Ahh, for the old days of PalmOS development. Back in the early days, say, 1997 or so, developing apps for what was then the PalmPilot family of organizers was a joy of simplicity. %FIELD Side2 There were only a few models to worry about, or rather one model in a few slightly-different flavors to worry about. All PalmPilots had the same sized monochrome screen, had the same buttons, and ran the same processors at the same speed. When you wrote a program and got it working, you'd know it would work for the indefinite future, and you could spend time thinking about new programs to write, or at least only come back if you had more features you wanted to add to your old programs.

Now fast forward five years, a near lifetime in the high tech industry. There are over a half dozen companies creating PalmOS organizers, each with a half dozen models trying to carve their own niches in the developing market. Some manufacturers, like Sony, have been releasing new models at a feverish rate, seemingly unveiling a new model every two or three months, each with its own unique design, styling, and capabilities.

While some platforms have been losing models and manufacturers, PalmOS really has grown into a phenomenon of its own. And yet, all this wonderful expansion has not come without a cost. All the new devices have brought a cornicopia of different screen resolutions and depths, audio capabilities, button configurations, and expansion devices. What was once a platform consisting of a single unit and a few near clones has become a wide array of differing devices running the same operating system.