PDAStreet: News: StyleTaps Palm Apps For Treo 700w

As a Treo owner, you enjoy your acclaimed smartphone for its phone/PDA hardware integration and the simplicity of the Palm OS. The Treo 700w has gotten you thinking about making the move to Windows Mobile, however: either the rumors about the Palm-based Treo 700p haven't convinced you or you�re simply ready another mobile platform.

You�re thinking, for example, the Treo 700w's EV-D0 3G broadband would let you send e-mail and pictures, browse the Web and perform a lot of other tasks a whole lot faster. Give up your huge Palm software investment? Something you've spent hundreds of dollars on, you don't know about that, however.

Enter StyleTap, Inc., a company that released an eponymous platform to enable Windows Mobile for Pocket PC device users to run the more than 20,000 Palm applications on the market�many available for free from this Web site�on their handhelds.

The $29.95 StyleTap Platform is now compatible with Palm�s Treo 700w.

StyleTap runs third-party applications written for Palm OS Garnet 5.2 (and earlier) devices. With it, Palm software appears and operates on a Pocket PC just like native Windows Mobile programs. You can even cut and paste between Palm and Windows Mobile applications on the same handheld.

Because Palm software has always been written to a square format, it should work well on the increasingly common square screens found in Pocket PC phones like the Treo 700w and HP hw6500 iPAQ Mobile Messenger series. Software writers for Pocket PCs have been adjusting their applications to this new display format over the last few months, as these types of handhelds traditional used 240 x 320 (QVGA) displays.

(StyleTap on QVGA display)

StyleTap CEO & co-founder Gregory Sokoloff said last year, "With this product, users who decide to migrate from a Palm OS device can keep running their favorite applications. And for the first time, existing Windows Mobile PDA users can access the vast array of popular, proven Palm OS applications."

StyleTap Notes for Treo 700w & Other Square Screen Pocket PCs

On the Treo 700w, Windows Mobile taskbar (at top) and StyleTap command bar (at bottom) can be shown/hidden by pressing the left action key. By default, these bars are initially hidden when you run a StyleTap application. StyleTap runs slightly faster if the taskbar and command bar are hidden.

The right action key causes the current application menu to be shown/hidden.

If the device has a keyboard, menu shortcut characters are displayed and can be triggered (when the menu is active) by keyboard input.

With the StyleTap command bar showing, you can use the SIP (keyboard) icon to bring up the virtual keyboard/input area. When the SIP is up, only part of the application is visible; you can scroll the screen using the up/down navigation keys.

From any StyleTap application, press the OK button to jump back to the StyleTap Launcher. From the StyleTap Launcher, press the OK button to terminate StyleTap.

Some games need access to the four Palm hard keys. On a Treo 700w with StyleTap, you can use Game Mode to access these keys. To switch to Game Mode, press Alt followed by the left action key. In Game Mode, the keyboard keys Q, W, O and P generate Palm key codes for hard key 1 (usually the Calendar key on a Palm device), hard key 2 (usually the Address Book key), hard key 3 (usually the To Do key) and hard key 4 (usually the Notes key) respectively. Game mode lasts until you press Alt and the left action key again, or switch out of or terminate the current application.