palmOne Refuses to Confirm Palm OS 6 Upgrade

Recently, a user of a Tungsten C made headlines by telling various sites he was informed by a company tech support person that palmOne was in the process of developing a Palm OS 6 upgrade for current models. This would allow some current handhelds to move to the next version of this operating system, Palm OS 6. Today, a spokesperson for palmOne declined to confirm this.

According to a thread on the Brighthand forums, this user was told that palmOne is currently putting a Palm OS 6 upgrade through final testing. Which palmOne models would be able to be upgraded besides the Tungsten C was not specified.

Information coming from tech support people is notoriously unreliable, and today a palmOne spokesperson refused to confirm a plan to release an OS 6 upgrade. He went on to cast doubt on the assertion that any palmOne employee would have said that an OS 6 upgrade was in the works.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the company isn't working on such an upgrade. Most companies refuse to confirm projects before they are complete and palmOne doesn't want to seem like it is promising users of OS 5 models that it will provide an OS 6 upgrade for them.

Palm licensees aren't nearly as good as the Pocket PC makers are about releasing OS upgrades. However, palmOne has the best reputation in the group. Just about all its older models can be upgraded to Palm OS 4.2. Because of incompatible hardware, there's no way to upgrade these to Palm OS 5. Still, palmOne hasn't released any interim updates to, for example, bring the Tungsten T up to Palm OS 5.2.

PalmSource gave Palm OS 6 to its licensees at the very end of last year. The first models running it are expected in a few months.

Related Links

• Palm OS 6 Given to Licensees on Schedule
• RumorMill™: First Glimpse of Two Upcoming palmOne Models