One characteristic application that meets both criteria is BarPoint, a comparison-shopper application. First of all, it's going to look suspicious when you're standing in the aisle at the store scrawling in this information using the dubious Graffiti handwriting-recognition regimen, and then standing there for a minute or two waiting for the response. Second of all, why should someone have to input the UPC by hand when there's a perfectly useful infrared port on the Palm waiting for someone to program it to accept bar codes. To be useful, someone should be able to point the device at a bar code and input it that way. Even the programs that do work, sort of, are slow and dependent on too many steps in the circuitous network to behave exactly right at the exact right time.
Databases based on real-time data like traffic and weather suffer similarly.
A year after the beginning of its roll out, Palm VII Net access is still slow and suspect. A data stream in the 2400 bps range is as good as it gets, and chances are you'll get that only in an open park downtown. Even 15 miles outside Chicago, the quality of the connection and the speed diminish quickly. It's like the early days of cell phones all over again. Leave it to the nerds, who are supposed to be interested in technology over user experience, to come up with a wireless application for the Palm VII that actually provides a good user experience.