StyleTap 1.0 Released - Page 2

zzizzizo · 10-31-06, 09:13 PM

그런데 아직 안글이 안되잖아~ 잇힝

JNDSDA · 10-31-06, 10:19 PM

May have problem if you need to register palm programs/games. I tried installing Palm Hellfire, I can't register it because Styetap changed my HotID #, so Palm Hellfire wouldn't take my reg. code.
So if you need to have your Palm software registered, you may need to ask for a new reg. code # and you may be lucky to get free reg. code, otherwise you may need to pay again. Unless there's workaround I am not aware of?

callmemoe · 10-31-06, 11:12 PM

I'm going with mikeyp on this one.

Kevin1a · 10-31-06, 11:56 PM

who is DODGE jmn444?

BigTex1971 · 11-01-06, 07:38 AM

Could they get into legal trouble by charging people for basically Palm's proprietary system? I would think if they released it free (like the game emulators) they could get around some of the legal issues.

jmn444 · 11-01-06, 08:48 AM

Originally Posted by Kevin1a

who is DODGE jmn444?

It's a little company that builds cars...

Menneisyys · 11-01-06, 10:31 AM

Originally Posted by BigTex1971

Could they get into legal trouble by charging people for basically Palm's proprietary system? I would think if they released it free (like the game emulators) they could get around some of the legal issues.

It's NOT the OS (there are no built-in Palm apps), "just" an interpreter. This is why they can't be sued by Palm.

Menneisyys · 11-01-06, 12:08 PM

My review:

After a Long Waiting, Version 1.0 of Great Palm OS Emulator, StyleTap, Finally Out!

I’ve been closely watching (see my early compatibility reports for example here, here, here, here and here) the evolution of Styletap, the Palm OS emulator for the Pocket PC, for almost two years now.

Palm OS has some really cool and unmatched applications (for example, MathLib, powerOne Graph and MedCalc) and games (for example, Edge and Acedior) that hava never been ported to the Pocket PC.

(the above screenshot has been taken on the VGA x51v and shows how HiRes (320*320) games are scaled to 480*480 to – horizontally – completely fill in the available screen estate of VGA Pocket PC’s. The same screenshot taken on the QVGA HTC Wizard can be seen here; it shows how the LoRes (160*160) rendering looks on a QVGA device. As you can see, it’s much less spectacular and pretty hard to read)

StyleTap (rightfully!) is also the winner of the Utilities: Miscellaneous Utilities category of the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards 2006.

Availability

The application is available here for all ARM-based platforms (that is, even on Pocket PC 2000 / 2002 ARM-based Pocket PC's). The commercial version costs a whopping $49.99 but there is a 14-day and, otherwise, unrestricted trial.

Edge compatibility

Of course, the first program I’ve tested was Edge, the greatest role playing game for the Palm OS - and probably all non-gaming handheld device platforms (see this, this and, again, this for more info on how it compares to other (Pocket PC) RPG games). I was really delighted to see that, it was clearly more enjoyable than the beta versions of the emulator.

On my 624 MHz WM5 VGA Dell Axim x51v, there aren’t really annoying sound problems (hiccups in the background stereo music) with the game any more unless you have a conversation with someone. Then, the music has very short, but quite annoying pauses every 2 or 3 second.

On my 624 MHz WM5 HP iPAQ hx4700 and 520 MHz WM2003SE VGA Pocket Loox 720, the situation wasn’t this good; there were constant pauses in the background music.

I’ve also tested the game on the HTC Wizard and it turned out to be pretty good, taking the speed of the CPU of this model into account. Of course, there were pauses in the ambient music, but the game itself was pretty playable.

Acedior compatibility

The second game I tested was Acedior, the other Palm OS-only “big hit” – the second adventure of the folks that have created Fade, which has won the “Best adventure game for the Pocket PC” prize several times. Acedior isn’t at all worse than Fade, quality-wise – I certainly recommend purchasing it if you own a (preferably HiRes(+)) Palm model.

Unfortunately, as with the 0.x betas, the new StyleTap version isn’t compatible with this title either – it still can’t load the bitmaps as can be seem in here. This is a BIG problem - Acedior is a REALLY good game!

Other tidbits

Pros

Definitely faster and more compatible than beta versions!

Cons

There is still(?) no HiRes+ (that is, 480*320, as opposed to the “plain” 320*320 HiRes) support in the emulator
The price ($49.99, which is considerably higher than in the beta stage) is pretty steep – you can get a second-hand, say, Palm Tungsten 3 for not much more money, and it offers both seamless HiRes+ (not just HiRes) compatibility with all the applications / games out there (not to mention its other uses; for example, as an A2DP-enabled multimedia player). And, yes, it runs both Edge and Acedior flawlessly - and in HiRes+ :)

Verdict

If you have Palm applications or games you’d like to run on your Pocket PC, give StyleTap a try. Also, make sure you check out Edge under it if you have a sufficiently fast, preferably VGA Pocket PC (for example, the x51v) and you don’t dislike games – you’ll definitely like it!

Other discussions of the new version

AximSite

**Rishad** · 11-02-06, 03:21 PM

I was pleasantly surprised to see how well/fast Edge ran on StyleTap. I wish there was a way to install software/games from the .prc files right on the PPC instead of the AS+StyleTap installer solution.

Menneisyys · 11-02-06, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by akheron

I was pleasantly surprised to see how well/fast Edge ran on StyleTap. I wish there was a way to install software/games from the .prc files right on the PPC instead of the AS+StyleTap installer solution.

You can - just click the PRC file and it'll be deployed automagically

Kevin1a · 11-02-06, 09:58 PM

Originally Posted by jmn444

It's a little company that builds cars...

Oh, that dodge. I get it (finally). There are differences between software and cars. Much of dodge's price is composed of material and labour costs. Software is soley labour costs and they are fixed costs rather than variable costs. I have attached a graph of Dodge's potential cost curves. They have fixed costs such as the development of thier products (FC) and variable costs (AVC) the cost that rises as output increases due to costs of production. Now let us analyze styletap. They have fixed costs (software development) which only occur once, and are not effected by the quantity of output, yet thier variable costs are almost nonexistant. The only variable cost they have is the bandwidth for thier website. The more popular thier software becomes the more traffic they recieve (just use pay per view ads) Anyways since they have no variable costs it doesn't matter what thier output is. They simply want to maximize total revenue. To do this they must calculate price X number of buyers at that price = total revenue. And do this for all set prices. Then they must select the price that maximizes total revenue. I sent them an email on the presupposition that not very many people are going to pay 50$ for thier product and with the knowledge that various aximsiters thought it was worth it for 10$ or maybe even 20$. If this proves to be correct then thier total revenue would be maximized and thier company would prosper. This concludes economics 101.

jmn444 · 11-02-06, 10:53 PM

well..... I'm pretty sure econ applies to dodge too, not exactly sure what your trying to prove... my point was just that emailing them to say the price is too high just seems comical to me. Under your "theory", prescription medication should be priced at next to nothing as well, but the reality is that fixed and variable costs are only a small part of what determines pricing...

Kevin1a · 11-03-06, 02:14 PM

I get what your saying and thats what I'm trying to acknowledge. They don't have much extra cost for each one they sell, so all they want to do is make as much money as possible (the goal of any business). To do this they have to figure out at what price this will happen. If they raise the price to 300$ they might have 3 people willing to buy it. If they lower the price to 20$ they might have 200 people willing to buy it. So even though the price drops the amount of money made could still go up.

rogerutley · 11-03-06, 02:27 PM

has any one tried using with kinoma viewer?I am trying to view flixs that were made on my verizon phone. have tried to duplicate kinoma but to no avail.running quicktime on mobile 5.0 seems to very hard!

**Rishad** · 11-03-06, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by Menneisyys

You can - just click the PRC file and it'll be deployed automagically

Oh cool! I just transferred the StyleTap executables manually so the prc file association wasn't properly done I'm guessing.