Palm's response to Letter to Ed Colligan

Dieter Bohn · 12/13/2006, 10:17 PM

The story is up

The PDF of Steve Sinclair's letter is here.

nightlight · 12/13/2006, 10:22 PM

Can't wait. This should be rich.

vw2002 · 12/13/2006, 10:24 PM

Drum roll please....

MarkY · 12/13/2006, 10:44 PM

I for one am pleasantly surprised they addressed the issues they did. Kudos to Palm, I say.

jamice4u · 12/13/2006, 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by septimus

The story is up

The PDF of Steve Sinclair's letter is here.

You have used a lot of word but really have not said much!!!

I want to know what month in the first quarter will Palm be updating it's Treo 700P. I read a lot of people's complaints about the Treo being slow when you switch between applications. I hope you fix the bluetooth and database problems. Hurry up with an update already!!!!

Jbcellular · 12/13/2006, 10:51 PM

Wow - I think the letter was good. It at least gives us some insight on the Palm side of this situation.

Bob C (and all TreoCentral users) Great work and Thanks! I look forward to the update!

hova · 12/13/2006, 11:00 PM

This is a glimmer of hope. It at least tells us that we will get an update in the first quarter 2007 not NEXT YEAR. So, people, be happy

hkklife · 12/13/2006, 11:10 PM

I got my 700p in early June. I gave up on Palm ever releasing an update in late October and went back to a 2-device setup. I doubt I'll ever go with a single converged device again--at least not in the forseeable future after the disasterous "700p as my primary phone" experiment.

FWIW, I went with a Moto KRZR K1m (Verizon) for my voice needs and cut the 700p down to a data plan only. I use the Treo as a glorified cellular wireless PDA, a role it's MUCH better suited for.

Kudos to the TC community for PRYING a response out of Palm.

Ohmster · 12/13/2006, 11:10 PM

There is some hope, but I am very disappointed with the response to the lags. Basically we are being told that if we want 650 equivalent speed, get another device. Or did I read this wrong?

BigKenny · 12/13/2006, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hova

This is a glimmer of hope. It at least tells us that we will get an update in the first quarter 2007 not NEXT YEAR. So, people, be happy

my main issue is the lag (white screen) and they pretty much dismiss this one. I like how he points out this is partly due to having to support 2 OS's on the same hardware. looks like i will be getting a 700wx, which is probably just what they want anyway.

and late first quarter is next year according to my calendar

BigKenny · 12/13/2006, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ohmster

There is some hope, but I am very disappointed with the response to the lags. Basically we are being told that if we want 650 equivalent speed, get another device. Or did I read this wrong?

if you read this wrong, then i did too!

i am with you....

Merlyn_3D · 12/13/2006, 11:16 PM

Hmmm.....seems like the whole bit about the audio-stutter/lag might be a cop out. I mean I know they are trying to communicate that they will try, but at the same time, the letter made it sound like there isn't really anything they can do to fix that particular issue. It is a lot of words, but very little is actually said, however at least they committed themselves to trying to fix these issues.

What I don't like about the letter, however, is that it leaves to many "ways out". What I mean is, he says even after the bluetooth patch your headset might not work, or you might still be disappointed. Also, he mentions the industry standard for ROM updates after a device has been pushed to market is about 2-3 quarters. I distinctly remember many samsung phones on sprint (due to sprint's firmware over the air feature) getting updates only 1-2 maybe 3 months after release. The 700p's firmware updates has taken a LONG time, longer than is the industry standard. As for PDA phones, well I believe the Q got an update quicker than that, the 700wx did as well, as did the 6700.

B-model · 12/13/2006, 11:23 PM

I agree that the letter was good- While nothing has been resolved, nor are the patches coming soon, It's good to hear directly from a company so many of us support in a personal way.

just yesterday i was telling a freind i was done w/ the palm platform and was ready to try something else - communication like this helps me hold on a little longer before I amke that choice.

A big THANK YOU to bob and especially TreoCentral for giving us the opportunity to make this happen

Joad · 12/13/2006, 11:37 PM

I enjoyed reading the letter about these issues from Palm's perspective.

I'm not the easiest on them, in fact I can be quite direct in my disgust - especially after I experienced their executive support allegedly speaking directly from their engineers in 11/04 that the Treo 650 had "exactly" the amount of usable internal memory as the Treo 600. Several days later they reversed themselves and even posted about the "NVFS issue" on their site. But the fact remained that I and many other early adopters of the Treo 650 saw the "RAM" problem within minutes of deploying our first unit - and yet Palm tested these things for months and months (we would hope) and never noticed it?!? I'm sure it's difficult to run a big company like Palm.... but they gotta stop trying to pull the wool over our eyes with B.S. moves like that - you can't blame the carriers when it's your own Executive Escalation that's making the false claims.

Nearly a year to release a firmware fix for such troublesome issues of the 700p seems awfully lengthy, but I do understand that in this arena the Carriers do have Palm by the short and curlies as the Carriers have to certify the fixes are ok on their network.

I didn't think the WinMob phone had anything to do with the internals of the 700p, but if I'm reading "the response" correctly it seems we have Microsoft to blame for the difference in the 700p's memory architecture creating the tons of lag compared to the 650. Selling your soul to Redmond has it's costs I guess. Then again - any reason Palm couldn't design the memory architecture around the PalmOS and make the WinMob suffer...?

ArmyDoc · 12/13/2006, 11:42 PM

Congrats to Bob-C for making today a reality. Thanks to Treocentral for having the guts to post it on their front page. I am impressed that Palm responded to our letter. It makes me think much more highly of them as a company. Unfortunately, I am disappointed in the apparent lack of an easy fix for the lag/"white screens of death". This clearly is my major gripe w/ this device compared to my 600 and 650. I hope that the ROM update fixes most of our Bluetooth issues and at least somewhat improves the lag. It may be time to follow suit of others on this forum and switch to a 700WX or 750, but I probably will hang in there and at least "test" the ROM update first. Today is still a good day. An early X-mas present from Palm. Again congrats to Bob-C and thanks to all who supported him!
Doug

Joad · 12/13/2006, 11:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Merlyn_3D

Hmmm.....seems like the whole bit about the audio-stutter/lag might be a cop out. I mean I know they are trying to communicate that they will try, but at the same time, the letter made it sound like there isn't really anything they can do to fix that particular issue.

It seems to me Palm originally said nothing could be done about the 650 either (except put an SD card in it and blow it out your...), but miraculously about 5-6 months later they managed to emulate about 90% of the RAM of the 600, and speed up the lags that users suffered through. I'll give Palm the benefit of the doubt so they can fix it anyway and bask in the glory of the accomplishment.

Why nobody bothered noticing in alpha or beta that *Blazer* (which is built in) has such horrible lags is quite curious. Don't they test these things in the real world yet before selling them to us? I didn't see this perception addressed in his response. I'm pretty dumb compared to the highly educated folks that put these things together, but someone with an IQ of 50 would probably notice that 16MB of space isn't 22MB and that the smartphone's browser takes up to a minute to load.

This is a $600-700 device, and his comparing the speed and firmware support to the giveaway WAP garbage phones the Carriers pass out does not get Palm off the hook.

We're paying more, Palm is claiming more, we expect more than what comes free with a cell contract...

nightlight · 12/14/2006, 12:15 AM

That letter was total BS. Palm basically sold all of us out in order to make more money. 8-12 months for the first firmware release? Gee thanks. Anyone want to bet whether the firmware update is released before the first Rev.A phones? I don't.

Some bugs only affect certain users? I guarantee that every single user gets skips from pTunes when moving around during background play. Same goes for the painfully slow *2 disconnect/reconnect bug.

"Different smartphones using different radios..." Can someone please post a link to the GSM 700p?

The lag is caused by the database access bug as defined by Jeff Gibson many months ago. Not sure why this wasn't added to the letter. It was the one bug that we have proof of and that affects every single user. "perceived as being slower than previous models"? What a jack@ss.

baby_arm · 12/14/2006, 12:17 AM

So, bluetooth get's a fix in early part of 2007 Q1. Audio get's addressed in late part of 2007 Q1. Lag is still a work in progress?

If I get the bluetooth, that'll be a good start. I don't have the audio issue. The lag is bad, but not intolerable.

coredump · 12/14/2006, 12:22 AM

My biggest gripe with the 700P is the lag/freezing problem. After reading the letter, I'm going to migrate off this 700P since it seems like Palm will not be addressing the lag/freezing issue anytime soon.

This is a major disappointment to me because I was OG when we started with the Handspring Edge. I moved to an iPaq 2210 and was disappointed how sluggish and complicated Windows Mobile was. I went back to the 700P and was disappointed how sluggish/laggy it was.

I am a sysadmin for a local government and almost a computer science graduate. I hate to sound like blackmail-ish but I cannot recommend Palm products after this.

Chazzan · 12/14/2006, 12:28 AM

Yes, very disappointed too, lag is the biggest issue for me. Never buying palm again.