RIP LifeDrive
Palm quietly pulled the plug on the LifeDrive last week, in case you missed it. It went away quietly, upstaged by its sturdy cousin, the Treo Smartphone. I remember seeing a demo of Lifedrive over at the PalmOne offices back in Silicon Valley. It had an impressive lineup of features - WiFi and Bluetooth, Video. Music. Email. But it also had a hefty price tag at launch - $500.
Palm is wise to let go of the LifeDrive and channel its energies on the Treo smartphone - a Blackberry rival that is only months away from the release of another high-profile competitor, Apple's iPhone. The LifeDrive - bulky and heavy with that hard drive - would have needed an overhaul to compete with the iPhone. It also would have needed, well, a phone - which pretty much would have made it look a lot like the Treo. It goes to show you, at the end of the day, the phone still remains a pretty essential part of a device's DNA.
And so, not even two years after its release, the LifeDrive had to go away. Sorry to see you go, LifeDrive. It wasn't personal. It was just business.
By
Sam Diaz
|
February 6, 2007; 2:09 AM ET
| Category:
Sam Diaz
Previous: Apple's Advisory - Part II |
Next: Reviewing video, YouTube style
Get This Widget >>
Posted by: Dennis | February 20, 2007 3:13 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
I think what killed the Lifedrive isn't the smartphone, but the fact that multigigabyte flash drives are now the norm. I love my Palm T|X which is flash based, and I hope that Palm continues to move forward with this line of PDA's. I would love to have a 4 or 8 gigabyte T|X2.