CLIÉ is a series of

personal digital assistant A personal digital assistant (PDA) is a multi-purpose mobile device which functions as a personal information manager. Following a boom in the 1990s and 2000s, PDAs were mostly displaced by the widespread adoption of more highly capable smar ...

s (PDAs) running the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

(OS) ''

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is a discontinued mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. ...

'', developed and marketed by

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

from 2000 to 2005. The devices introduced many new features to the PDA market, such as a jog dial (or jog wheel) interface, high-resolution displays, and Sony technologies like

Memory Stick The Memory Stick is a removable flash memory, flash memory card format, originally launched by Sony in late 1998. In addition to the original Memory Stick, this family includes the Memory Stick PRO, a revision that allows greater maximum storage ...

slots and

ATRAC3 Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms developed by Sony. MiniDisc was the first commercial product to incorporate ATRAC, in 1992. ATRAC allowed a relatively small disc like MiniDisc to ...

audio playback. Most models were designed and manufactured in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The CLIÉ handhelds were distinguished from other Palm OS models by their emphasis on multimedia abilities, including photo, video, and audio playback, long before any other Palm OS PDAs had such abilities. Later models have been credited with spurring competition in the previously stagnant Palm market, closing many of the gaps that existed between Palm OS PDAs and those using

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDA). Designed to be the portable equivalent of the Windows desktop OS in the emerging Mobile device, mobile/port ...

OS, more so for multimedia, but also with Sony's proprietary application launcher interface.

Name

CLIÉ stands for: creativity, lifestyle, innovation, emotion, and formerly communication, link, information and entertainment. The name was initially an attempt at a new coinage term, though it means ''tool'' in the

Jèrriais ( ; also known as the Jersey language, Jersey French and Jersey Norman French in English) is a Romance languages, Romance language and the traditional language of the Jersey people. It is a form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, an isla ...

language.

Closure of handheld line

In the summer of 2004,

announced that new CLIÉs would, from then on, be manufactured and available only in Japan, and in the spring of 2005, Sony announced the end of its CLIÉ line of products. The last models to be released worldwide were the PEG-TJ27, PEG-TJ37, and PEG-TH55. The last model released in Japan was the PEG-VZ90. Soon after the closure of the CLIÉ line, Sony stopped providing original installation drivers, including Sony's version of Palm Desktop for the CLIÉ, which are necessary for Hotsyncing with the PC and otherwise taking advantage of the handhelds' many features for which a PC may be needed. Several CLIÉ fans took it upon themselves to offer these drivers freely for download at .

Models

CLIÉ handhelds were released in series, usually with a few models released in each series. In later years, multiple series would be in production at the same time.

Motorola Dragonball CPU: Palm OS 3.5, 4.x

* S series (2000–2002) * T series (2001–2003) * N series (2001–2002) * NR series (2002) * SL/SJ series (2002–2003)

ARM compatible CPU: Palm OS 5.0, 5.2

* NX series (2002–2004) * NZ series (2003–2004) * TG series (2003–2004) * UX series (2003–2004) * TJ series (2003–2004) * TH series (2004) * VZ series (2004–2005) (Japan only)

Macintosh support

Officially, the CLIÉ line did not support the

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

, and Sony never provided any software with the handhelds for

Macintosh operating systems Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. in a succession of two major series. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the classic Mac OS with its release of the System 1, original Macintosh System Software. Th ...

. However, as a Palm OS device, every CLIÉ handheld was inherently capable of

HotSync Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is a discontinued mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. ...

operations with a Mac OS computer. This allowed for synchronizing the basic

personal information manager A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information mana ...

(PIM) functions, and for installing new software, though this ability was unusable because the Mac HotSync software would not recognize the handheld.

PalmSource ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc. (formerly PalmSource) is a subsidiary of ACCESS which develops the Palm OS PDA operating system and its successor, the Access Linux Platform, as well as BeOS. PalmSource was spun off from Palm Computing, Inc. Pa ...

, however, silently added the ability to recognize older CLIÉ devices when providing new versions of its Palm Desktop software for Mac. This was necessary for those who could synchronize only via

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

. The CLIÉ user community soon discovered that these "updates" were simply a matter of adding a few lines to the USB-detection property-list file. Since then, detaile
instructions
have been posted online for those who want to synchronize their CLIÉ handhelds. No modifications are required for

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

synchronizing, but

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

synchronizing is impossible because the Mac OS HotSync software does not support network synchronizing. Some workarounds for the multimedia features also exist. For those who desire stronger Mac OS/CLIÉ integration, the product Missing Sync made by the company Mark/Space is also available. This does make unencrypted

synchronizing possible but a bug in the CLIÉ network stack reverses IP addresses which means that the Macintosh involved needs a palindromic IP address such as 10.0.0.10.

References

External links

Sony repair/parts replacement website
- Buy replacement parts for current unsupported Sony CLIÉS.″″
One Source
formerly CLIÉ Source, is an enthusiast site which changed its name when Sony ended the CLIÉ line. It is still the more popular site that still covers the Sony CLIÉ line of products through its forums.
SonyClie.org
- Downloadable PC-Clie drivers which are no longer provided by Sony.
Openomics
- Step-by-step instructions to add Apple iSync support for a Sony CLIÉ TH55 {{DEFAULTSORT:Clie Sony products Palm OS devices