Four years ago, I wrote a program called WirelessModem which let me use my Treo 180 as a modem for my PowerBook. This was, in my opinion, needed as the Treo replaced my Motorola StarTac and while I didn’t use it often, I could use my StarTac as a modem (it wasn’t pretty with a USB to serial adapter and a bunch of cable). Over the years, I’ve tried to keep WirelessModem working with the newer Treos, but have had mixed success (USB is more voodoo than it is programming and each device seems to have a mind of its own). Some people still seem to get it to work, but many can’t and I don’t have the time or motivation to touch it. I stopped using a Treo a few years back for a number of factors (they’ve improved tremendously, but I still don’t want to have the option of getting my email all the time…it’s too tempting and increases stress).
Now that Palm has released the Treo 700p, it looks like they finally added the ability to use the phone as a modem via both USB and Bluetooth (Bluetooth support was in there for some of the 650s). So, WirelessModem is no longer needed for the Treo series. In my opinion, it is about time. I’ve always thought it should be built into the OS as every cell phone I’ve had could be used as a modem out of the box, except for the Treos even though they cost more than most phones. When I was at Qualcomm and worked on the pDQ phone (first Palm OS based smartphone), having the phone work as a modem was a requirement. When Kyocera went forward with the 6035 and 7135, they kept this ability. Furthermore, with the 7135, the phone registered on USB as a Communications Device Class (CDC) modem, which meant that no drivers at all were required on the Mac (and other OSes). Not to mention, WirelessModem won’t work on MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
People still buy WirelessModem despite me not being able to support it. Do I completely remove it from my website or keep it? I’m definitely not making a fortune off it and it has served me well over the last few years. I think it has outlived its usefulness.