So everyone's talking about the Palm VII. In case you've been out of the loop for a couple of days, here's the deal: Palm just announced a new handheld computing device in what used to be known as the "Pilot" line. This device, the Palm VII (yes, that's four higher than the current Palm III), will supposedly be no larger than existing Palm organizers, but it's got a killer feature: flip up the hinged antenna on the side, and suddenly it's connected wirelessly to the Internet. You can grab your email and surf the web (in a limited fashion) while you're, say, in the cab on the way to the airport. Now that's an organizer we could really use. You can read Palm's press release for the unprocessed marketing spin on the device.

That said, the reality of the Palm VII might not be all sunshine and lollipops. There's already a significant amount of skepticism that Palm can deliver on such a big promise; whereas Palm claims they'll have a billion users in ten years because of the wireless access, an Industry Standard article talks about some of the industry players who are underwhelmed by the hype. The biggest objection seems to be price; the Palm VII itself will cost $800, and the wireless access service is a minimum of $10 a month. However, that $10 only buys you 50 KB of data to transfer, which sounds shockingly low to us. A $25 plan gets you 150 KB of data, but that still sounds terribly low for one month if you get a sizeable amount of email. Additional kilobytes are thirty cents each. Sounds like it could really stack up, so you definitely wouldn't want to use the Palm to access "normal" email. Plus, you can't use your standard POP email account anyway-- you have to use a special mailbox from Palm. And web access is limited to sites that have made themselves Palm-compliant by implementing something called "web clippings." For a more detailed analysis of the Palm VII and what it can and can't do, we highly recommend Henry Norr's report over at MacInTouch.

Why are we talking about all of this here? Two reasons: first of all, since the Newton never really delivered on the concept of a pocket-sized electronic organizer, there are a slew of Mac users who carry Palm devices. But more importantly, remember that rumors have been flying that Apple's consumer laptop (code-named "P1") and next-generation PowerBooks will include wireless Internet access; even Computer Reseller News is reporting these rumors, now. Since the Palm VII isn't due until late next year, Apple could beat them to market. Of course, people who want to carry a complete wireless access device in their shirt pocket aren't likely to want to switch to a portable with an 11" screen, but don't forget the rumors of the MacMate; it's supposed to be a handheld, and if it, too, includes Apple's wireless access solution and it's small enough to compete with the Palm, things might get very interesting in the PDA market. By the way, we tried a Palm III again the other day. No thanks. We didn't need to learn a new way of typing to use a computer, so why should we learn a new way of writing to use a pen-based device? If the MacMate has real handwriting recognition at least as good as the MessagePad 2000's, sign us up-- wireless access or no wireless access.