I’m hugging my Treo 650

January 5, 2006 by Jeff Jarvis

Both David Pogue in the Times and Walt Mossberg in the Journal are unhappy with the Windows version of the Treo. And I was getting all ready to have a case of gadget envy. I’ll stay happy with my Treo 650.

  • http://www.deliveryblog.com John

    I had a Treo 600 and loved that thing. It was the first all in one device I found myself using consistently on a daily basis. If only they’d throw in GPS…

    Thanks,
    John
    http://www.deliveryblog.com/

  • Scote

    John writes, “If only they’d throw in GPS…”

    And yet my Treo 650, like most newer cell phones including the 700, has GPS already as part of the 911 location service, but apparently the cell phone companies won’t let Palm give Treo users access to the location data the phone is generating–or it is possible that Palm decided to withhold this feature on its own, but this seems less likely.

    I’m not sure if the GPS data generated by the palm is as accurate as that from an external device like Tom Tom or Garmin, but it would still be very useful to have access to for basic location applications. It seems outrageous that cell phone vendors are such an oligopoly that Palm has to give into their whims–as proven with the way cell phone companies cripple the bluetooh compatibility.

  • Marthirial

    Just wondering if Palm OS in the Treo can do this:

    Access a mySQL server, update a record and then send the order to backup the database into an specific FTP server which you can later access to confirm it has the backup file and download into internal memory of handheld.

    I can do it with Windows Mobile 2003 without extra software to install.

  • http://www.blackrimglasses.com Ethan

    I’m hugging my PPC-6700 from Sprint, because it does all that this one can do, but at higher resolution, more speed and more capacity with Wi-Fi :) And it cost me the same amount. I hate the PalmOS because its multitasking support sucks.

    Locative services != GPS. It uses triangulation with the cell towers (which have long/lat data) to pinpoint a rough location. It’d be nice if they opened an API to it, but I don’t see it happening soon. I think you can get zipcode from the tower in the API though.

    My dream device would have GPS to do geoloc on the pictures I take, update my location on my blog, etc. Some of the cheapo Nextel phones can do that, it seems silly that my 600+ PPC can’t.

  • Scote

    Ethan writes, “Locative services != GPS. It uses triangulation with the cell towers (which have long/lat data) to pinpoint a rough location.”

    I believe that you are only half right. “Locative services” doesn’t *necessarily* mean GPS but it often does, as in the case of the Treo and many other cell phones it. You can turn off the “location” feature on a Treo which disables the GPS receiver and then Sprint, for example, uses triangulation as a back up.

    But, it seems you can use the GPS on the 700 anymore than on the 650. Wheww. Gadget envy narrowly averted.

    It seems that Sprint and other carriers want to sell you the location data that the cell phone you own generates.

    http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/28/telenav-gps-comes-to-sprint/

    (Don’t tell me about how the cell phone company subsidies the cost of the phone because if I leave my contract early my carrier charges a flat fee that covers the cost of the subsidy–a cost which is not, I might add, pro-rated based on how long I’ve had the contract which is a kind of damages clause that some think is illegal based on California law regarding contracts.)

    There is a thread at treocentral about the AGPS and its possible availability for Location Based Services.

    “http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=66803″

  • http://www.treotoday.net morituri

    My own Treo 650 is also firmly hugged. What I really want is more memory, 3G/UMTS support, and support for WiFi SD cards.

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