Brighthand reports that Palm is dropping support for Macintosh in its future OS versions including the Cobalt. I am sure that might be true, but this is a question the company has to ask itself: a community of around 20 million (Mac) users you can count on by giving support. These are the same folks who have kept you in business because in the WINworld, Palm completely sucks and does not stand a chance against Pocket PC. (Sales data proves this!) Now if I have to buy a third party sync-conduit, well here is another thought: why the hell would i buy Palm OS based device when I can get cooler and more sleeker PocketPC devices that also sync to Mac through a third party conduit. (Sorry this was more a rant than anything else. I am sick and tired of folks not supporting Mac!)
I have had handhelds right from the Sanyo and the Apple Newton onwards and have to say that the Palm OS based PALM Vx was the only handheld that I truly carried around with me everywhere I went. Since then I have owned an IPAQ and a Toshiba but after the customary geek affair with the device, I have pretty much left them on the cradle. Pocket PC devices might be prettier, but they certainly are not without flaws, the first being size, the second and a big one on that – limited to syncing (natively) with outlook only. Palm always gave me the choice and I like choices.
Hope Symbian catches up and comes out with a device that makes everyone happy.
I too have had handhelds for many years. Frankly, I dropped out of the market for these things since they were not meeting my expectations. PocketPC’s are still trying to figure out how to stuff and elephant into an envelope. Palm has just discovered color TV. The MAC is an excellent platform and customer base to learn to get things right. Mac users teach product developers to be focused on task and be elegant about it.
Moving away from that customer base will only alienate that relationship.