How long has it been since I’ve had my iPhone? Less than a year, but it feels like it’s been a decade when I look back at my old Palm Treo 650. I pulled it out of a box this evening with the plan of sending it off to Cell Phones for Soldiers, and was shocked by how bulky and archaic it seems.
You May Need the Help of a Dextrous Friend
Here’s the best part: in order to ship it off to a charity, I want to erase all the old information off of it. So I went over to Palm’s Web site and dug up instructions on how to zero out the device. This is a process that “completely rewrites your device’s internal memory with zeros and ones, ensuring that any data is expunged.” It’s a fairly serious kind of reset, but I found the instructions hilarious. Especially the first step:
- Read through these instructions before attempting the reset. We made this method of zero out reset extremely awkward to perform, so that it would not happen by accident. You may need the help of a dextrous friend if you find it too difficult to do by yourself.
- Connect your device to its HotSync cable or cradle. The HotSync cable does not need to be connected to your PC, and it does not need to be connected to power.
- Press and hold the Power button and UP on the 5-way navigator.
- While continuing to hold Power and UP, press and hold the HotSync button on the HotSync cable or cradle. As you press HotSync, make sure your other finger doesn’t slide to LEFT or RIGHT on the 5-way navigator; it needs to be exactly on UP during the entire process. Although you are pressing the HotSync button, a HotSync operation should not begin.
- While continuing to hold Power, UP and HotSync, press and release the RESET button on the back panel of your device. This is very difficult to do with only one person; you may wish to hold the stylus in your mouth and use your hands to press Power, UP and HotSync.
Etc., etc.
Were I still a Treo user who for some reason needed to perform this kind of reset, I’d take two things away from these instructions. First, Palm apparently thinks that the crushing loneliness of being a single person disqualifies me from making sound judgments about zeroing out my device — unless I can hold the stylus in my mouth. And second, I should be in the market for an iPhone.
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