I agree - it is a pity - and frustrating for us too

Kyle (and everyone),
As one of the developers of Fitaly, and the developer of Instant Text Mobile, please allow me to respond.

We also are not happy - I would dearly love for Fitaly and Instant Text to work on all Palm OS devices.

In an ideal world, that's how it *would* work - we'd write it, and it'd run everywhere.

Unfortunately, that's not the reality. Each machine has subtle and not-so-subtle differences - even different models from the same manufacturer. We've struggled with this from the beginning development of Fitaly, and the struggle continues with Instant Text Mobile. We're not alone in this struggle - there are many, many posts on developer maillists bemoaning, complaining, and asking for help with these differences and oddities.

When Sony developed the collapsable Graffiti area ("DIA") for the NR-70, they did it one way. Garmin another. PalmOne another, and Zodiac another. Some evolved towards the others, but the upshot is each machine is different - we can't write it once and work everywhere. PalmSource eventually made it part of the OS and standardized it, but everything before that still exists, and manufacturers still may change things for their specific devices.

Worse, the DIA documentation only covers the *application* side - how an application can open or close it, how to enable or disable allowing the user to open/close it, etc. NOBODY has documented how to *change* the "skins". PalmSource hasn't. PalmOne hasn't. Sony eventually did, but it's only for their later machines (NX and NZ series if I remember correctly) - their method won't work on T3, T5, LifeDrive, Zodiac, etc.

We had to reverse-engineer how to do it on the T3 - several weeks of time. By the time the T5 arrived, Alexander Pruss had developed SkinDIA! for T3 and T5; his assistance was invaluable. (SkinDIA! is at http://www.zlthemes.com/ProductDetailListing.php?PID=67 He also has versions for Sony and Zodiac.)
As I write this, I discovered his report that SkinDIA! works on LifeDrive also, so we should be able to create the Fitaly skin for it. I'm not sure if SkinDIA! was updated for LifeDrive or not. If it wasn't, then there may be other reasons that Fitaly doesn't work on LifeDrive yet.

Another example is the 5-way navigator. Again, each early machine did it differently. And many machines give us different "events" than an application sees (since we're running "in background" we get some events that applications don't get - usually benign and we ignore them, but the 5-way navigator events are *drastically* different in some cases).

I've documented 7 completely different set of event-sequences on different devices (the events from a single press of "up" for example). The Simulators don't match the actual hardware either. For example, the T3 sends one sequence. T3 Simulator is *completely* different. T5 sends a different sequence. Treo 600 changed it completely. Mostly the 650 is the same as the 600 - except for a couple of differences. And these are all from PalmOne!

I actually had to develop a program to figure out what is sent for each button on each machine, depending on where the event-sequence is captured. (Since we run in background, we have to use one way to get events. Applications use a different way, and there's several spots that the events can be captured [event loop and form handler, for the technical folks] - each place sees different sequences)
Drove me bonkers until I wrote that utility.

The documentation from PalmSource and PalmOne only covers what the *application* sees, and really only from one spot - the form handler.

We've had similar problems in many other areas.

It's not that we don't *want* to make it work. It's not that we don't value existing customers. It's not that we don't like a particular machine or manufacturer.

It's that we can only do so much at a time. (even writing this is taking me away from fixing a DIA problem in Instant Text Mobile - which only happens on some devices and some programs.)

I didn't even go to the PalmSource developer conference this year - partly because it would lose a week of development at a critical time. (that was a very hard decision for me to make - I've been going to it every year, and I really enjoy it. I made the right decision not to go, but I regret not being able to go.)

Frankly, I was hoping SkinDIA! *would* be updated for LifeDrive - that saves *tons* of work (i.e., *time*) for us. I'd much rather pay Alexander for the work he's doing with SkinsDIA! than have to figure it all out myself. (even though I love investigatory projects like that, I've got plenty of work on my plate!)

We have a LifeDrive coming soon - we will be testing Fitaly (and ITM, although it appears that works fine). And we will try to make them work on the LifeDrive.

It would be wonderful if the manufacturers could get us devices early, before they're released, so we can be compatible from the first day. But except for a *very* rare case, they won't do that - we have to wait until the device is on sale to even see them. In some cases we'll get some early documentation, but usually not even that.

Please understand that it's not a lack of desire - it's a question of how do we use the resources that we have - on what do I spend my time working. If it was simply a matter of an hour or so - of course we'd do it quickly. But if it's going to take days or weeks to figure out yet another (frequently undocumented) change, it's difficult to drop everything to do that - especially when we don't know how long it *will* take.

Ultimately, we need to do the things that will pay well enough so we can live our "real" lives. We can't spend all our time working (although my kids think I do) and we can't do all the things we'd like to do. (And the simple answer "hire more people" isn't so simple - the work they do has to (eventually) earn enough to cover their pay...) It wouldn't do any of us any good if we don't earn enough to stay in business!)

I apologize for the length of this response, but I hope I've cleared up some questions.

- Al -