Rumour Mill: Navman To Drop Palm Platform?

Darren

We've heard a rumour that Navman are to to cease development of their Palm products in order to concentrate on the Pocket PC market. Palm has never quite managed to achieve the success that PocketPC has enjoyed in the Satellite Navigation arena lacking power in the earlier units and as a result now suffering from a much smaller choice.

A special offer on the Palm Australia website for a Tungsten E2 + Navman 4470 "Get Away Pack" states "This product contains 2004 maps for Australia or New Zealand. Upgrades to the 2004 maps will not be available" which tends to support the rumour. We will of course be approaching Navman to comment and will keep you informed here.
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Darren Griffin

StevenGourlay · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:18 pm Post subject:

I wonder if this is so that they can start to really dedicate to making a better PPC version to compete with tomtom 5. Plam OS has never really kicked of in Europe, big in the US but never really made and impact here. You get people that will not move from PALM as they think anything relating to Microsoft is not reliable, a lot of Mac users use Palm and seems to be like a cult following. It might turn out to be nothing and Navman may continue to create Palm version's but is there really such a large number of Palm users in Europe that i don't know about. Would be interesting if it is the case as Sony pulled out of the Palm market not that long ago and they only really seems to be the Tungsten range available.
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Steven Gourlay
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StevenGourlay · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:25 pm Post subject:

Just found a good link relating to PDA figures for this year. The link below indicates that drop in Palm sales in Europe.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=7811
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Steven Gourlay
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nulusios · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:09 pm Post subject:

wise decision, why invest on a dying (if not DEAD and rotting already) mediocre platform?
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NLS

Darren · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:19 pm Post subject:

Whilst I recognise the Palm had some good points it's the old Apple Mac/PC or VHS /Betamax debate all over. There isn't room for both and Apple Mac's will ultimately go the same way.
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Darren Griffin

nulusios · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:28 pm Post subject:

not really

you see Mac has always been better than PC, THEN PC driven from it's mass market propeled forward giving cheaper technology (this is why today there are 3 PC's and no Macs in my house)

betamax was also superior than VHS even was but still the latter killed the former (or in fact the companies supporting it)

on the other hand, Palm NEVER was better (or should I say more feature rich?) than PPC platform - PPC was a "handheld complete OS" (strugling to manage at first, now succeding) where Palm was always a "smart agenda kit" (today most simple cell phones -not even smartphones- are more complete PDA than a Palm)
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NLS

gsxr1000 · Regular Visitor Joined: Mar 14, 2005 Posts: 66

its a shame, having a palm treo 650 and many pocket pc's one thing i realise is the palm platform just works with very little trouble ar all, infact in my case no trouble, lockups etc, reminds me of my old series 5 symbiam - bomb proof, where ppc on other hand is a downright sham virtually every other day

having just bought the navman pin 570 i can conclude, navman just arent moving in the right direction regarding development and in my opinion their products are virtually standing still - still 5 digit postcode

i was full of hope regarding this navman 2005 software but overall am underwhelmed with it echoing experiences with all other navman kit and hence i an using navigator and copilot 4 on my pin 570

overall it would be better if navman just stopped making gps systems that fall short in terms of speed of use, map accuracy, routing alogrithm and quirky user interface where my copilot 4 is still a killer app

so go on navman - just close down please
from a disappointed customer

NC_HOLUXUK · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 27, 2005 Posts: 20

GSXR that is a bit much don’t you think advising them to stop making GPS (the more GPS companies the more price wars that go on = in theory less the customer pays). Most of the software application's including tomtom, co pilot etc and Palm have their own issues as well. I never liked the fact you can't really multi task on Palm OS but i never really liked the look a feel of the OS which put me off to start with. I would say that they are probably more reliable due to the single tasking nature of the OS, as a lot PPC users don't actually know the amount of programs they have running in the background which can cause the PDA lock. Click on start, settings, system, memory, running programs.

I would like to try a Linux based PDA as i do like Linux on PC's but never tried the OS on a PDA.

BBB · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 24, 2004 Posts: 206

I think another rumour/story/account is that Palm will drop its own OS and use Microsoft's

Streamlining sorta makes sense?

Darren · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:26 am Post subject:

PaulWebster · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:28 pm Post subject:

The 700W has been reported as seen and played with ...
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000867059961/
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Paul Webster

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