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After a long wait, Fossil seems to have given up on its Wrist PDA, or at the least put it on indefinite hiatus. Fossil’s website lists the watches as no longer available, as does Amazon.com.

Amazon had been taking preorders on the watch, which was slated to ship in mid 2003. The Palm OS watch line was to have been available in three models differentiated by case and strap, and was also to have been offered at a lower price under the Abacus brand. A premium version under the Philippe Starck label was planned.

Fossil discontinued the Wrist PDA FX2001/FX2002, a data-only device which could sync with a Pocket PC or Palm handheld, last year. Fossil first announced its Wrist PDA back at the 2002 International CES Show. Reviewers hailed the FX2001/FX2002, for its cool factor, but questioned the practicality of a device with only 190KB RAM and 48KB flash memory, and a nonstandard 102 x 64 pixel screen.

Fossil was listening. The newer Wrist PDA, which won an award back in Comdex 2002, was to sport 2MB each of RAM and flash memory and a full (if tiny) 160 x 160 pixel screen. Unlike the old version, there was to be an internal rechargeable battery and a USB charging/sync device.

In related news, Fossil has moved the promised ship date of its wireless MSN Direct watch to the first quarter of 2004.

thanks from the tip from Gary W. Ankney of EduPalm.org