So far this seems to be the only metal stylus out there for the Centro: click here

No clue whether it's any good, but it has to be better than the plastic sliver that comes with the Centro.

I'm really liking my Centro too... I thought the screen and keyboard would be problematic, but they're really not. It's so nice to get back to the Palm platform again -- familiar applications, more solid syncing with Missing Sync for OSX, etc. For a device with an "ancient" OS, it's a lot less cumbersome in many ways than Windows Mobile. I love the size too.

As for peripherals... the Centro works perfectly with my Jabra BT8040 headset and the Palm infrared universal keyboard (with the latest driver from palm.com).

I've also noticed that Bluetooth file transfers from my Mac seem to be about twice as fast with the Centro as with the 650. Another pleasant surprise is that unlike the 650, the Centro can charge from USB without using a cable that plugs into the power port as well.

All in all I'm quite happy, and I think the Centro will hold me until Palm's new OS and/or Android arrive...

Slacker isn't quite like a normal streaming service, however. Since it actually plays pre-downloaded tracks, you can skip ahead instantly, and the player remembers that to adjust the playlist. You can also ban a song completely, or mark a song as loved so that it (and its artist) plays more often.

You also aren't limited to the genres they supply; you can define your own stations by selecting artists. You can choose one artist (whether or not they have it in their catalog) and simply let it play what it considers to be similar, or you can select from the catalog of artists to make a custom station. This isn't quite like making a playlist on your iPod though -- since the Slacker is supposed to be "radio", it will still insert tracks from related artists, the amount depending on how many artists you picked for your custom station. (Apparently this is a rather important distinction for licensing -- if you could create a station which only played one or two artists, it would be download-on-demand, not streaming radio.)

The web player is ad-supported as well, so you can try it for free, and it will sync your stations to the portable over wifi. I quite like the web service, though I've held off on buying the portable... I'm waiting to see what happens with it in the future before i start carrying yet another device in my pocket. (The iPod is non-negotiable, and i have XM in the car. Most of the time I'm sitting at my desk in my home office so I don't really need a portable anyway.)

To be honest, I don't believe you're not a troll. But I'll try to ignore that anyway, and just address a few points.

• On desktop Linux: No end-user distribution of Linux requires compiling a kernel or using the command line to install all the software a typical user would need. Desktop Linux is generally no more difficult or arcane than Windows or OSX, and this has been the case for a number of years. All I can say is that your perception of Linux probably needs to be updated to, oh, sometime in this century :)

• On whether three guys in a garage can develop Android apps: I don't see how this is any different than developing for Windows Mobile, Palm, or for that matter any desktop OS. Windows Mobile developers have a lot of different phones to target, yet they don't seem to have a huge problem with that, because abstracting hardware differences is the main point of having a hardware-independent OS in the first place. Just as on WM, the biggest compatibility concern will probably be screen dimensions, and that's something developers have had to deal with on platforms of all kinds going back into the mists of prehistory.

• On whether Android needs Linux users to buy apps: No, it doesn't. The fact that Android is based on Linux has absolutely nothing to do with what level of user it's targeted at, any more than it does for Tivo, Linksys routers, or the next version of Palm OS. It has support from Google, carriers, and hardware manufacturers, all of whom have an interest in turning it into a commodity. It's not as if T-Mobile advertises the G1, for example, in a way targeted at hobbyists... in fact, it's not being positioned as Linux at all, it's just "Android".

• And while we're on the subject of "You can love Linux and the ideal of Open Source all you want, but that will not buy a can of beans or pay your ISP bill." If we're being anecdotal, I'll just counter this by saying that Linux and Open Source do pay my ISP bill, not to mention my rent, utilities, car insurance, etc. :)

• As for your university IT friends who are excited about Android because they can hack it. Well, I am too. But I think it's a very big mistake to assume that we are the only ones who will use Android. Personally, I like it because it's a hackable platform that ISN'T some random crap I have to hack around on just to get basic stuff to work -- I can get on with the process of building apps on a platform that is accessible and familiar and doesn't have the same limitations as the others.

• Limitations, you may ask? Here's where I think Apple might have something to look out for. I probably don't even need to say why I don't want to develop for Windows Mobile, or why I won't be surprised if it loses developers to Android. Palm, well, we know how ancient and limited their OS is, and only the gods know if they'll survive long enough to release the next one.

So, we come to Apple. The problem with the iPhone, as I see it, is that Apple seems to be going out of their way to put hurdles in front of developers, ranging from their broad NDA which prohibits any sort of information sharing to develop, no books or discussions etc., to the extra steps needed to test on real hardware and limitations on pre-AppStore deployment. And then there is the biggest hurdle of all, the fact that they can -- and as shown recently, will -- reject a useful and non-malicious app for completely arbitrary reasons after you've made the investment in it. And all of this is for a platform that most developers will be learning from scratch.

Contrasts this with Android, which I can develop for right now, without having to navigate an NDA to get help from my fellow developers, on a platform that is based on a widely used kernel and programming language, which isn't locked down tighter than a drum to prohibit a lot of useful things from being possible. And when my app is finished, I can market it from my own website, or through any other channel I like.

That kind of comparison is going to appeal to a lot of developers, I think, even if they already develop for the iPhone too.

Personally, I'm looking forward to an Android phone with proper North American 3G, instead of the 700 MHz of T-Mobile, since T-Mobile barely works at my house to begin with and probably won't have 3G built out here for years. As soon as one exists, I'm probably going to pick one up, and in the meantime, I'm trying to think of a good app idea...

(And yes, I use Macs, and am at least minimally competent in Cocoa development. Yet the more I hear about developing for it, the more I don't want an iPhone...)

Rebooting to use a software based plug in device? How silly.

You could do pretty much this exact same thing by using a U3 drive (almost any flash drive available today) and a portable media player app... except that U3 doesn't require a reboot to access apps, and you get it free with the flash drive. And you can install all kinds of other apps too; my U3 flash drive has stuff like Firefox, instant messaging, SSH, text editor, registry and partition tools, etc. just in case I'm working on a friend's PC which doesn't have everything I need. And it still has 3.5GB free and cost less than this thing.

I hate to say it, but... fail.