Forced Upgrades (or Why I Left WebOS for the Overlords at Google)-Part 3

The second major issue with Palm was one they never, ever came close to figuring out: hardware. Let's start with aesthetics. As many reasons as I have for not wanting an iPhone, the physical phone itself isn't one of them. Apple has always has a very clean, very modern, minimalist design in their products, and the iPhone doesn't disappoint. HTC has been putting in work for years, combining soft touch plastics, brushed aluminum, and various flourishes to make highly attractive phones no matter what carrier or OS. Samsung has done big things with its Galaxy lineup. What did Palm do? They went with a small, plastic, pebble shaped phone. It had the minimalist thing going for it, true. But with the hard, glossy plastic it never felt substantial, premium, when you held it. It would never win many votes in a beauty pagent.

Pretty easy choice for millions of people...

But it was more than the looks. The hardware specs were also an issue. The processor and screen size were fine in January 2009 at CES. By the time it dropped in the summer, other phones were surpassing those specs offering bigger screens, more memory, and faster processors. This wouldn't have been a problem if the hardware was upgraded, as most every other company does. HTC seems to have a new or remixed phone every 3 weeks, with specs that either keep up with the latest trends in technology or push them farther (like they did with the EVO 4G). Apple upgrades their phone on a yearly basis, with a huge event to mark the occasion. Motorola, which rode the RAZR popularity entirely too long and nearly took themselves out of the smartphone game, had cranked out some quality pieces of hardware.

And to think, this is the same company that makes Nextel phones...

Heck, even RIM has managed to tweak their crackberry to keep business and social types happy. What did Palm do? Well, depends on your carrier. If you were on Verizon or AT&T, you got a crack at the Pre Plus. The big changes between it and the original Pre on Sprint? More internal RAM and the removal of the physical button in the gesture area. That's all. No screen size or resolution increases, no processor bump, no change of form factor, not even a special edition color. In February 2011 Verizon did release the oft delayed Pre 2, which finally brought a faster 1mhz processor and WebOS 2.0, which brought out some enhancements, but no other changes to speak of. Now, for die hard Palm fans or lovers of WebOS, the change was notable, even if the hardware changes were nowhere near the upgrade they had rallied for. But for the average person coming into Verizon for a phone, the Pre2 never stood a chance.

It's all new! Really, it is! What, it doesn't look new?

First off, Verizon store employees did a horrible job in promoting the phone in store. When the Plus dropped, there were stories of some stores steering people away from the Pre to one of their Android offerings. Verizon had decided that, without the all conquering iPhone, it stood a better chance getting customers by pushing their 'Droid' lineup of phones by Motorola and HTC. At that point, WebOS was still a more polished offering than whichever of the multiple flavors of Android that were out. But on the same looking, same spec hardware, and with employees that weren't exactly encouraged to push it, the Pre Plus was barely noticed. By time the Pre2 hit, Big Red was offering a glut of 4 inch, super fast Android phones  and a little thing called the iPhone 4, which finally came to the network. There was no way a phone that had physically changed very little in 2 years would stand a chance getting noticed, even if Verizon gave them away for free.

But what about Sprint? Their customers (like myself) were the first to buy into Palm's new OS, and often were the most vocal and loyal bunch of WebOS users. Surely they would have enjoyed some new hardware. Nope. Sprint, feeling it got burned by Palm when the Pre failed to meet sales expectation, decided not to carry any further iteration of the Pre. Sprint users were never offered the Pre Plus, instead having to deal with the annoying 'too many cards' memory leak.

There was PLENTY of this to go around for Sprint customers...

The Pre2? Not a chance. The thing is, WebOS users, like myself, would have snapped them up without thinking if Sprint offered them, even with the plethora of Android offerings, simply because the OS was great. To make matters worse, the aforementioned WebOS 2.0, which was promised to all Palm Pre owners, never made it to owners of the Sprint Palm Pre. Lack of memory and processor speed meant the OS would not run properly, further insulating those loyal customers.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the other offering Palm had: the Pixi. In an effort to win back the few hundred people still holding on to their Centros, Palm released what was essentially a smaller Pre with a slower processor and, depending on your carrier, lack of WiFi.

Somebody had to think this would sell. Not sure who...

True, WebOS was coded in a way that the vast majority of programs written for it would scale down to work on the lesser hardware with no problem showing the versatility of the software. But most people didn't want a smaller, slower phone than what they had. Why Palm gave Pre users, especially those on Sprint, a way to downgrade, but absolutely no way to upgrade is beyond me. And the name. Pixi. What grown person is going to buy any product with a name like Pixi?

Now, many thought the issue with the lack of new hardware was Palm's relative lack of funding. And to a point, that could be argued. They simply didn't have the funds to R&D new product like any of the larger manufacturers. So when it was announced that HP was buying them for a few billion, many thought it could work. I mean, this is HP. They have TONS of cash from pushing desktops, laptops, and printers for years.

Every office known to man had to fight with one of these....

Money should have been no problem. All the planned product that had been hinted at and whispered about could now be put out to the public, and WebOS could be seen for the great OS it is. Right?

Wrong. So very, very wrong.

While the HP and Palm guys promised a slew of new products in the coming months, only 3 were confirmed: a tablet, which thanks to the iPad was all the rage, and 2 new phones.

Yes, those are two BRAND NEW phones. We've gone over this before...

First was the Veer (the one on the left), a 2.6 inch slider phone that was SMALLER than even the Pixi and sporting WebOS 2.0. HP tryed to hype the phone the best it could. Palm guru John Rubenstein actually started using it as his main phone (although I'm not sure how many other business execs would be squinting at that tiny screen or trying to tap out e-mails in the boardroom with that). AT&T released the phone in May 2011. Nobody cared. It seems that nobody was really that interested in a slider phone the size of an egg (and looked like an egg if you ordered the Veer in white). Considering most every other phone in the market were going for BIGGER screens, and most Palm fans had been begging for a bigger, better phone, not releasing the Pre 3 had to be one of the dumbest decisions HP could have made.

But...but.. iCarley thinks its sooooooooo cute!

So after crapping the bed with that phone decision, HP decided to put their full might on the HP Touchpad. With the iPad setting the stage, everybody was trying to get a piece of the tablet pie, fielding tablets to compete against the all conquering Apple slab. This time, HP figured they had a shot. With WebOS 3.0 running on some decent hardware (1.2 Ghz Snapdragon with 1Gb RAM), it had the muscle to fight with the Galaxy Tab and iPad 2. WebOs was still a slicker, more refined interface than Honeycomb (which was almost a stop-gap OS designed for tablets but never really got traction) and was ready to show the world just what was possible on more capable hardware. A big ad campain was run, dedicated space was set up in Best Buy and Staples to set it apart from the other tablets and special training was given to salespeople so they know the benefits of the Touchpad and why someone would want one over that pesky iPad. So how did it fare?

Put it like this: Harry couldn't even save them...

Bad. Very, very bad. First, the reviews weren't exactly kind to it. Where most tablets in it's price range went with some sort of soft touch or aluminum casing, the Touchpad looked...like a supersized Pre. Same hard touch, shiny plastic, same rounded pebble look. It's one thing to keep the family resemblence going, but when nobody is really impressed by it, it's going to be hard to get people to give you much of a look. Once you got past the looks, there was the performance. Even with a competetive processor, the tablet often felt sluggish when doing web browsing and other tasks. This was fixed by subsequent OTA updates (one of which went out not long after the Touchpad hit the shelves), but it would seem that for a product that had been in development for so long, these issues should have been sorted out. Couple that with the dirth of apps (which I'll get to in anothe entry) and the fact that it sold for the same price as the Tab and iPad, and it was a very, VERY hard sell for a company that simply had to make this work if WebOS had any chance of survival in a world where Apple was still king in mind share and Android was taking the lead in market share. In August, less than 2 months after the Touchpad went on sale, HP announced it that it would discontinue all current hardware devices running WebOS. The remaining stock of Touchpads would be sold off at ridiculous discount. How ridiculous? At launch, a 16GB Touchpad went for $499. During the fire sale that followed HP's discontinuation, you could have that same touchpad for the low low price of $99. The Touchpads then sold like hotcakes. In a bit of irony, HP now had the second most popular tablet on the market, and they weren't even making them anymore.

Who wants orphaned tech? WE DO!!!

With the death of all WebOS hardware, the Pre3 was dead before it even had a chance. Any hope of a competetive (or any, at this point) phone running an OS other than Android or iOS with true multitasking was over. Just to add salt in the wound of the Palm faithful, a few websites managed to get a hold of one of the few Pre3 phones that actually made it out into the wild. The reviews were pretty much what most people thought: The best Palm phone yet, but looks too similar to every other Pre and just not enough there to sway most people to buy it over a similar Android or Apple product, even if the OS rocks. Sprint could easily have sold them to every Pre owner they still had with no problem. But that would never happen now.

As depressing as this was, there was still one more reason the Pre and WebOS failed.

So much to do, so little time

This really is pathetic. I've got so many half done posts or barely started posts it's not even funny. That's going to change. The plan is to post something, ANYTHING, every Saturday at the latest from here on out. My NBA story is a season and a half late, my International Slumber worklog is a year behind, and I haven't even started El Guapo and El Jeffe yet. But I will. By hook or by crook, I will.

And who knows. You may even see some grilling stories here.

Stay classy DMV

Spenzalii

Forced Upgrades (or Why I Left WebOS for the Overlords at Google)-Part 2

So, Palm has a new phone, new OS, healthy buzz, and a carrier in Sprint that would feature the Pre as their exclusive premier phone, much like AT&T was doing with the iPhone. In the first month, the uptake on it was record breaking for Sprint. How could they go wrong?

First off: terrible marketing. You could have the best product in the world, something that stands thoroughly and unequivocally above anything else in it's class. If nobody knows about it, it's not going to sell. Multitasking and notifications worked better than anything Apple or Android could offer, and the swiping interface was well thought out and implemented. You would think focusing on some of these things would be a good idea in your marketing blitz, right? Apparently, the marketing heads at Palm thought otherwise.

What we have here is a lady that looks like the cross between the Pre-Cogs in Minority Report and the Borg Queen's cousin doing some nonsensical drivel about.... Reincarnation. Huh? This one was even worse:

Now we have a mind reading phone. And we can barely see what she's doing with said clairvoyant technology. What gives? People had no idea the commercials was even about a phone, let alone why they would want to leave their Android, Blackberry or beloved iPhone for a Pre. When the phone finally made its way to Verizon, the marketing wasn't much better.

Smart enough to keep up with MOM?. For reference, my mother rocks a purple crackberry. Definitely NOT the phone I want to be seen with. So if mom rolls up with a Pre....It did slightly better at showing what the phone could do, but considering previous efforts, that wasn't saying much. Verizon really could care less, as they were full steam behind their Droid line of phones (more on this later). By the time AT&T started carrying the phone, they didn't even bother with marketing. It just sort of showed up, overshadowed by the iPhone. Just before Palm got bought by HP they actually put out the kind of commercials they should have started with all along, actually showing what you could do with WebOS.

But at this point, it was too little, too late.

Forced Upgrades (or Why I Left WebOS for the Overlords at Google)-Part 1

Options are great. When you have an option, you can choose what works for YOU, not what the masses say should work for you. You can proudly say you made your choice without giving in to the mob mentality, with the knowledge that your decision will fit your individual needs. Scan Different (c) Ecko. However, that doesn't work with everything, especially electronics. And it certainly didn't work with my phone...

First, some disclosure. I rarely ever change phones or carriers. I was with Nextel back with the OG i1000. I switched to the i90 (one of the greatest phones ever)  when the hinge on the i1000 broke and could not be fixed.

Greatest. Nextel. EVER

The i90 gave way to the i580, only because I wanted to make my own .wav ringtones and have a color screen (a mistake, as the i90 was such a better phone). The i580 soldiered on long past its prime, as none of the crop of phones Sprint carried made me want to spend $300 to upgrade. Sure the Moguls and the Touch Diamonds were nice, but I wanted no parts of Windows Mobile.

No way was I going to deal with THIS...

I wasn't the right clientele for a Blackberry, so that was a no go. Android was at its infancy. And while many bought the kool-aide  that was the Instinct, thinking that was an iPhone killer, I wasn't going to be duped.

I still laugh at everyone that bought this crap...

Then came CES 2009. Palm, who had been rapidly losing market share pushing Treos and Centros with craptacular Windows Mobile or woefully outdated PalmOS, showed off what it had been working on for the past few months. The Palm Pre. 

Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhh (at the time, anyway)

It seemed to tick all the right boxes for what I wanted in a new phone: capacitive touch screen, wi-fi, bluetooth, physical keyboard, not Windows based. WebOS was new and exiting, and seemed different enough from iOS, Android, whatever version of Windows Mobile was out, etc. The preview of the OS was intriguing, with multitouch input (something Apple seemed to hold the monopoly on at the time) and all forms of on screen swipes (something slightly different). The launch, unfortunately for many, wouldn't happen until early summer. This worked out perfectly for me. My contract would be up for renewal about the same time my job issued their summer bonuses, meaning I would have the funds to actually buy a new phone the same time it was available after launch. I took a lunch break, hopped on the train to the nearest Sprint store and had brand spanking new Palm Pre up and running in less than 15 minutes.


Now, coming from an ancient Nextel to the realm of a smartphone, anything would have been a revelation. But WebOS? It really was something special. The Synergy feature made it extremely easy to get my att.net and gmail accounts synced up with minimum fuss. Facebook and Photobucket were also as easy to get rolling on the phone. After a quick tutorial, the whole 'gesture' language mad complete sense. Being able to 'swipe' forward and backward to open files, close programs, delete e-mails, move around web pages was amazing. Being able to have multiple applications running at the same time (web browser, e-mail, Facebook and Pandora, for instance) was fantastic, and being able to swipe between any program and keep the others up and running was absolutely unheard of, but wonderful. From a software development outlook, Palm walked a line between Android and Apple. Since the OS wasn’t licensed to other phone manufactures, the specs for what hardware you were developing a program for were pretty much set, a la the iPhone (at least until the Pixi came along). However, unlike Apple, Palm left the OS pretty open, allowing those with Linux experience and a bit of moxie to develop their own programs and tweaks to the OS, like Android. With PreWare (one of the many programs written by the WebOS Internals crew) any number of tweaks and apps were available to add whatever functionality Palm didn’t have (and often Palm would add to their OTA updates). It felt like a small community banded together to fight the good fight against the 800 pound gorilla that is he iPhone. At one point, they even had an iTunes spoof that made the Pre look like an iPod when iTunes was running (Apple was far from pleased, and subsequent updates eliminated it). This was the phone for me.


Now, it's not to say the phone was perfect. Some early phones had the serious 'oreo' effect going wherein the slider would twist like a cookie. Not very good. The USB cover was just waiting to disappear into nothingness after it broke a few of your fingernails trying to open it the first few times. The physical button in the gesture area was a bit redundant (a fact made clear when the Pre Plus got rid of it all together). Battery life, as with many smartphones, was less than impressive. And while some liked the 'pebble' aesthetic, compared to other phones it may have looked and felt cheap. The biggest problems with Sprint's Pre were the underclocked processor (supposedly to keep things stable and keep the battery from wasting away too quickly) and the lack of memory. 8GB of storage (no SD slot, natch) was livable, but only 256mb of RAM was a huge problem. Various memory leaks from programs that were running would use up what RAM was available, making it impossible to open another program or card without closing some of what you were working on. This could happen even if you didn't have any cards on the screen! The Pre Plus doubled the RAM to 512mb, pretty much eliminating it. At least if you were on Big Red or AT&T anyway. (more on that in a bit.) Even with these issues, Palm had a winner on it's hands. The OS was fresh, user friendly, and just flat out worked. It really could have taken off to compete with RIM and Android (nobody is taking iOS out any time soon; that's just the reality). Sadly, this was not to be…

Project: International Slumber – Part 3: Get In Where You Fit In

It was now time to figure out the best way to get all the PCBs in the case. As shown in Art’s Tek-Case video, there are 2 plexiglass pieces that the PCBs can mount to: one with holes drilled to fit a MCC and the other designed to zip tie a PCB to.  With the case assembled, there’s just enough space to mount a PCB above and below the mount, provided you’re creative with your wire connections. The PCB mounts that attach to the support case are offset from the center line, meaning there is more space for the PCB and it’s wiring than the other side, which comes closer to the top panel of the case. Since the MCC and the Sparky Jr. would end up with the majority of the wiring, I decided to place them where they had the most room on the PCB holder. The Master$trike would only have a few wires attaching to it, so placing that one on the bottom seemed reasonable. The MadCatz Fightpad PCB, while wide, is pretty flat since it doesn’t have any analog pots to worry about. It would go on the bottom of one of the PCB holders, but I would have to figure out how to mount it to the plexiglass holder. After some mental gymnastics to figure out what would work best where, I decided to go, from left to right, top to bottom: MCC, Sparky Jr, Master$trike, Madcatz PCB.

After figuring out where to place them it was time to figure out how to mount them. While one of the PCB holders has holes drilled for the MCC, you still need to provide your own post and screws to attach the PCB to the holder. I headed down to Lowes and picked up a pack of ½” and ¾” 4-40 screws and a variety of plastic screw posts that I thought would be long enough to keep the PCB from directly touching the plexiglass holder and allow enough thread for the nut to screw on the other side. For the other PCBs, I’d need to get a bit creative. With the MCC mounted to its holder, I placed the Master$trike on the other side of the PCB holder and traces the outline of the board and it’s screw holes. Then, I removed the MCC and drilled and countersunk the holes under the MCC. That way, I could insert the screws for the Master$trike under the MCC and not worry about the screw toughing or shorting any of the MCC’s connections. I used 2 nuts on the screws: one to secure the screw to the PCB to make sure it wouldn’t get loose and as a spacer to keep the Master$trike off the plexiglass holder, and another nut to secure the Master$trike to the screw post. That setup gave me just enough clearance to attach the assembly to the top and bottom case support brackets.

The other 2 PCBs were a little trickier. Since the other PCB holder had no holes drilled at all, I would need to drill all the holes needed. I started with the Sparky Jr., tracing the board, marking the screwholes, then drilling and countersinking the holes on the opposite side of the PCB holder. The screws were mounted the same way I did for the Master$trike.  The Madcatz PCB would need to have some holes drilled in the PCB, since the holes that were present weren’t spaced in a way I could use them with the plexiglass mount. I measured the width of the mount, then calculated how far apart the holes needed t be drilled on the PCB. Fortunately there is enough space on the PCB where there are no electrical traces running through it that making the holes wasn’t a huge issue. I then drilled and countersunk the holes in the plexiglass holder as I did with the other PCBs.

With the boards mounted and dry-fitted in the case, it was time to work on the buttons. To get the arc eyes to fit in the Seimitsu buttons, I whipped out the trusty dremel and ground out notches in the button casing to allow room to fit the pin headers that would be soldered to the arc eyes. Once that was done, I took the dremel to the sides of the switch where the pin headers would be. That way, once assembled, the headers could protrude from under the button and allow the wiring harness to plug in. I probably could have just drilled holes in the button casing and ran wires from the arc eyes and hardwired everything. But I like to be able to unplug things in case anything goes wrong, so the extra work making the pin headers fit was worth it.

Once the buttons were modified I placed them back in the case to start the arduous task of wiring everything.

Project: International Slumber – Part 2: Some Assembly Required

One of the first things to arrive was the Tek-Case. Art has the case unassembled and flat packed to save on shipping. The plexiglass parts were all wrapped in plastic and packed between cardboard and bubble wrap, ensuring that all the pieces arrived undamaged. The 6/32” and 8/32” screws  were bagged and labeled as well. While there were no written instructions in the box, the YouTube video covers everything better than printed instructions could. 

 Flat packed for freshness!

One of the nice things about the Tek-Case are the number of customization options available. Since the case is plexiglass, there are a variety of different colors you can choose from for each panel. Want a clear top panel and a smoke bottom panel?  You can do that. Mirror side panels? Doable. Clear top panel, blue support panels, red name plate, and the ability to have artwork on the bottom panel? Why not.  Want an etched image on the top or bottom panel? You know it. The whole case in Florescent Green and Orange? Questionable taste, but it’s your money…

 Are we clear? Crystal...

Blue ice. Looks like Tron...

Yellow border? I can see that

Perfect for BlazBlue

In addition to the color options, you can also specify a number of 6 or 8 button layouts, from a Viewlix layout, Sega Astro City layout, even a straight Capcom 6 button layout or a Mortal Combat style layout. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination and wallet. D3v went with a fairly simple setup: clear case, mirror nameplate, option for artwork on the top and bottom. One of the plexiglass panels between the support layer, the artwork and the top panel had Morrigan’s image etched to it, allowing it to be overlaid on a different piece of art should d3v decide to change the artwork down the road.

Nice etching

 Very nice indeed...

D3v also ordered the optional weight slots with mirror plexiglass, which would allow him to add some ballsat (such as BB pellets) inside the case for more weight.

The piece that makes everything work is the diamond joint. The joints allow the perpendicular panels to screw together with the 6/32” screws and nuts that fit into slots cut into the joints. The top of the joint is threaded for a 8/32” screw, which allows the top panels and support layers to bolt to the ‘frame’ made by the side panels. The entire setup is as simple as it is ingenious.

After a few days, my order from LizardLick came in:

That's just the first wave of parts

Even though I was still waiting for some of the electronics to come in, I decided I’d put the buttons and joystick in the case to get an idea of what the finished product would look like and how much room I would have for the PCBs. Turns out, it looked quite nice:

  So fresh. So clean..

d3v should submit the art to the editor of Big 'Uns....

Like a nameplate belt buckle. But much cooler

Button inserts FTW. Balltop just a stand in for now

Looks like a lot of room in there. That's going to change

As nice as it looked, there was still a lot of work to do. 6 Arc Eyes and 4 PCBs had to be wired up. Time to get busy…

Project: International Slumber – Part 1: The Set Up

The plan for Project: International Slumber, or P:IS, was to have all the parts shipped to me for assembly and testing then to ship the finished product over to d3v. The spec sheet for this project would be rather full: Sanwa JLF stick, clear Seimitsu buttons, a set of Arc-Eyes for lights, a MC Cthulhu dual modded with a 360 PCB for multi console support, and a RJ45 hookup with compatible USB and Gamecube cables. The one thing he wasn’t sure of initially was which case to get. 2 cases were in the running. Voltech’s VAS-HG cases are beautifully crafted, extremely sturdy works of art. While not exactly cheap, they are worth every penny. I’d know, considering how El Guapo turned out. The other choice had been teased for a few months and were finally ready to start production. Art over at  Tek-Innovationshas made plexiglass covers and replacement panels for TEs and HRAPs for a while. His most recent project is much more ambitious: a plexiglass case, complete with options for colors, etchings and button placement. All of the parts fit together with standard screws. If you can put together a Lego kit, you can probably put this together as well.

D3v decided to go with the plexiglass case, which he optioned out to his needs and prepared the artwork, based on Darkstalkers fan favorite Morrigan, to be printed. The rest of the parts I ordered myself. I hit LizardLick up for the JLF and clear 24mm (just released) and 30mm Seimitsu buttons, the MC Cthulhu, and the Neutrick RJ45 pass through jack. I ordered the least expensive MadCatz 360 fightpad from Amazon, since I didn’t care what character I got (all I wanted was the PCB). For the lighting, I had to hit up my Canadian Connection. Purplearms was able to supply me with the Arc-Eyes for the button lights as well as a Masterstrike, which would take care of switching between 3 colors, powering the MC Cthulhu and 360 PCB, and handle USB switching.

Right around the same time 32Teeth, another crazy Canuck, came out with his custom PCB, Sparky Jr. Through the power of multiplexing, this PCB would allow you to assign one of 8 colors to any of your buttons, and would even assign colors depending on how many buttons you pressed (for instance, a color for an EX move, or focus attack). This would be a perfect opportunity to try it out. So, much like the Leo in the Berserker Barrage project, d3v would get a board that I don’t have in one of my personal projects. This means that somewhere down the line I’ll have to make one with a Sparky Jr. myself, but that’s down the road.

With the major parts lined up it was time to sort out the random odds and ends. I hit up Gummowned for a Gamecube /RJ45 cable, since I didn’t want to find one at my local Gamestop. I ordered some 10 color 28 gauge ribbon wire and a 15 foot USB cable from an electronics supply shop online. Since most of my other projects have been wireless (go figure), I had no need for an RJ45 crimping tool. So a trip to the local Home Depot netted one of those, along with a 1 foot CAT5 cable which I would wire to the MC Cthulhu  (MCC from here on out, as I can never spell it correctly!).  With the parts en route all I could do is wait for everything to come in and see what happens. Turns out, quite a bit…