MUST READ: Congress demands answers from Google over Glass privacy concerns

Topic: Mobility

Memory lane: Palm xv and OmniSky Minstrel V -- mobile email rocked my world

Summary: Few gadgets have touched my world as profoundly as the lowly Palm PDA and the cellular modem I used with it.

James Kendrick

By for Mobile News |

The year was 1999 and the BlackBerry was just getting started on its rise to the top and eventual crash. There was no solution for getting email on the go as the BlackBerry had not appeared in numbers. There weren't any smartphones, almost no one had a cell phone, and Palm still ruled the PDA world.

The Palm xv was a great PDA, much thinner than any other mobile gadget and full of those great Palm apps. It was only black and white but that was all we needed; the key was the apps that let us do virtually anything on this handheld.

Then magic happened: OmniSky introduced the Minstrel V modem that fit on the back of the Palm xv. Mobile email was a reality, and it rocked my world at the time.

I was a senior manager for a firm with global connections, and only having email during business hours was a hardship. Then the OmniSky appeared and I had email 24/7, and it was a game-changer. The $299 OmniSky was expensive but worth it for me at the time, and the $40 monthly service fee for the cellular service a bargain.

The 19.2 kbps service made it painfully slow for web browsing, but could handle business email just fine. I was able to respond to email at any time of the day or night, and people were amazed. They would send me an email from their office around the globe, and get a reply from me in minutes. Instead of going into the office and finding dozens of emails waiting for action each morning, I went in to a clean inbox. It was revolutionary and gave me a huge advantage over other managers at the firm.

The Palm with the OmniSky proved to me how important mobile email was going to be in the future. I was not surprised to see the BlackBerry take off as fast as it did for that reason.

There have been few gadgets/ mobile technology that have impacted my professional life as did the Palm xv and OmniSky. OmniSky wasn't long for this world due to the high cost to use its device and service, but it rocked my world for that brief window of time.

Related:

Topic: Mobility

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

5 comments
Log in or register to join the discussion

  • Memory lane! :)

    Thanks for the walk down memory lane -- I can still remember the day my OmniSky arrived, and the amazing feeling when I connected the two together for the first time and my Inbox synched wirelessly. I don't think I was smart enough at the time to realize "this changes everything," but wow it sure did. :)
    mrmediaguy
    Reply Vote

  • Palm LifeDrive

    I purchased a Palm LifeDrive and still have it. It was way ahead of it's time, with a 4 inch screen. Now everyone has 4 inch screens or better. it also has a 4gig hard drive in it. HOT STUFF back then.
    gmcneil@...
    Reply Vote

    • Palm LifeDrive

      I remember early iPhone and Touch users wanting to know "how'd you do that" when watching me work with my LifeDrive. Even with it's quirks, it took until iOS 4 (or a jailbroken iOS 3.1) to give me capabilities that matched what I could do on PalmOS.

      Of course, for me making the switch to iOS was really just an incremental step. After more than 10 years on Palm devices, there was nothing revolutionary for me about the Apple devices.

      The saddest thing of all, is that I've never seen a company go to the amount of effort that Palm did to drive away its customers to a competitor. Palm fans were simply begging for a reason to stay loyal but all we got was screwed repeatedly.
      RaulYbarra
      Reply Vote

  • Richocet Modem

    I remember my xv fondly as one in the middle of a series of Palms I owned. I never had an Omnisky for my Palm but I did have a Ricochet wireless modem for my Motion m1300 slate. It was the state of the art back at the turn of the century.
    HildyJhnsn
    Reply Vote

  • Palm Vx not xv

    Good article, but the name of the Palm device was the Palm Vx instead of Palm xv. It was an upgrade to the Palm V which increased the memory capacity from 2MB to 8MB.
    JeffGr
    Reply Vote
CNET Join | Log In | Privacy | Cookies Close