In response to my follow-up letter, I had a phone discussion with Steve Sinclair regarding our concerns. It lasted about 10-15 minutes and I think it came off as a very good exchange of ideas. We talked mostly about the lag issue. The basic problem is with how the POS accesses the 700p's memory and that it relates to the common hardware platform with the 700w.
Palm does have a number of ideas they have been pursuing to reduce the lag. They are all software methods to work around the POS/hardware issue. What Steve alluded to was that the lag will be reduced but the total measure of that reduction... they just don't know yet. It is still a work in process and they are being careful as to how high they raise expectations. It sounded as if they may never get it down to what was seen on the 650 but they will improve it. Possibly to a level that most users will find acceptable. But what level is considered acceptable is just too much of a subjective thing for Palm to walk out there on the ledge and promise. I can't say I blame them. Especially when we've heard criticisms from other users that the response time is already acceptable to them. I don't see anyway Palm can know until it is finished, released and the feedback posts started flying at Treocentral.
I followed this up with a suggestion for Palm to consider. First, I acknowledged that I can't really blame Palm for choosing a common hardware platform between WM5 and POS to reduce costs. It is a no-brainer business decision in my opinion. I then purported that what is being described is a Garnet driver issue with it accessing the hardware's memory. I then observed that since Palm now owns rights to modify Garnet, why not re-write the memory driver to fix the problem at its source?
I know that is probably not an easy chore. But it is a win-win for 700p users and Palm. They fix the 700p memory issue now and the current owners win. Then Palm can move forward with using common hardware between WM5 and POS without compatibility issues in future products. Palm cuts long run hardware costs down and wins too.
Steve agreed that in theory - if it could be done - that it would be a win for everybody. Since the Garnet announcement was just so recently made though, he could not talk about what Palm might be doing with Garnet going forward.
I have a personal thought regarding the hardware compatability issue. Remember when SDRAM and hyper-threading came out and you needed a newer BIOS in order to use those features? Does anyone really doubt that (Franken)Garnet just can't use newer memory that a better maintained OS like WM5 can? For all we know this is Access's mess and Palm is left with cleaning it up. Maybe that's why the Garnet deal was made. Maybe Palm is not ready to describe such plans yet for fear of raising expectations as well. And of course, maybe this is just wild speculation on my part but - in theory to me - it sounds plausible.
For the reader digesting all of this, it now comes down as to whether you think what Palm is saying is sincere or whether this is just a PR move. There is no way any of us can know for sure until the firmware update is loaded on our 700p's. At least we now know when its release is hoped for and that Palm will be trying to help us with our concerns.
I am now inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. Especially to a guy who took the time to give me a phone call to respond to all of our concerns. If I were to be dismissive after that, then I was probably going to be dismissive about anything Palm would've came back with. In that case, all of this would've been a waste of time. I could've just started a, "Let's Bash Palm", thread. I would like to think that this effort was far above anything like that.
Thank you to everyone who believed in and supported this campaign. Is it finished now? Let's just say the jury won't be back until the firmware update is released. In the meantime, I wish you all a Happy New Year!