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Handhelds Hardware

No More PalmOS Instant Messaging? 89

Posted by Cliff from the put-down-your-styluses dept.
cloudscout asks: "Palm users are slowly being cut off from Instant Messaging networks. In July of 2002, changes to the Yahoo! Messenger network effectively disabled the service's PalmOS client and an updated version was never released. Now the same fate has befallen ICQ users. Changes to the ICQ network have disabled the PalmOS client. This happened in September and since then, ICQ has responded to all bug reports with an irrelevant form letter. This leaves Palm users with AIM whose official client is a couple of years old, buggy and costs $20. Is there a future for Instant Messaging on Palm? One would think that the growing popularity of PalmOS SmartPhones would make this a priority."
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No More PalmOS Instant Messaging? More

No More PalmOS Instant Messaging?

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  • Why would IM on cells be a priority? They want you to use SMS/SMSlike systems that they can charge 0.10 USD per message.

    • Re:Why? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why would IM on cells be a priority?

      1st - it's not a cell, it is palm os.
      2nd - we don't all have cells.
      3rd - it's hard to send sms through wlan or bluetooth.

      • Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)

        by DAldredge ( 2353 )
        Dumbass. Try reading the last line of the post.

        " One would think that the growing popularity of PalmOS SmartPhones would make this a priority."

        Does that help?
    • They want you to use SMS/SMSlike systems that they can charge 0.10 USD per message

      Who does? Are you suggesting a global conspriacy amongst AOL, Yahoo, and wireless carriers? The SCO thing isn't cutting it for me anymore, I need this kind of excitement.. Thank you Slashdot
      • I don't know. Could it be the people that run the SMS/SMSlike networks AKA the cell phone companies? Damn, doesn't anyone have ANY thinking skills anymore?
        • My wireless provider includes unlimited AIM/ICQ via sms with certain plans. It's just another feature they can gouge you for...

  • /obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cheezus ( 95036 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @12:23AM (#7970258) Homepage
    I'm too lazy to look, but I'd imagine that like every every other platform, there are 3rd party IM clients, perhaps even multi-protocol ones

    • Re:/obvious? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm sure there is already a Jabber client out there for PalmOS. If there isn't, I'm sure someone could easily port one over. Then, you can access Yahoo!, ICQ, AIM, MSN and others as long as you have access to a Jabber server somewhere. It's pretty damn simple and I don't see what the big deal is.

    • Re:/obvious? (Score:1, Informative)

      by sycotic ( 26352 )
      There sure are, checkout this google result for instance [google.co.nz]

      I would have thought someone would go that before posting a question to slashdot.. Google says there are "..about 4,680. Search took 1.88 seconds."

  • Open Source Opertunity (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @12:30AM (#7970315) Homepage
    Sounds like an opertunity for OSS to me. Why not have someone work on a (I assume scaled down) versoin of GAIM or something like that. Is there something preventing a good OSS client (like some problem with the networking APIs that are exposed) or is this just a lack of work (people have been putting up with official clients so there was no "want" for 3rd party software)?
    • I was under the impression that gaim was ported to palmOS...guess i was wrong...do ya think somebody could still use the underlying code and just write a new interface using the Palm libraries?
    • why not have someone work on a ... version of Gaim

      The Gaim [sf.net] developers [sf.net] have done a fantastic job of splitting the Gaim core from the user interface, which has already resulted in a PDA client for the QTopia [trolltech.com] environment called QPE-Gaim [sf.net]. But porting Gaim to PalmOS [palmsource.com] I assume is a much bigger task.

      • But porting Gaim to PalmOS I assume is a much bigger task.

        Maybe they're waiting for Palm OS 6 [palminfocenter.com] to be generally available. It's a true preemptive multitasking OS (finally) and done by a lot of the original Be developers.

        Pity Palm/Handspring just released the Treo 600. An updated phone+PDA with Bluetooth running OS 6 and Gaim would be the ultimate communication tool.

  • Jabber (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bistronaut ( 267467 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @12:40AM (#7970405) Homepage Journal
    There are Jabber clients for just about everything, and you can set up a server that has gateways to the other networks if you are technically inclined.

  • AIM for Palm OS (Score:5, Informative)

    by btornado ( 612847 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @12:50AM (#7970461) Homepage Journal
    AIM for Palm OS is still available for free on AOL's UK site [aol.co.uk]. I downloaded it today and installed it. It works, but it did not load my buddy list.

  • future of palm os... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RevAaron ( 125240 ) <`revaaron' `at' `hotmail.com'> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:02AM (#7970541) Homepage
    PalmOS is a bitch to code for. People while about Windows, because it isn't some POSIX clone, but they've not done coding for PalmOS. More important, they've not tried to port an app from a real OS like Unix, Windows CE, or Linux to PalmOS. PalmOS is a passable OS when you're dealing with 16 MHz m68k, but on much past that it's a sad excuse for an OS.

    I'd be more worried about the current state of instant messaging on PalmOS vis-a-vis the lack of multi-tasking. PalmOS 6 will have some multitasking abilities, but those of us with any current model PalmOS device will be SOL, unless they're willing to buy a new device. I've recieved word for a few Palm employees that there is about a zilch chance of Palm releasing a POS 6 upgrade for *any* of their current models, even the Tungsten T3 or C, the two most powerful models.

    I had out a Tungsten C for a (relatively short) while. Why even bother with built-in wifi when it's so crippled by the OS? If I opened up an IRC or IM app, I would be disconnected the second I wanted to do a calculation in EasyCalc or grab out a phone number in Addressbook. Then I'd have to go through the whole routine of reconnecting. Yay! Each time I would leave the Web Browser to get a URL out of a Memo or an email, I would lose the page loaded and have to re-negotiate the wifi-connection, reload the page (or multiple tabs if running NetFront), basically starting over again.

    I took the Tungsten C back after a couple weeks. I have a Palm m130 on loan which I like more. It is a lot less powerful and has a smaller and crappier screen compared to the TC, but at least so much isn't going to such blatant waste. Perhaps it is better to use the Palm for what it does decently, and then use my Windows CE device (Sigmarion III- 800x480 screen, touch-typable screen) for the real work of doing development, browsing the web, irc, email via ssh, etc etc.

    Anyone who says that PDAs don't need multitasking have never used their PDA for anything but the simplest of tasks. The device for which the term PDA was invented- the original Apple Newton- had multitasking before the first Palm Pilot was concieved, and has been capable of doing more than almost any PalmOS model. Perhaps Palm should have thought of a new acronym to call their device, a PDA lite? Expensive Electronic Organizer?

    No, there isn't a port of GAIM to PalmOS. But there are a bunch of other IM clients for PalmOS. This story is pretty stupid, like a lot of so-called tech news story posted at various sites, born of ignorance and perpetuated by folks too lazy to do any research, and analyzed by folks who know nothing about the topic.
    • I'm shocked that the Palm OS (or rather, its applications) don't support multitasking with the network application better than this. It seems almost useless if I can't switch between e-mail and my web browser without essentially losing the connection. Do you know if the same problem occurs when using the device with, say, a cell phone to connect to the internet? Would you actually have to hang up and re-dial in order to switch between email, web, ssh, etc? Absurd.

      If all that you've said is true, this s

      • Tungsten T maintains the connection between apps (Score:4, Informative)

        by Eustace Tilley ( 23991 ) * on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @03:53AM (#7971247) Journal
        The Tungsten T lets you set the idle timeout on a network connection to 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, or never. You decide the trade off between battery time and reconnection hassle. If you set it to "never," you can switch between WebPro, VersaMail, WordSmith, PhotoBase, and so forth without having to re-login. If you set it to "1 minute," you can still switch, but you mustn't dillydally. Perhaps the Tungsten C lacks that preference setting, or perhaps the original poster never noticed.

        The advantages to using a Tungsten T + cellphone combination over a single device like a Tungsten C include:
        • it works whereever your cellphone can find GPRS, not just in WiFi HotSpots
        • your cellphone battery handles the radio between you and the station (distant), your PDA battery handles the radio between your PDA and your cellphone (close)
        • I don't remember such a setting. If I left the Web Browser app to grab a URL from Memo, and went back, I'd have to reconnect. No matter if I was out of the Browser for 10 seconds or 10 minutes.
          • Palm Web Pro, under Options | Preferences | General, has 'Disconnect on exit.' I am just guessing, of course, but I guess you had that option enabled.
            • A good guess. I had disconnect on exit disabled, because I was doing/planning on doing a lot network-requiring stuff.

              I ran into some other weirdness with wifi on the Tungsten C, though. After having it for less than a day, and having not installed even *one* hack or app, wifi stopped working. Rather, opening up web browser (or hotsync) or going to config/activate the wifi network would request a wifi login, and lock the machine up. I would have to reboot. This of course made wifi impossible to use, and the
              • I wonder if the difference is
                1. {Tungsten T + bluetooth cell} is a multiprocessor implementation
                2. GPRS vs WiFi

                The cellphone creates and persists the connection, the Tungsten T handles user input, display, clipboards, and application shuffling. This reduces the number of conflicting interrupts either must cope with.

                It is also plausible that GPRS connections are assumed to come and go as the users roll through a tunnels or burrow into parking structures where WiFi clients are assumed to stay put. This coul

      • I think Palm OS's kerenel forbids multitasking because of licensing issues.
      • Actually, Palm OS 5.x DOES support some level of multitasking. While I can't claim to know any of the techincal details of how it works or how it is accomplished, you can observe it in action when you run Real Player (MP3 player) and then switch to any other application; the MP3 still plays.

        I have been learning how to program the Palm OS for the last few weeks now (O'Reilly book V2 that covers v4.0), and I would imagine that an application would somehow register a callback that would be activated on a cer

        • Yes, PalmOS 5.2.x allows a very limited form of multitasking. As far as I know, it is limited to MP3 or other audio players. On these versions of PalmOS, there are two threads allowed- foreground and background. I don't know of any apps other than a couple audio players that use this capability, though I imagine a couple other apps use it.

          Sony added similar very limited multitasking to their versions of PalmOS, somewhere in the 4 series. I think they use the POS 5 API now, though.

          For it to be used to all
        • The Mp3 player in the Motorola A920 smartphone works by using a dedicated DSP (Digital Signal Processor). The DSP is 200 MHz while the main processor is 154 MHz. It's not multitasking but it does allow for streaming while doing other stuff.

          Maybe the Palm has something like that. For what I know, mp3 decoding is a bad idea to do with a general purpose CPU, especially in battery operated devices.
      • No no, it's not anything like that bad.

        Connections to the net (via dial-up or WiFi) stay up when you switch between applications. They do time out quickly by default (to save battery power), but that is adjustable.

        PalmsOS has not had real multitasking before because wasn't really any good reason to have it.

        I mean, how many apps do you actually need to run in the background on a PDA while you;re doing something else? MP3 player? (Me, I'd sooner have my iPod in my other pocket) IM client? Not a big list...
        • You may rather have your iPod in your pocket, but most folks don't want to carry around a backpack full of devices. My PDA is already in my pocket- if I have a large storage card and a capable CPU, why shouldn't I listen to MP3s?

          I do a lot more multitasking than just the MP3 player and IM client. On PalmOS, those were what I ran into more often, but on WindowsCE, NewtonOS or Linux, three real OSes that run on PDAs, I do a lot more multitasking.

          No, I don't *need* that. But I don't need a PDA, either. Nor
    • Yup, multitasking is important. I'm writing this on my HP2210 (Windows Mobile2003) while listening to mp3s and with msn messenger running in the background. But perhaps the next version of PalmOS will have that feature? So far it seems Palm has a lot of catching up to do still.
    • PDA lite? Expensive Electronic Organizer?

      Glorified calculator is my preferred term.
    • This story is pretty stupid, like a lot of so-called tech news story posted at various sites, born of ignorance and perpetuated by folks too lazy to do any research, and analyzed by folks who know nothing about the topic.

      Don't forget commented upon by extremely grumpy folks who feel so insulted by the wasted 5 seconds of their life spent skimming the summary of the story that they have to spend 30 minutes writing a response complaining about a lack of free upgrades and enumerating known problems with know
      • I never said that any of the devices I have used were perfect. For me, I'd rather have something functional than something simply small. What good does something small do me if it doesn't solve the problems I throw at it? Not much. I'd rather carry around something larger that can do what I need than something less function, although smaller.

        The "known workarounds" you speak of are just to switch to a non-PalmOS machine or wait until PalmOS 6. Fine.

        The Palm Pilot never cost $100, unless you're talking re
    • Coincidentally (or perhaps not) PalmOS is so unbelievably easy to use that anyone can pick the device up and go.

      Do we really NEED multitasking and fast processors in a device that you are going to pick up, fiddle with for 30 seconds (to say, look up an address or check a detail)?

      Additionally, the slow processor and simplicity brings another benefit -- my Palm m105 (sorry, I'm a poor student) gets ~2 weeks battey life on a pair of alkaline AAA batteries.

      • Do you need something electronic for something as simple as keeping track of addresses?
        • I don't actually use it for that..

          Most of the time, maybe the occasional game of Solitare while I'm waiting for a bus and things like that.

          If I wanted to only keep address I would just get a paper addressbook, I think..

          • Then why not just get one of those dedicated LCD Solitaire machine? Or a used- but small- GameBoy Color?

            Illustrates a point I've tried to make over and over again, but always lost on folks that seem to think they are the only ones in the world- different strokes for different folks. Just to play the "occasional" game of Solitaire, paying $200-500 for a fancy PDA when I could buy an original GameBoy for $10 (or a GBC for a little more) and Solitaire and others, or $15 on an card-game-only electronic handhel
    • I've been working woth the Palm OS for several year and I very much enjoy working with it. Metrowerks [metrowerks.com] has a professional quality C/C++ environment for it and Palm has released a free (as in beer )simulator [palmos.com] that allows for source level debugging. There are several frameworks and other tools [palmos.com]that make the Palm OS specific issues a snap. It really is a joy to work wehere thing just work - No driver issues, no incompatabilities, etc. Palm programming does require a very different mindset [palmos.com] from the desktop.
      • I've been working woth the Palm OS for several year and I very much enjoy working with it.

        Yes, compared to the Windows API the PalmOS API is much more orthogonal and simpler to use. Yes, you need to pay more attention to resource usage and such. But I compared what could be squeezed into a friend's Viewsonic V37 (a recent, capacious PocketPC) with my old Palm IIIxe. He was amazed at how small the apps were, and since PalmOS is execute-in-place, it's even better. (The app doesn't need to be copied from 'st

        • It's all in how you develop it. I seen a number of PocketPC apps that are tiny, similarily tiny as a PalmOS app. But it's not going to be if you statically link a bunch of MFC controls. If you want small, you can write in C against a stripped down API on WinCE just like you can on PalmOS.

          Execute-in-place is a cool thing, something that Linux and WinCE really can't do with the way they operate. But not all that important when even PalmOS devices come with 32, 64 and 128 MB of RAM...
      • Mod parent up, especially for the Zen of Palm [palmos.com] document reference...

    • I use a Handspring Visor Prism with the VisorPhone module. It's running PalmOS 3.5 and I can and do maintain a GSM network connection when switching between apps. And when I switch back to my browser from another app, the last page I was looking at is still there and I don't have to reload.

      The only application I can think of where I lose a connection is upIRC.
      I asked the developer, Brian Smith, about this and he said that he couldn't keep it connected because of the nature of IRC networks. They apparentl

    • Wow, is there a moderation for "bitchy, bitter and resentful"? Is it a -1 or a +1?

  • You can use Yahoo!, ICQ, MSN & AOL chat (Score:4, Informative)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:16AM (#7970623) Homepage Journal

    Well, from what I know, VeriChat(TM) Unified Instant Messaging (IM) application for SmartPhones and other connected Palm devices such as the Tungsten C [pdaapps.com] works very well.

    It's key features (copied and pasted from the website) are:

    - Unified messaging support for Yahoo!, ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger & MSN Instant Messenger
    - Works with all PalmOS based SmartPhones (that have a data connection - circuit-switch data or high-speed data) including the Treo 180, Treo 270, Treo 300, Samsung I330, Kyocera 7135, Tungsten W, Samsung I500, VisorPhone, etc.
    - Native support for the Palm Tungsten C and the Sony NX/NZ series with a WiFi card.
    - Will also work with your Palm PDA if it has any type of Internet connection and a paging address. You can use a Wireless phone via IR (infra-red) or BlueTooth for the PDA's internet connectivity, i.e., a Tungsten-T or a Treo 90 coupled via blue-tooth with a Ericsson T68. You can also use your Palm coupled to a CDPD modem and your alphanumeric pager.
    - Familiar Graphical icons for each protocol
    Chat simultaneously with your buddies using one or any combination of IM protocols
    - "Always On" on the messaging networks: Your buddies will see you as online even when you are not in the VeriChat(TM) application
    - Specially customized for the Treo's Keyboard and Jog dial; you can avoid using the stylus altogether if you wish to
    - Easy setup; the installation wizard will guide you through the configuration
    - Many features especially for a mobile device: Buddy Pounce, Auto-reply messages, Custom Status messages and Pre-defined messages.

    There is another application called Chatter that works on Palm OS 5 based Treo 600 called Chatter. It's website is here [imchatter.com].

    • It sure looks nice, but... the price is, according to the page, $24.95 for the first year and then $19.95(!) for each following year. Not cheap. Furthermore, in the "Purchase/Service Agreement" it is clearly stated that some protocols may not be functional for some time or even for ever. Refunds are not mentioned, so if your favourite protocol is broken you are out of luck.

      And the author is not affiliated with Yahoo/AOL/Microsoft. So anytime protocol changes occur, the client won't work. Just like any othe
  • It's because you're all so damned slow trying to scribble your silly Graffiti or whatever the hell it is that you give the Instant part of Instant Messaging a bad name, and so we call got tired of that crap and begged all the IM networks to disable your silly little Palm Gameboy access so that you might save up enough to buy an actual computer with an actual keyboard, and a copy of Mavis Beacon. ;>

  • Jabber, and its derivatives. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jorkapp ( 684095 ) <jorkapp@NOSPAm.hotmail.com> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:37AM (#7970731)
    A quick google search for "open source palmos instant messenger" comes up with - you guessed it - Jabber. Unfortunately, Jabber has not officially developed a PalmOS client, so here's a few promising 3rd party clients based on Jabber.

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/jabberpalm/

    The Jabber Palm project. By the looks of it, it's a solid client, and only a few notable bugs to work out.

    -

    http://www.chatopus.com/

    Chatopus. A Jabber based client for PalmOS. Offers a good amount of features and support. Last version release was 01/12/04, so those -changes- in the networks shouldn't be a problem.

  • Jabber, of course (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Yenya ( 12004 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:47AM (#7970787) Homepage Journal
    I use Jabber client on PalmOS without problems. There are at least two clients, one of which is open source. The specification of the protocol is open, and the system is distributed. Why use AIM or ICQ, when there is Jabber? :-)

  • libyahoo2 is currently broken as well (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I use the client freehoo, and as you can see [gnu.org], it's currently not working because Yahoo changed the protocol. Now we get to scramble about trying to fix it. [sourceforge.net]

    I happen to have made the mistake of letting several of my clients get in the habit of being able to contact me via Yahoo IM. I won't be doing that again. When freehoo quite working, I tried a number of other clients, and then had to go to the binary-only client Yahoo distributes; this required a newer libc6 and I ended up apt-get upgrading half the

  • Just for the record, there are IRC clients for PalmOS [ircreviews.org]. There doesn't seem to be "talk", though, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. So if anyone can fill this void... ;)
  • One would think that the growing popularity of PalmOS SmartPhones would make this a priority.

    What you have to keep in mind here is the kind of people who mostly use smartphones: Business users. Do these people need always-available e-mail? Yes. Do they need always-available Web? Sure, comes in handy now and again. Do they need always-available AIM/ICQ to chat with their buddies? Err... no.

    So, what you have to ask yourself is: Who would really love the idea of IM-ing their friends while they're out?
  • Actually, I was just looking into Palm messaging clients last night...

    Through T-Mobile you can log into AIM and send/receive messages over SMS. Now I haven't been able to verify this, and somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the built-in AIM clients on Nokia 3390/Samsumg R225m/etc use the same mechanism. Has anybody seen a PalmOS program (possibly working on a Treo 180? =] ) that'll take advantage of this, instead of the GPRS link?

    [stupid no-credit, can't get GPRS from ANYBODY for a while]
    • I think you can IM any AT&T 10 digit phone number d it will send them an SMS that can be replied to via an SMS... I don't think that works for T-mobile ( haven't tested recently ).
  • I'm surprised I didn't see this mentioned above-- maybe I just overlooked it.

    Anyway, although the "official" clients have been dead or dying for some time, verichat [verichat.com] is alive and ticking. It's a multi-IM client, similar to Trillian. You do have to pay for it, but it was something like $30, so no big deal. Works with MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, and IRC, and the fee includes access to verichat's proxy server, which keeps you logged-in, online, and stores messages for you when your phone goes out of service.

    If y

  • Open source failure, nothing else (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dspyder ( 563303 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @04:21PM (#7977196)
    There's plenty of open IM clients available for all number of platforms. Hell, there's gotta be like three in the top 25 list over at sourceforge.

    Nobody has taken their own time to port one over to the Palm platform. Development on the Palm is pretty easy compared to a lot of platforms, I'm really surprised nobody has done it just for the sake of having it done. Why expect a commercial company to provide us something when we can build it ourselves? Aren't we Open Source, power-to-the-people, scree evil corporations that force feed us their closed clients?

    I'm happily using Agile Messenger on my SymbianOS cellphone. Beats the hell out of 10 cent per SMS messages. I would even pay for the software if they weren't giving it out for free! As soon as they come out with a WiFi and GPRS Palm for under a million dollars, and somebody matches that with a reasonable cell data plan, then I'll switch back.

    --D

    Score: +1 Troll, but absolutely correct
  • Just get a Java VM on there and use their Java clients. Easy as that.

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