Thoughts on a New Lifedrive

February 16 and/or 26th appear to be coming from a few sources of mine in regards to the release of a Lifedrive 2. I am certainly hoping from a software standpoint that Palm offers the following if this is true:


1. A resolution of the memory leak fiasco which has not really been resolved with the update. I have called upon many friends in the field who have done the update and they are still experiencing soft resets at inapropriate times.

Speaking to a few software developers, some are perplexed by the fact that the program portions are in the same areas as the hard drive. They are suggesting that Palm should have and possibly should just come out with a solid state 128 to 256 mb Rom/Ram and then have the hard drive portion - 4-8 gigs - act as a repository and storage. Better yet, turn the whole thing into a solid state solution with NVFS and I think that this would solve the entire problem.

(If I recall, the Zaurus has a 4g hard drive and they do not seem to have this problem. I bring this up since the Zaurus runs on the same platform as the Lifedrive).

2. If they went to an all solid state solution, the size and weight would be decreased substantially. The only thing left to work on would tbe the aesthetics. Right now, it's a bit of a gladiator.

3. Right out of the box video and audio compatibility without the use of 3rd party apps. With the advent of the ipod and with the new offerings from Creative Labs and Samsung (See CES reviews on the various other blogs out there), this is a must for Palm to survive in this space.

4. Better wifi compatibility and a complete tweak of the underlying web browser. It is still buggy and does not use memory in an efficient manner. It is a major source for memory leaks.

5. Perhaps not for the LIfedrive 2, but the handwriting recognition aspect of this machine has really got to improve. Microsoft's Windows Mobile actually has better recognition with its block graffiti function, which is basically Graffiti 1. But above this, Nokia continues to lead the way with its Symbian operating system. They have developed an incredible piece of software for one handed use. It is something that developers will need to look into for the future.



So, armed with what I have been told by a few friends, I have taken the liberty of not loading the harddrive component with software and leaving it for storage. Using instead a 1 gigbyte SD card to run any additional software that I may have or need.

I have not had a crash in over 2 months. The hard drive has remained barren for much of December, but I recently added some A/V files and will consider adding software, but only for storage.

Hopefully this will be stable. I will embark upon the update very soon. But for now, as the old saying goes, if it works for now, don't make chanbes.

(A few pointers to a new Lifedrive being released or the former being phased out:


1. There are no more eCoupons available and the last ones run out on 2/15/2006.
2. Palm reduces the price of the Lifedrive by 10%.
3. There is increasing chatter by a few very reliable sources.
4. Two local stores have stated that they will NOT be getting a new shipment in.

The last one is the most important! It has, with about 95% sensitivity and 80% specificity signalled a paradigm shift. But we will have to wait and see.

Will I get one if it's released? Well, I wouldn't be able to keep this site going if I didn't :).


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Addendum:

The new website for software development is still a work in progress. I have not put it up for beta release yet, but I am getting very close. The domain name LIFEDRIVEDOC.COM has been secured and you will be directed to this site if you place this in your browser.

It is the begining of much more to come.

LDD.