palmOne May Release OS Upgrades

Many Pocket PC users were disappointed last month when they learned that neither HP nor Dell was going to release upgrades to the latest version of the Windows Mobile operating system for any current models. OS upgrades are something Pocket PC users have become accustomed to.

The Palm OS is different world. No Palm OS device has seen an OS upgrade in years. Of course, the move from Palm OS 4 to Palm OS Garnet complicated the situation, as the hardware requirements for Palm OS Garnet are such that it can't be run on older handhelds.

However, this isn't true of Palm OS Cobalt, the latest version of the operating system that was given by PalmSource to licensees at the beginning of this year. Most Palm OS Garnet devices could be upgraded to Palm OS Cobalt. Nevertheless, no OS updates for users of current models have been released.

Still, this situation may yet change. An anonymous source has posted on the 1src Forums an unconfirmed report that palmOne plans to release Palm OS Cobalt upgrades for two of its high-end models, the Tungsten T3 and the Tungsten C.

This source appears to know a handheld developer with access to pre-release versions of palmOne handhelds. This is the same person who leaked the new details on the Tungsten T5 and Tungsten E2.

Update: Belief is growing in the handheld community that this person is a hoaxer. Much of his plausibility was based on the very realistic picture he provided of the Tungsten T5. However, over the past couple of days many people have begun to question this image. In addition, a new source has come forward to say that the information posted in the 1src forums about OS upgrades is false. To learn more, read this article.

Reportedly, these will not be free upgrades. Instead, they will cost between $40 and $50. They should be released near the end of this year, about a month after the rumored release of the Tungsten T5.

More about Palm OS Cobalt

Palm OS Cobalt, previously known as Palm OS 6.0, will finally bring to this operating system many features users have been hoping for, like much more robust support for threading and background processes. It will also be able to run applications written in native ARM code, leading to much better performance.

In addition, Cobalt will have powerful multimedia capabilities and allow handhelds to have up to 256 MB of RAM.

However, there are some things that won't change. The user interface will be essentially the same as it is now (see picture at left). Also Cobalt doesn't offer built-in support for VGA screens or switching between portrait and landscape modes, though licensees could add this with relative ease.

Related Links

• Brighthand's First Impressions of Palm OS Cobalt