Palm OS Cobalt and the Mac, part II
A few days ago I did some hand-wringing about news emerging from this week's PalmSource conference that the next generation of Palm's operating system, "Cobalt" (formerly known as Palm OS 6) is not going to support the Mac. On further analysis that doesn't tell the whole story at all, and things are not nearly as dire as they might first seem. Here's a bit more information:
A) PalmSource is indeed forgoing future first-party support for the Mac, that much is true.
B) This doesn't necessarily mean that all future Palm PDAs won't have Mac support.
C) PalmOne makes the PDAs that you know as Palms; PalmSource is their OS licensor, much like how Dell sells PCs that use Microsoft Windows for an operating system.
D) Just like Dell or Gateway selling a PC, not all the software that's included on PalmOne or AlphaSmart or Sony's Palm PDA needs to be from PalmSource; ergo
E) It's perfectly feasible that Palm OS licensees will include Mac synching software themselves right in the box with their PDAs, from Mark/Space or another third party developer, or even their own solution. Even Apple could step in here with a home-grown iSync solution that eschews the HotSync architecture for something else when it encounters Cobalt-based devices.
We'll post more details on MacCentral once I have all my facts together, but I just wanted to give you a heads up.