July 3rd, 2007
Simplicity put Palm's Pilot on the map. Is Palm's Foleo 'PC' an encore performance?
Much the same way Steve Jobs was Apple’s Prodigal Son, returning to the company and reinvigorating it with the sorts of innovations that put it on the map in the first place, Palm founder Jeff Hawkins has apparently returned to his roots in hopes of sparking a revival at his legacy — one that’s based on the same principle that garnered Palm the attention it got in the early 90s: simplicity. The first result is Palm’s $499 Foleo which is due out later this summer. Last week, while at Digital Experience in NYC, I got a chance to see the Foleo (captured in the above video) first hand.
Coming in at around 2.5 pounds and offering 5 solid hours of battery life, the Foleo (pictured left) is definitely reminiscent of the first Palm Pilot. Simplicity is what made the Pilot great. It did a handful of things (contacts, appointments, notes, to-do list… eventually e-mail, etc.), it did them extremely well, and one of the reasons for that is because of how Hawkins & Co. believed that less can actually be more. Whereas other personal digital assistants (PDAs) and tablets coming onto the market over-reached in terms of their ambitions, the Pilot kept things to a bare minimum and each of the core applications were easily accessible with the touch of a button. Not only that, it was “instant-on.” Booting up was unnecessary with a Palm Pilot. You simply turned it on and it sprang to life where ever you left it off.
Enter the Foleo. Like the Palm Pilots of days gone by, there’s no boot-up time. It simply springs to life. Also like the Palm Pilots, there’s single button access to e-mail (but not necessarily to the other built-in applications like the Foleo Web browser, photo viewer, and the DataViz-based attachment viewers/editors). For the other applications, there is an “Apps” button on the Foleo’s keyboard. By launch time, the Foleo will include a personal information manager (for appointments, contacts, and tasks) called mDayscape (from MotionApps). mDayscape will offer a separate user interface for maintaining contact data (that will sync with the smartphone) but will also integrate with the Foleo’s built-in e-mail client in such a way that e-mail addresses auto-complete in the TO:, CC:, and BCC: fields.
Palm is pitching the Foleo as the ultimate “smartphone companion,” claiming that it’s ideal for those situations where the smartphone simply isn’t appropriate for certain tasks requiring a larger display (10 inches diagonally in the Foleo’s case) or a full-sized keyboard (but tasks that don’t necessarily take a full-blown PC to complete). As such, it needs a smartphone to keep it’s e-mail client sync and browse the Web.
Once the Foleo syncs with the e-mail that’s on your smartphone, the Foleo’s e-mail client becomes a mirror image of what’s on the smartphone, including attachments. Sync happens automagically using Bluetooth wireless as the means of connection. The Foleo also has a USB port that supports direct connections to the smartphone (good for trickle charging) as well as USB-based storage. It also has an SD slot (good for moving other files like photos into the Foleo). Inside the Foleo (I think it’s in the battery compartment [the battery is removable, yay!]) is a Compact Flash slot for additional memory (up to 8GB according to a spokesperson).
But unlike the Palm Pilot which could work with any PC, the Foleo’s boon as a smartphone companion is also its bane. The only smartphone the Foleo will work with when it’s launched is, you guessed it, the Palm Treo (greatly limiting the number of customers to which the Foleo is relevant). Both the PalmOS and Windows Mobile-based Treos are supported. But not other Windows Mobile-based devices.
According to a Palm spokesperson I spoke to after Digital Experience, Palm is actively seeking Microsoft’s involvement in getting the Foleo to work with other Windows Mobile devices. I wouldn’t cross my fingers though. If Microsoft is going to support something like the Foleo, it would no doubt prefer to see that something based on Windows technology (eg: Windows CE). After all, when someone is using a Foleo, they’re not using Windows.
Via DataViz’s Document-to-Go technology, Foleo users will be able to view and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. The Foleo has an external VGA port so that businesspeople on the run (and wanted a 2.5 lb. device instead of a full-blown notebook) can connect a projector for those PowerPoint presentations.
While the Foleo has a Web browser, it’s a bit limited in what it can do. For example, it cannot stream video and only supports certain forms of Web audio (the kind that’s often played back on Web pages). The Foleo has a headphones jack. Even though you can transfer files to the Foleo, forget MP3s or other forms of stereo audio. File-based audio is not supported (according to a company spokesperson). One serious downside is that it doesn’t appear to have a hard-wired Ethernet port (I’m still waiting for confirmation on this… here’s the update…there’s a WiFi radio in the Foleo). So, if you’re looking for better performance out of your network (for faster Web browsing) than what your Treo can offer (over a wireless carrier’s network), you’re not going to find it from that Ethernet jack in the wall.
As it stands so far, the Foleo is probably not poised to repeat the Pilot’s success. Especially at $499 (a price that some notebook PCs, even used ones with more horsepower than the Foleo, can be had for). Should the Foleo come down in price and spread its wings to cover more than just the Treo as its smartphone companion, then it’s chances of success will be greatly improved.
