Apple

Suddenly, it seems even more fitting that a company called Elevation Partners recently took a stake in Palm.

This might be rock bottom for the storied mobile-computing company. The decision to cancel the Foleo even before letting people get their hands on it is an embarrassing admission that Palm's vision of the computing world is way off base from the rest of the world, and it's a black mark on the otherwise stellar career of Palm founder Jeff Hawkins.

It's hard to dump too much on Hawkins. The man invented the Palm Pilot and the Treo. I once invented a novel method of stacking beer cans in a fridge (the key is not to buy any food). But after Hawkins unveiled the Foleo at the D: All Things Digital conference--arguably the most prestigious gathering of the computing elite--with proclamations like "it's the best idea I've ever had" and "the most exciting product I have ever worked on"--Palm's decision to cancel it without even a product launch must be mortifying for Hawkins.

Now, Hawkins has his own company, Numenta, which is trying to develop a computer that works like the human brain. If he pulls that off, we'll forget all about the Foleo.

But what is Palm going to do? Speaking of mortifying, Ed Colligan must be wondering why he gave Hawkins $10 million to go down into the basement and come up with Palm's Next Big Thing, only to emerge with the Foleo. Almost universally panned by analysts and bloggers, the Foleo was a lightweight Linux "mobile companion" that was designed to read e-mail, but didn't work with corporate e-mail software from RIM or Motorola, among a multitude of other sins.

Palm founder Jeff Hawkins (right) shows The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg the Foleo, canceled Tuesday by Palm.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Palm has squandered its position in the mobile-computing world by failing to improve its operating system since 2004, come up with a noticeably different Treo since the Treo 600, or clearly articulate any vision of where the company thinks smart phone development is headed. The company wisely hooked up with Microsoft to ship Windows Mobile Treos, otherwise this post might have been written a year ago. But it has watched companies like Motorola, RIM, LG, Nokia and even Apple pass it by while it tried to make its biggest splash of the year with a product canceled just three months later. Imagine the reaction if Apple had canceled the iPhone in April.

Jack Gold of market research firm J. Gold Associates thinks Elevation Partners is starting to throw its weight around a little. "Hopefully they are coming in and cracking the whip and making them do the right thing," he wrote in a research note distributed Tuesday. After all, Palm clearly still hasn't found what it's looking for.

Palm also announced Tuesday that Bruce Dunlevie of Benchmark Partners is resigning from Palm's board, while Scott Mercer will stay. Mercer was going to resign from the board to make way for Fred Anderson and Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, but now Dunlevie (who's also on the board at Numenta) is out. Anderson and McNamee haven't formally assumed their positions yet as the deal hasn't formally closed, but perhaps their impact is already starting to be felt.

While it's embarrassing, Colligan made the right decision. You've got to know when to fold them, and the Foleo wasn't going to beat anything better than a pair of sixes.

You're supposed to have an intervention after the downtrodden hits rock bottom, but Colligan's moment of clarity could still allow Palm to recapture some of its past glory.

However, Palm better think long and hard before the next time it tells people it's about to change the world of mobile computing. The company is in danger of watching a category it helped create leave it in the dust.

Remember, folks: different does not inherently mean "bad."

I was surprised at the reaction to my article, published this morning, titled "Coming to grips with the iPhone's design." Specifically, with the way some people see a discussion of design tradeoffs as an attempt to tar and feather the nonconformist.

Yes, you can use your iPhone with one hand. But it's not as easy as some would suggest. Some reviewers didn't think it was that big a deal, some thought it was more of a problem. Whether or not you think it's easy to use the iPhone with one hand probably has a lot to do with the size of your hands and the dexterity of your fingers and thumb.

However, that wasn't the point of the story. The point was that Apple didn't make one-handed use as high a priority as other smart-phone companies have for years. Instead, Apple prioritized the touch-screen user interface, betting that people would adapt their existing one-handed behavior to get a shot at a touch screen, or that people who hadn't used other smart phones before wouldn't be used to older ways of using smart phones.

Many readers saw that analysis as critical of Apple, which I just don't understand. Steve Jobs has been very clear from the start that Apple designed the iPhone to be a different product from other smart phones. This article pointed out one of the ways in which Apple is forging its own path, casting aside historical design goals.

It's simply too early to know if that was a good decision or not; this thing has been out there for only two months. The phone designers interviewed for this story thought Apple wouldn't have been able to make a breakthrough with the touch-screen interface if they didn't move one-handed use farther down the priority list, and a lot of design-oriented people probably told Apple they were crazy for abandoning that principle when the iPhone development first got under way. Since the touch-screen interface has (deservedly so) received most of the attention from early users, however, it would seem that bodes well for now.

But in the long run, if Apple wants to make the iPhone a more mainstream device, the designers think the company will have to tweak future versions to make them easier to use with one hand without eroding the capabilities of the touch screen. That's all, folks. No heroes, no villains, just an attempt to point out some of the differences between the way the iPhone was designed, what other companies have done, and what the future might hold.

These are very early days for the smart-phone world. Lots of different ideas are under consideration, and the established way of doing things isn't all that established. Smart phones may very well diverge into business devices where one-handed use is the priority and consumer devices where the screen is the priority. It's a big enough market for both.

If you were planning to camp out this week for the launch of the Palm Foleo, pick up the tent and go home.

Barron's Tech Trader Daily blog spotted a research note from Deutsche Bank's Jonathan Goldberg saying that Palm has delayed the launch of the Foleo, a Linux-based "mobile companion" that looks like a laptop but doesn't deliver anything close to a laptop experience. The device is now expected to ship in late September or early October, according to Goldberg. When Palm founder Jeff Hawkins unveiled the device in May at the D: All Things Digital conference, the company said it expected to launch it this summer.

The Foleo isn't ready for its debut, although some might argue it never will be.

(Credit: Palm)

The Foleo is meant to be a way to ease the pained thumbs of Treo addicts. Theoretically, a business traveler could use the Foleo to read, compose and reply to e-mails that would be too difficult to tap out on the Treo keypad. But it doesn't work with corporate e-mail software from Research in Motion or Motorola and isn't designed to work apart from a smart phone. For the most part, analysts and Palm enthusiasts were not impressed, although Hawkins called it "the best idea I've ever had."

But if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter whether it was the best or worst idea ever to spring from Hawkins' agile mind (after all, he is the guy responsible for the Palm Pilot and the original Treo). Deutsche Bank's Goldberg said software bugs are holding back the Foleo release, including "an inability to synchronize the Foleo with most models of the Treo, in particular the nominally high-volume Treo 680." Yikes. That's only the entire premise behind the Foleo.

You've got to wonder what's going on at Palm. For a detailed look at the problems faced by one of the pioneers of mobile computing, and some possible remedies, check out Engadget's "intervention" plea.

The fellas at the freakin' FCC have given their blessing to Nokia's latest product, a 3G version of the N95 slider phone.

A faster version of Nokia's N95 phone is set to make its U.S. debut.

(Credit: Federal Communications Commission)

Before any wireless device can be sold in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission has to test it to make sure its emissions won't cause brain damage or summon aliens from another planet. One nice side effect of that (other than the lack of brain damage) is that the FCC publishes the results of those tests on its Web site before the device is formally released, complete with photos and a user manual.

Wirelessinfo.com (via Engadget) has a report up on the new N95. The proposed 3G N95 will run on HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) networks currently being rolled out by AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S., but it only supports the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands used by AT&T; T-Mobile's HSDPA network will use the 1700MHz band. It will use all four GSM bands for both U.S. and international networks.

Other than that, the new version appears to be the same N95 that is already available here for EDGE networks. It's got pretty much everything: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and slider controls for a numeric keypad and multimedia controls, but you'll pay between $599 and $699 for an unlocked EDGE version. No word yet on when the 3G model might become available.

Palm's got a new smart phone in the works that could be its answer to the iPhone, the BlackBerry Curve and the Helio Ocean.

On Thursday, the company showed off a design called "Centro" at an event for media and analysts hosted by Sprint in Reston, Va., according to a Palm representative. At this point details are sketchy, and official photos are nonexistent, but Centro will be the smallest smart phone that Palm has released running Palm OS, the company said.

It will be targeted at the young'uns, which is probably appropriate, according to Gearlog. Gearlog's Sascha Segan, who was in attendance, said the Centro's QWERTY keyboard is "infinitesimal: it's actually impossible to type on this thing with two thumbs." Palm said the design also incorporates a touch screen, but it's not clear how large or what you can do with that screen.

Gearlog called the Centro "Treo 800" and "Gandolf," both names that have come up before among the Palm enthusiasts. It's also not clear if Centro will run Garnet, the decaying version of Palm OS, or a newer Linux-based version from Access or Palm. No further details were forthcoming from Palm, but the devices shown at the Sprint event were slated for this fall.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs usually waits until the end of his keynotes to deliver the real news. We'll start from the start.

This post kicks off One More Thing, a personal blog in which I'll share with you my take on Apple, the chip industry, and the gradual evolution of mobile computing as the PC starts to look more and more like the clock radio. It's going to be a combination of news and commentary, mostly on Apple but also on the chip industry and the development of the truly mobile computer.

If you're looking for a general sense of what I'd like to impart through this blog, take a look at what I wrote on iPhone Day. This blog is going to focus mostly on Apple, since there's probably no other single topic we write about at CNET News.com that gets people talking like Apple. But as influential as Apple is at this point in history, there's a much bigger world out there that's helping to shape the future of computing.

Also expect to see my thoughts on the ongoing tussles between Intel and AMD, two companies I've followed closely for more five years. I'll also watch how the rest of the smart phone industry responds to how the iPhone has resonated with the general public. I've been told I'm not supposed to rant about the state of the Mets' middle relievers, but we'll see.

This is not going to be purely objective; from time to time I'm going to take stances based on my knowledge of the industry, conversations with those whose viewpoints I respect, and my gut feeling. But I'm not going to walk out on the pundit plank with hefty morsels of link bait just for the sake of stirring up controversy. There's plenty of that to go around as it is.

I welcome comments and suggestions. I ask (perhaps foolishly) that we try to keep every Mac OS X post from descending into the usual "Fanboys Gone Wild!" madness. Believe me, I'm keenly aware of the passion that Apple brings out among our readers, both for and against. But let's try to keep it civil. Apple's not a perfect company, but they aren't just making widgets for the iSheep either.

So, let's get started.