something new, something we love, and something we won't have to replace. My Palm Pilot was useful for YEARS.
What a waste--although I can say my adrenal glands have had quite the workout.
I'm a little worried about what Apple, HTC and the numerous others with such grand announcements are going to actually produce. Lasting devices we can live with and not have to ship off to landfills, or more trinkets and odds and ends that go obsolete after a month.
It's like watching a bad performance get worse, better yet, Ms. USA trip over her dress over and over and over, or a perpetual fall down an up escalator (viz. Billy & Mandy).
MikeC @ May 30th 2007 4:24AM
"as smartphones get smaller, this need increases"
This must be a joke, the Treo hasn't had a signifigant reduction in size since the 300.
Patrick Horne @ May 30th 2007 8:02AM
C'mon. Don't be so negative. The Palm FolDeo will be a great companion for those all those iPhones!
Admiral @ May 30th 2007 8:31AM
Sounds like a Nonia N800 internet tablet clone to me, from what I've read thus far anyway
Jeff Snugglebutton @ May 30th 2007 8:37AM
This is like selling pant legs for those who bought shorts. So, now we need another product in our pocket, that won't even fit in our pocket.
brian @ May 30th 2007 11:05AM
I wouldn't carry something like this with a Treo, but would love to have a "dumb" bluetooth-enabled qwerty keyboard and screen as a companion to a keyboard-less smartphone (say, an HTC Typhoon). Out to dinner and just want to check e-mail? Take the phone. An overnight trip where I didn't want to lug the computer? Take the keyboard / screen, which presumably could be thin and light.
johdaxx @ May 30th 2007 2:41PM
I agree - it sounds like he's been walking down the same line of thought as whoever came up with the Nokia N770 / N800 ideas.
The problem is the 'as cell phones get smaller' idea -- there aren't to many if any truly small size phones that have 3G & Wifi you'd want use as the data connection for a bigger screen unit thingy. Add in that the 3G stuff requires a bigger battery, and you end up with a larger unit you might as well have a larger screen on anyway.
Maybe they'll have a M505 GSM Watchphone clone along with the keyboard-screen device. :)