Comments on: 5 Reasons the iPod Touch cannot replace a Palm

By: blackie

blackie — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:35:39 +0000

It is true that ‘out of the box’ the ipod touch has the personality of a teenager. However, there are many 3rd party apps that are free or only a couple of $ that can give the ipod the personality of a mature businessman. I love the Palm Tx, but they have stood still, while Apple has made a genius move of common OS among ipad, ipod and iphone. I have never been an Apple devotee, but the ipod touch (4th gen) has won me over.

By: Ringo

Ringo — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:05:26 +0000

The Ipod touch look like they are made for teenagers, and palms don’t

By: Jerry M.

Jerry M. — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:42:00 +0000

I’ve been using Palms since the original Pilot and I currently have a TX (and have been using it without a hitch for years). I am making the move to the iPod Touch 4G (32GB). 4G has everything that the TX has and then some, so if you’re switching, now is the time to do it. I’ve been playing with my wife’s Touch and it is *very* slick – it has everything that a PDA should have now. It’s been great, Palm (or should I say “HP”), but you’ve been eclipsed big time.

By: Frosty

Frosty — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:37:16 +0000

I’ve had my Palm TX for about 2 yrs after owning a couple older versions. I’ve never owned or even used an i-device (iPod, iTouch, nothin’) so I can’t compare the two. If you paid $300(299 wtvr) for your TX the way they were selling them on the website, your wallet got raped! I got mine for $100 on eBay.
The graffiti on the TX is just as pathetic as what was used on my first ancient palm. You’d think after so many new products and so much time in development they’d have been able to make it work. It’s like the processor can’t keep up with where my stylus is or something.
The power button on mine, like so many, has issues; have to hold it or press it 10 times to get it to respond = WTF?!
The Support from Palm is worse than shit! Call the support line for a faulty speaker and you get some idiot in India (Indian does not = idiot, Palm employee = idiot), that barely speaks the language spoken by >90% of Palm users, that can only tell you to send it in for $200 to fix something that cost them like a buck in the first place, or find a replacement speaker @ pdaparts.com.
That’s just the support line. Try finding any kind of useful information or download on the website. It so pathetic, it makes me want to shoot their kneecaps out.
I do enjoy listening to music with my TX but the audio from the headphone jack always has this annoying hissing in the background. The only way to get rid of that is to jack up the volume so far up that it makes everything else inaudible.
SD cards? 4GB is bullshit! Mine can’t see anything over 2GB. I mean it acts as if nothing was inserted. WTF?
While it functions as the other half of my brain, it has all the room in the world for improvement. Palm has severly fallen behind. How disgusting. If I had the dough, I’d probably look for a better product. ‘Til then, I take care of this one.

By: Bored

Bored — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:32:10 +0000

To me the ipod touch isn’t a big deal. The only thing Apple did different was the accelerometer.which is great. Other than that the ipod touch and iphones have old technology that companies like Palm have been using for years. Apple just made it better, but Palm could have done the same if they really wanted to.

By: Joe Sax

Joe Sax — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:37:03 +0000

Palm is stuck in the year 2000.

I love Palm, i’ve had the Palm IIIx, then the Sony Clie Nx, then the Clie NZ90, then the Palm TX.
(I’ve already changed my palm TX screen once. These plastic screens don’t last.)

The problem is that in every new Palm OS incarnation i never saw any kind of huge development. Colour screen, yeah, right. Bluetooth, fantastic. But everything was always the same: Memo, Contacts, Calendar. Same fonts, same layout. Of course that there were some good improvements, but certainly, in ten years i hoped that Palm would be the greatest thing on earth. But it isn’t. Even Graffitti they managed to ruin it, going from simple and quick to complex and cumbersome.

Now they announce the Palm Pre, and it looks great, but i feel sorry for Palm, because that is the kind of thing they should have made three years ago. They were going somewhere with Sony and their Clie models and they dropped everything to pursue a lame cellphone design (the Treo)

The problem is, the Pre looks good, fantastically good. But in the meantime, Apple has made iPhone and iPod two very strong products. There are tons of apps for apple devices, and Palm is still stuck with blocky graphics and no multitasking abilities.

My daughter’s Nintendo Dsi has better graphics and touch response, and i got it for less than i got the TX.

So, i’m pretty sure that when the time comes that i need a replacement for my TX, i’m going to get me a flashy ipod touch instead of the Palm Pre.

I’m sorry, Palm. It was good while it lasted, but now the magic is gone. It’s not you, it’s me. Believe me.

By: Peter Stocker

Peter Stocker — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:58:30 +0000

All this information and reasons are no longer up to date if you have a gen 2 ipod touch with OS 3. You have bluetooth, better web access, free phone applications with skype or truphone, note sync to your mail program as reminders, and nice additions:

-external wireless USB program that prints, shares and emails files

-documents to go Word that is. Excel will be a free update soon, or use Mobile Office

flashlight

compass

map and google Earth (when in wifi — just go in front of starbucks or in front of an apartnment

-offline web reader which downloads to device

VNC

level

superb and fun games

internet radio

weather

podcasts and video and more (50,000 apps)

As a former palm user I’m not looking back.

By: Rose L

Rose L — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:01:26 +0000

what about Notes synchronisation? I tested the iPod Touch and I could not see where you could do a general search in all apps which I love. I could only see that you could scroll through contacts but not search. Sometimes I remember part of a name and search on first name or first letters or company.

I have been using Palm for over ten years and although I am very open to the iPod Touch, it must be function over fun so for now, the Palm.

By: Bojan

Bojan — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:05:39 +0000

Well I guess it’s game over for the Palm TX now (E2 is obviously a non-competitor as well). iPod Touch / iPhone are open to 3rd party apps and have an incredible number of useful applications now. External audio is now here on the 2G. 8GB (the minimum) is plenty of space, plus swapping SDs is a real pain. There are a number of excellent styli for the Apple products. I guess the only thing that is missing is Bluetooth but aside from letting you cause your phone to dial a number from the Palm contact list, it’s pretty much useless on the Palm anyway so I’ll live without it.

And let’s not even start on all the reasons that the iPod touch destroys the TX.

Don’t get me wrong here – I am in no way an Apple “fanboy” and I really believe Palm products were very strong in the past. In fact, I had a Tungsten E (which died suddenly, but I don’t feel I need to bring up Palm product lifetime issues here) a while ago. Since then, I entertained the idea of buying a TX many times but never thought the price was quite worth it. Now things are clear – it’s not. The 8GB Touch is cheaper and better in almost every respect. I am very, very happy with mine (and no, it doesn’t have any music, videos, or pictures on it yet – I use it purely as a productivity device).

Palm needs to do something soon or risk losing the handheld (non-smartphone) market forever. Only one question is left: Why is the TX still priced so high?

By: La Primavera

La Primavera — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:07:51 +0000

Well, I read this post before making the switch and decided that much of it was based on opinions of those who had not used both products. I had a Palm TX for two years, and a series of others before that, using it mostly for business: e-mail, calendar, contacts. I have had the ipod Touch for about six months now, and here is what I think: Making the switch was easy. Palm was synced with computer, therefore syncing computer with ipod brought over all the information, except a few applications that I had to export and import manually. The first thing I notice is the bulk of the ipod is much less… its great to be able to just slip it in my shirt pocket without it bulging out. The, when I turn it on the graphics are a million times nicer than the Palm… no doubt. Slick interface with nice scrolling and clearer internet browsing including nifty zoom and automatic orientation. The contacts does pretty much the same thing as palm… just looks a bit nicer. You cannot categorise the contacts though… but easy to scroll and search. The calendar looks nicer, but does the same thing as Palm. You can have more than one calendar and choose which ones to sync. Mail is nicer in ipod as it has a bigger keyboard (when you use a third party layout app), and it has “push” with Exchange and POP… very slick and dependable with built-ind ability to read most types of attachments (but not edit). Syncing is the same type of thing as with Palm, except for music, which is much easier in itunes. The keyboard tooka bit of getting used to, but is much more accurate than grafitti and easier than the Palm keyboard… I can no two-and it and can type quite quickly. So all of these functions, I give better ratings to the ipod. Here’s what I don’t like: To Do is not built in and does not really have a satisfactory app. Toodle Do is the best I can find, which automatically syncs with Outlook and the Mac Widget. I don’t really like the ipod app, but it works. At the time of writing there is still no app that syncs Notes on ipod with the desktop… this is just ridiculous. Then there is the fingerprint issue, which makes the screen a mess becasue you touch the screen with your finger rather than a stylus. While I like the way this works better, the smudges are bad. I got a smudge-free screen protector which has solved that problem. But then again, there are thousands of apps out there, many for free or cheap, which seem far more useful than any of the Palm programs I ever found… they are easy to find, download, and buy from the itunes store. The options with the ipod are seemingly limitless… just take a look at the itunes store at all the apps you can get… so, after using both devices, I can say that I do not miss the TX at all… the ipod is a far better device for my needs and syncs well with both my mac and PC. Good luck!