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The Evolution Of PDAs
rbruels writes: "They first made their appearance as clunky high-tech note pads for Captain Kirk (embedded sound warning) and his crew, but back here in the 21st century, the proliferation of the PDA has become a real phenomenon. This story on Unstrung gives a good insight into the evolution of these portable devices, and the factors that will influence their growth in the years to come. A good read. (As a side note, I have yet to purchase a PDA. /me hangs his head in shame.)" More importantly than where they've been though, is what's next for PDAs. What features would you trade the baby for?
Well, I don't know much, but I do know that, back when I was youngun, I would see people holding hands, and sometimes I would see an occasional peck on the cheek. At most.
But now? Now everyone is gropin' and palmin' and spankin' in public! I don't know why, but suddenly everyone thinks that it's just O-freakin-K to get all hot and bothered out in the town square. And I don't like it! Nosiree!
What? Whaddya mean "not that kind of PDA"?
oh.
nevermind.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Easy: I want connectivity and enhanced input. At the same time. My wish list has varied somewhat over the past few years since I picked up an IBM Workpad 20x (Palm3 in formalwear), but it all boils down to the same connectivity and input needs/wants.
Over the past few years, some things have come close:
Well, at least there are some options now. I've held off for a while, but I'm heavily leaning towards the HandEra. But I won't sell my kid for it; not until a CF 802.11 card comes out, at least.
Jon
I think not...(*poof*)
Oh, and eventually, I'd like a network connection that doesn't suck :-)
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Most of that size probably comes from the cellphone-spec battery. Just eyeballing my phone and PDA, they're the same thickness. But the PDA's built-in MP3 player sucks the battery dry. (11 hours with the screen off, 3 with the screen on. Which makes me wonder why Sony bothered with visualizations. Guess some people are impressed with das blinkenlights.) Imagine what a dual- or tri-band cellphone would do for battery life. It could possibly survive as a digital-only phone, but analog? Fuggedabahtit.
The pdQ/SmartPhone probably sounded like a good idea at the time, but in practice, it comes off as two devices surgicially attached, rather than designed as a single unit. Microsoft's Stinger sounds closer to the ideal, although the Pocket PC part is somewhat watered down.
What I'd like to see is, ironically, a three-part design, but with a different segregation of duties:
- PDA: Any kind would do.
- Cellphone: Here's the tricky part. It would just be the antenna and battery. No buttons. It gets all its marching orders from the PDA. The Address Book's role is pretty obvious. Service providers could provide applets that automate things like voice mail without wading through "Press 1 to
..." menus. This way, the cellphone part can be made as small as possible and left in a pocket or purse.
- Headset: like you said, something small and rugged. Would also be used for audio from/to the PDA, depending on its capabilities (alarm tones, MP3s, text-to-speech, voice annotations, etc).
All three would be connected by the wireless protocol du jour, of course. The failure or loss of the PDA would be an issue for the cellphone (voice-recognition dialing?), but this is just off the top of my head. I haven't written this on the back of an Eat'n'Park placemat yet.We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
I have just started to use my PDA for something other than my schedule.
;-)
:)
I have a digital camera that uses CF cards. I swap the CF card out of the camera, pop it into the PDA and viola, I have all the files.
MP3's, etc are all on there as well. Nothing like sitting on long airplane trips w/MP3's, Spy Hunter, and Solitare
My father recently purchased an iPAQ (I have a Cassiopeia). He just bought a 1G microdrive ($385.00 blew my mind) and stores TONS of crap on there. MP3's, pictures, games, etc.
My Cassiopeia is slow as hell (especially during transfers, mp3's, etc) but his iPAQ is quite fast. I can only say that PDAs have come along way from the crap that Palm has put out (no comments on my opinion please)
The space available these days for the price is amazing. That 1G microdrive is tiny. At this point in time I don't see the point to conserving space and features... 500k. Bleh.
- Bill
proudly transfering files to/from my PDA w/FTP w/o Windows
Alternately, I'd be happy with a pair of those Dockers Mobile Pants. That way, I can still have my geeky PDA/Phone without embarassing "Palm Pilot Pocket Bulge". (I used to carry my Palm V everywhere until I noticed that all of my jeans had big rectangles faded into the pockets where my PalmPilot used to be. You just can't impress the ladies that way.)
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
Other organizers top out at 320x320 or 320x240; while that seems to be the limit of the density we can pack into such a small surface area, I sometimes need more.
I want a PDA based on the OLED display tech IBM uses on it's "wristwatch linux" prototype...
IIRC, it's something like 700DPI(!) mono,
meaning that I could fit a lot of text on a 4x3 display...
C-X C-S
there's alots of solutions for syncing your newt, you're just not looking (or else you think they all died when the newton did).
1 95&db=mac
o pics&forum=Newton+General+Discussion&number=1
:)
here's a couple of links to get you going:
http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=10
-- new software to sync your newton with MS Entourage (if you use something else, there's an option out there somewhere, i swear)
http://talk.smaller.com/forumdisplay.cgi?action=t
-- excellent discussion forum, always active
http://www.info-newt.com/faq/index.html
-- the most comprehensive listing of FAQs, software vendors, etc. plus links to lots more
http://www.newtontraveler.com/
-- my newton site
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
I think it was Stephenson in Diamond Age where he talked about having a foldable piece of electronic paper you carried with you. You'd just tell it "Today's sports" and presto, there they are. I suppose you could take this to it's natural conclusion and make it interactive -- "Schedule, please." When unfolded it could be stiff as a board so you could write on it, ala Newton recognition (NOT graffiti!) It's got a wireless connection so it's always sync'd up to your main workstation (including the ability to switch from work to home as your proximity goes from one to the other). That's what I'd like.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I'm considering buying on of these. However, can anyone tell me if they succeded in making the Palm more secure? If it gets stolen, I don't want anyone to be able to read my stuff. Is there a single way to encrypt everything, transparently?
I'd like to log in by specifying my password, work, log out. If the device gets stolen now, nobody can decrypt the data.
Is that possible? Pardon my ignorance, but the reviews I read concentrate on other issues...
- I can fit at least a single 80x25 color xterm window in it
- It can connect seemlessly to my network (preferably wireless and not IR)
And, oh ya - the usual - it should not cost and arm and a leg and it should last at least 24 hours on batteries.I have a Palm m505, personally. I love it, but I'd like easier connectivity. 802.11 support would be perfect. I'd love to use web clipping applications through my existing Internet connection(s) wirelessly.
I've owned a Palm organizer for about three years now (first a PalmPilot Personal, then a Professional, and now a III) and I find it incredibly convenient. However, the screen resolution has remained stagnant at 160x160. Other organizers top out at 320x320 or 320x240; while that seems to be the limit of the density we can pack into such a small surface area, I sometimes need more.
:)
My ideal PDA, which won't roll off the assembly line for a long time, would have an expandable display. I could leave it at the current Palm-like size to hold in one hand, fold it out to show wider information (for spreadsheets, week-at-a-glance views, etc) and fold it out again to read information newspaper-style. Given the recent advancements in paper-like display technology, I think that this could be done within the next 5-10 years. The shirt-pocket-sized form factor is still very appealing, even though most people don't carry organizers in their shirt pocket anyway. Still, it would be nice to have the option of display sizes.
Oh, and of course it would have WLAN support. There's no use in a big display if there's no live information for it.
For more information, click here.
The place for information about the ipaq running Linux is handhelds.org, not ipaqlinux.com, which hasn't been updated for a year.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Get an iPAQ and the RS-232 serial cable. Reflash it with Linux. It comes with a CF sleeve.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The CMU speech folks, Alan Black and Kevin Lenzo, told me last Thursday that they'd have a package for the Linux iPAQ in another week. And it's going to be small enough to include by default.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
What I'd like to see is a constant connection between the PC and the PDA. In my experience, "Hotsync" type operations involve a temporary link to the palm, and then that link is terminated. With a wee bit of tweaking, the PDA's touchable screen could be useful as a secondary monitor. I know I've heard discussion of a secondary LCD screen being used for input and the like recently; why not use an already widespread device?
The iPaq isn't too far off that. ActiveSync is always running. (And sucking CPU, which seems a bit much.) The device shows up like any other volume in the Explorer: you can control the filesystem of the iPaq from the desktop, albeit not the other way around. You can also mirror the iPaq screen to the desktop, but I'm not aware of any way to do the reverse.
I suspect it wouldn't be too staggeringly hard to send taps on the screen to the desktop, but I'm talking from exactly no experience programming WinCE devices. I'm not so sure this is all that useful though: the screen is very small and it's hard to be precise, and the iPaq displays the "Today" screen by default when sitting in the cradle which is actually a rather nice feature.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I'm not interested in having a handheld computer. I just want a magic notebook for phone numbers etc.
I'm disappointed that almost all development of the PDA is in adding power and features. My old Palm Profesional had 500k memory, and that was 5 times more than I ever used. My new m500 is about half the size and weight but has 8Meg, and a bundle of new features.
I guess memory doesnt really take much space, but I still wonder if it couldn't be possible to build a much smaller PDA if you just stuck to what the Pilot of 4 years ago could do, and focus on making it easy to carry around everywhere.
all I want is a real, honest to god DB9 serial port, an open OS, lots of RAM and at least 32 megs of ROM, an expansion slot and a flash reader. Leave the specs for the slot open so that anyone can design for it, or just make it PCMCIA. I really just want that DB9. It would be sweet to plug into a router or a console port and just work away on my 640x240 screen in a pinch.
www.linux-skunkworks.com
If you require the bandwidth of a chording keybd, you're not taking notes, you're taking a transcript, and you'd probably be better off with a tape recorder and a fast typist anyway, because obviously you haven't learned the art of summary, nor have the skill of memory, and you probably need someone to remind you about the 3:30 meeting as well, oh, and here's your presentation..
Hurry.
Sincerly,
Professional Secretaries of America..
.sig: Now legally binding!
I work in a RadioShack store where we sell iPaq's and these things are nice. I was very impressed with the usuability and features they manage to pack into the little things, and the ability to install Linux on them doesn't hurt at all. :)
Check out this site for more info on that: http://www.ipaqlinux.com
We sell quite a few of them and as far as I know we have had zero returns. That's a good sign.
A little websearch shows that you can get them in all shapes and sizes these days with a good spread in price: http://www.storescanner.com/cat/Compaq-PDAs.asp
If you aren't already on the PDA bandwagon and are thinking of giving it a try, I highly recommend giving one of these baby's a look.
Sigs are awesome huh?
An 8.5x11 (or thereabouts), thin, lightweight, long battery life, fully capable computer. Good wireless network connectivity. Voice capabilities. Enough horsepower and storage to watch movies, listen to music, play Quake, use the Gimp, edit HTML, and monitor remote servers, preferably all at the same time. TV out, network jacks, USB, firewire, PS/2, IR, RF, etc. What I want is my desktop computer on a thin sheet of paper. Cheap enough to be disposable, rugged enough to use in the rain, and light enough to carry ten of them with me at a time.
Something easy and cheap enough to be sent in the mail in a padded 8.5x11 envelope would be nice. A self contained presentation machine.
Don't forget built in GPS with a load of GIS data built in.
So for me:
For me, until I can get all/most of this in one device that clips onto my belt, I don't feel a strong need to upgrade from the IIIx and a Nokia 5165.
(I'll add here the caveat that I have comparatively little experience with advanced PDAs/phones/mp3 players, so some of what I want may be available, or may not be available for 20 years.)
I think that all PDAs, from the earliest to the latest, are really just attempts to satisfy our innate human desire for Tricorders.
Got Rhinos?
uses a super-compatible (xml) format to store address info that would be interchangeable between cell phones, computers of any OS, and handhelds.
:P) that can talk syncml can exchange contacts, data, and other personal info without problem. It's open too. Yum.
SyncML is exactly that - any compatible device (my shiny new 9210 does it
I totally agree with you here:
;-)
... (you get the idea)
:-)
There are a whole bunch of reasons why a PDA will never replace a laptop. I wouldn't mind replacing my Cellphone with a PDA, actually, assuming that I could just use a headset.
I have an m505, and before that, I had a Palm V. I love both using both of these machines. Because my job requires me to travel a lot, and I am occasionally gone for a couple of weeks at a time, form factor and battery life are the most important thing to me. The IPAQ size is still too big and heavy, and the battery life is still terrible compared to the Palm, so that is what I went with when I upgraded this year.
What I like about the Palm is how simple and intuitive the interface is. I don't need to know the internals, and truth be told, I don't really want to. I have several Linux and OpenBSD boxes for hacking and things of that ilk. I don't need spreadsheets, or presentation software (this is an organizer, after all, not a laptop) but I would like e-mail, and cell phone functionality. In the same form factor, with the same battery life. Somebody else posted bluetooth connectivity to a wireless headset, and I think that's a great idea.
Where the Palm V fell short was memory. The m505 takes care of that. What's missing?
Cell phone/wireless functionality.
Ogg Vorbis Player
About 1GB of memory for the Ogg Vorbis player
Thinking back, I used to be terribly disorganized. I would have sticky notes and multiple 8x11 notebooks, filled with stuff that I could never find, and couldn't index. My boss and coworkers urged me to take an organizational class, and man, it was good advice. What I did differently, however, was I bought my first PDA (the Palm V) two weeks before the class, learned how to write well with it, and then used it as the basis of my organizational system. I took the class, but used the Palm instead of their materials. It worked out great! Now I have notes from every project I have worked on since 1999, all searchable, and always at my fingertips. Need to know about tuning Solaris kernel internals? No problem, did that in
Sorry if this ended up sounding like an advertisment for Palm, but I really love my PDA.
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
My personal opinion is that PDA's are going to make the same trasformation as PC's: :)
From personal information storage and computing to communication devices.
What do most of us use our PC's for anyway? Programing? Comon... Our PC's are nothing more then gateways to the internet, which is a communications medium. Thats why pda/phone hybrids are getting so much attention. I really wish I could afordably get my iPaq on to the internet wirelessly. It would quickly become a very useful device rather then just a mobile nethack toy.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
The most obvious deficiency of this article is that it completely omits PSION, the UK company that invented the PDA in the 1980s. I've owned every one they made.
Even more staggering is the subsequent failure to observe that it's PSION offspring Symbian, that's putting all the PSION PDA software into the next generation of cellphones. Checkout the new Nokias and Ericssons.
The PSION/Symbian EPOC system is rock solid and light years ahead of Microlimp -- but data compatible with Redmond.
PDAs... You kids these days have it EASY! Why, in my day we had to scratch our notes onto pieces of SLATE and carry that around! None of this mamby-pamby "put it in your pocket" stuff. If you wanted to carry 20 names you had to lug 400lbs of stone. But did we complain? NO!
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I personally never much liked the idea of speech recognition in PDAs either. Dragon had a beta version of such a system for the Apple Newton back in... 98? Never released though. As an owner and user of an upgraded MP 2000, it would've been fun to try, but not quite my bag.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
At the moment PDAs have small screen. But that may change. You don't need a big device to make a big hologram (that the future I think). PDAs DO have keyboards. You obviously haven't only seen a couple of PDAs. Also, you can get ad-on keyboards.
You can't talk to your voice-enabled PDA during a meeting or on a busy bus so don't expect the interface to ever improve.
Why? What makes you say that? Never heard of filters and directional microphones? I have a 20 year old dictaphone that can do this.
PDAs appeal to techno-geeks and power-hungry professionals, but they don't appeal to the average Joe who still prefers pen and paper.
Do a survey on that? Cellphones where only for yuppies, business men a few years ago. Now everyone has them.
PDAs aren't powerful enough to do what a PC does.
Sure, that the moment, a PDA can't do 3D modeling and video editing. But It can easily do the the more common tasks, like word processing, MP3s, PIM, surfing the web etc...
PDAs aren't expandable.
Yes they are. Go to palm.com, and handspring.com and se for yourself.
Portable computers break down more and are more expensive to fix when it happens.
My Vx has never had a hardware failure, and has only needed a hard reset once, when I installed a doggy program. I has been more reliable that ANY desktop OS i have ever used or any desktop computer/laptop.
Most home users who want a low-cost entry point to the web will opt for the much-more-powerful console gaming system.
Not everyone will want a gaming console. Not everyone is a young male.
Dropping PC prices will continue to put pressure on the bottom end of the market, making the PC an attractive purchase.
Not sure how that fits in here
While PADDa (and PDAs) are cool, what I really want is a fucking Tri-Corder. Not only did those things have amazing sensory capabilities, but great battery life too.
What, me worry?
The evolution of the PDA really has no limits.
One of the first things I learned about purchasing a computer was that no matter how large the hard drive space, no matter how fast the processor, no matter how much bandwidth you have on your connection, you will always find a way to use the power. The software knows no bounds.
I found the same true when I got a Palm IIIxe last Christmas. At first, I only dabbled with it -- I took some notes, I downloaded a couple of simple games. But now, my entire life is organized on it. I have novels from Project Gutenberg and AvantGo web pages for reading material on long flights. Addresses and phone numbers. And recently, I discovered LispMe -- a Lisp/Scheme interpreter -- so now I can code, too! The calendar has every material appointment, and the Todo list has things to remember months in advance.
I look at the iPaq and think, "What would you possibly use all that for?" But I also know that if I owned one, I'd think of something to use it for. I'd make it work the way I work.
There really is no end to how far the PDA will evolve.
Bing! Give the man a gold star! I still think this market is driven by cost, not features. Palm obliterated the competition by creating something simple and cheap. When Palm started to dilute their product line with wireless, colour screens, titanium cases etc. they started to lose ground. Handspring (created by the Palm founders) has taken up the "cheap, small, simple" torch and is doing as well as can be expected in these tight times. The market has spoken, make PDAs simple and cheap!
---
Again, the mainstream press is trying to inflate PDAs into something they're not. Let me say this very clearly so it's not missed:
PDAs will never replace a desktop PC.
Here are some reasons this will never happen:
- PDAs have tiny screens and no keyboards -- the interface is too cumbersome.
- You can't talk to your voice-enabled PDA during a meeting or on a busy bus so don't expect the interface to ever improve.
- PDAs appeal to techno-geeks and power-hungry professionals, but they don't appeal to the average Joe who still prefers pen and paper.
- PDAs aren't powerful enough to do what a PC does.
- PDAs aren't expandable.
- Portable computers break down more and are more expensive to fix when it happens.
- Most home users who want a low-cost entrypoint to the web will opt for the much-more-powerful console gaming system.
- Dropping PC prices will continue to put pressure on the bottom end of the market, making the PC an attractive purchase.
I could go on with dozens more points and I'm sure I'll be attacked by all the technology messiah's out there, but the fact is that they don't nor will they ever be able to give an ideal mix of low cost, low footprint, and high power. Because of this they will remain as fancy personal organizers for the forseeable future.
---
Yeah, maybe we could put bits of xinu and qnx in there too, just to round it out a bit. And maybe some bits of OSX. Yeah, that would be really leet, dude! Now let's go haxor a gibson!
By the way, look at this phone.
---
Suddenly this sounds plausible, given moore's law and all that, and likely to be developed in the lifetimes of most people reading this.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
is talking teacher!
"Let's do letters!
U R A Q T"
when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. they might as well be dead.
Yuck, more like. Have you actually had a look at the spec? It contains hundreds of pages of superfluous crap. As seems to be usual for standards these days, it goes way over the top, specifying all layers from the bottom to the top, where it would actually be much better limiting itself to specifying a simple data interchange format, and letting the network people do the network stuff.
I'm still feeling slightly nauseous.
Well, given that the Newton platform is deader than ---- shouldn't Apple Open Source the Newton development system?
Who knows, with more software out there, maybe the Newton might become en vogue again.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
No, I meant putting the development tools out there so that people could continue to build software. That's the one thing Palm's got going for it - there's free development tools, and people are going gung ho writing neat stuff...
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Emergency Position Indicator Radio Beacon
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
What I'd like to see is a constant connection between the PC and the PDA. In my experience, "Hotsync" type operations involve a temporary link to the palm, and then that link is terminated. With a wee bit of tweaking, the PDA's touchable screen could be useful as a secondary monitor. I know I've heard discussion of a secondary LCD screen being used for input and the like recently; why not use an already widespread device?
Of course, this is hardly an epiphany, and we'll probably start seeing stuff like this pop up soon, especially as more PDAs go to USB instead of serial. It will be nice to be able to tap "shotgun" instead on a nearby cradled PDA instead of remembering the number equivalents. Come to think of it, it would likely work in much the same way as Nintendo's promised support for the Game Boy Advance as an extra screen/controller for the Gamecube, although with the added bonus of touch-response. I could also see it useful for tablet-style input into a graphics program, the ability to add a real signature to electronic documents, a display for multiple clipboard contents, a constant terminal access point while the bigger screen handles the GUI, etc.
That's in the near future, of course. In the long run, I want my PDA to predict the future and print free money. ^_^
---
Well, IIRC, some military and police SWAT teams use a throat mic to pick up and transmit subvocalizations. So rather than speaking out loud, you'd sort of softly hum them. I'm not an expert on the technology by any means, but if they're useful, clear, and quiet enough to convey commands in a high-tension stealth situation, they might be good for PDA communication. They don't, after all, need to recognize real English words off the bat; it could be trained to pick out certain distinct shorthand sounds instead, in much the same way as Palm graffiti doesn't need actual letters.
---
DNA! A nice cell membrane to live in! That was the stuff we used to dream about...when we weren't worrying about having our existence swashed out from under us. You celled organisms don't know the meaning of data. You don't appreciate the luxury you have. DNA! My God, what we wouldn't have given for the mere thought of it.
goes off muttering to himself.
--
I work at the Health Sciences Center in our local university, and I've become something of a campus go-to-guy for handheld computers. We've got entire departments buying these things up by the TRUCKLOAD, deploying them to the staff and faculty, getting all hot and bothered over having these little things (mostly Palm M505s, but a few visors here and there... fortunately few iPaqs)... but no idea what to do with them. They jump the gun on the technology curve, and have a hard time settling in when their wallets catch up with their brains.
Part of the problem is that I don't think the user base in general doesn't even know what these things are, what they're designed for, and what they're really like to use day to day. The idea of the tricorder may have given use a heads-up on what technology was capable of, but the flip side of that is that people expect all tricorder-like things to be FUCKING TRICORDERS.
Here's what I tell people who ask me what kind of PDA to buy and what it's for:
I can't imagine why Joe User would want to turn a Palm-type device into a replacement for the desktop. I've got apps (ThoughtManager comes to mind, Pocket Quicken too) on my Visor Prism that have done more for organizing my thoughts, ideas, presentations and life in general than ANYTHING my PC has ever done for me, and it's simple to use. I also don't have to worry about loading my Visor up with apps that, for some inexplicable reason, hate each other's guts and duke it out in the form of GPFs and incompatible DLLs (Outlook and GroupWise come to mind). I don't have to rebuild the OS everytime I add a bit of hardware with screwy drivers.
I turn it on, and the information is instantly there in fun-size form. No wading through menus. No waiting for the desktop to come up. It's just THERE. With the right hacks and a little finger-training, I can find any information I want in three actions or less.
That's what I want out of these things, and I think it's a common goal.
Relating this to the Health Sciences field - ePocrates is a beautiful little app that maintains a portable drug interaction database. Our residents and other medical-type people swear by it, and it updates itself every time the user does a sync.
Instant info, on demand. That's the Information Age - not MP3s, Powerpoint presentations (dear God, don't even get me started on these fucking wastes of time), voice recognition doo-dads that talk back to me and sound like HAL, or whatever. Just give me a place to put and organise my ideas until I get to the resources I need to make them a reality. Everything else is just a distraction - not bad per se, but it doesn't contribute to my productivity. Until you can fit something like that directly into my brain, you can replace my Visor with anything trying to be more PC-like when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
The Visor also has the added advantage of being a great platform for hobbyists to develop on - being able to beam a program around has, I think, done wonders for the shareware concept.
/me ducks,
Tatsujin
Along with the inevitable increases in speed and battery life, I think that we can probably expect the following advances in PDA technology over the next few years:
- More non-volatile storage space so that video becomes viable. Reasearch into minimizing non-disk based storage will be directly funded by a coalition of 'adult entertainment companies' headed by Christie Hefner and Robert Guccione.
- Vibrating batteries, as used in cell phones and pagers, will be modified for use with PDA's for those... long, lonely trips.
- Javascript-enabled web browsers will be ported to PalmOS so that we can be etertained by browser windows that reopen themselves, or their affiliates pages, no matter how many times you try to close them.
- New games will be written, targeted for PDA's that have touchpads or stylus interfaces. Players will be required to interact with in-game 'characters', either with thier hands... or their toungues.
- The X-10 mini-camera will become ubiquitous in most PDA designs, but for 'recreational' purposes only. The forementioned industry group will take no responsibilty for sexual harassment suits centering around misuse of X-10 technology.
- The popularity of Ascii Porn will skyrocket, creating a new market for fixed-width fonts.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I really want a PDA and I don't have any money for one yet, but I am thinking now that maybe I shouldn't get one. I am thinking back to Johnny Mnemonic, in which a person is used as a mule for sensitive information. Spies et al have done this for centuries but PDAs and laptops simply institutionalize the process in the corporate world.
Insofar as most digitally stored information is carried on an Internet that ends in computers with plugs attaching them to walls, most of this mule stuff won't happen. People may still be yoked to information by their company from time to time..but with PDAs and laptops, companies can upgrade their security for confidential information yet still maintain it in a digital, transferable format.
There are some of you right now, I am sure, who are forced to ride planes with dumb, dull, angry bodyguards all the time because you are the only person with the information who can explain it to other people who need the information and your company doesn't want to send it over the Net.
I have no clue what can be done about this tendency, but the PDA-ification of our society makes it more likely. I am all for the human potential of portable information, but we have to smash the corporations and states that would like to make info-drug mules out of us before we can fully embrace this portability.
Goat sex free since 2001
Actually, I have found that the battery life of my palmtop is not noticeable. It will go for about a week between charges. I can use either a rechargable battery or 2 AA batteries. Usually I pack the charger in my bag when I travel, although when I went to Europe I elected to use AA batteries instead of finding out the hard way if the power converter I picked up doesn't work or was misconfigured. I have found that a computing device can have as low of a battery life as about 16 hours and not be especially annoying if the battery is rechargable and there is a portable charging adapter.
Granted, you never see the people in Trek charging those PADDs and such. I've always wondered if there is a good way to power a device remotely so that it wouldn't need to be charged. Without nuking anybody, wasting insane amounts of power, etc.
I guess the rest of your post depends on what you want. I'm pretty happy with the functionality of my palmtop (It's a Nino, BTW) except that I wish I had wireless internet access in it and a lot more RAM on occasion.
My experience is actually the linear opposite of yours. I was disorganized and I went to use the paper systems first. My main basis for comparison is a Franklin planner. I found that, because of the cooperation between the calendar and task list on a modern organizer system is a marked improvement on paper. Either way, I won't be going back to paper ever.
Gentoo Sucks
I dono if I agree with the conclusions of the article. Especially when they mentioned that the iPAQ has Pocket Excel and then said that there isn't any good spreadsheet packages.
There are a whole bunch of reasons why a PDA will never replace a laptop. I wouldn't mind replacing my Cellphone with a PDA, actually, assuming that I could just use a headset.
But a PDA, by nature, has to fit in your pocket. How often do you use a non-electronic information source that doesn't fit in your pocket? Most everybody does a large chunk of their actual work on a 8.5x11 pad, not a notepad.
By my opinion, we won't be seeing truly useful personal computing devices until they make them for $20-30/item (So that you can buy several, spread them out over a desk, and not be too worried if you loose them/somebody accidentally borrows them/break them/etc.) And you won't see a single one-size-fits-all device unless you have a completely different and probably currently unatainable wearable computer.
The reason why the palmtop market is a growth industry right now is because everybody is cashing in their franklin planner or other non-computing orginizational device and getting a palm. They are easy to use. The iPAQ is nice because it's flashy. Both the iPAQ and Palm have finally reached the required usability qualities, form factor, cost, and sophistication necessary to become useful. There's not much bang-for-the-buck left in buying a new PC or even a laptop; everybody who has one wants one and likes it.
And, yes, Palm is in trouble. The framework that PalmOS was constructed on is getting limited. WinCE's problem has always been that it was more like Windows. Now that we are putting more powerful capabilities, the comprimizes and simplifications made with the Palm will result in some necessity for design changes.
Now, I agree with the assertion that wireless LAN/Internet access is important. It still won't replace your desktop or even your laptop for most of the things you use your laptop for.
But if you are talking about replacing your desktop, remember that laptops haven't even replaced desktops yet. The best bet for a true desktop replacements is a stack of PDA-like machines in the same form factor as a sheet of paper with good battery life, wireless, etc. Like I said above, it should be very cheap so you can have several. You still will have something that fits in your pocket, just like a palm or iPAQ. These are two different markets, it's just that nobody's made a non-laptop computer in a full-page form factor that people have latched onto.
Pretty much, people have known this concept since the late 80s, at Xerox PARC of all places. But the technology is just not there yet. Trying to replace your PC with a palmtop is just a dead end that is distracting people from developing a PC replacement in the right form factor.
Gentoo Sucks
Not a PDA, but has many of the features of one. Drop-resistant to 5 feet on concrete (I've tried it), thick ABS case, all components are shock-mounted, and the thing is sealed against jets of water (a higher rating than immersion). Its official purpose in life is a handheld barcode scanner/data recorder for industry. Oh yeah, it runs a clipped version of DOS and costs $3,000. That's before $1,500 for the development kit so you can write software for it.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
That's all I want.
The Nokia i9000 was the ideal form factor. But it was several years ahead of its time, and stupidly limited in its system compatibility. Now we'll never see it again.
I can't even browse up a picture to link to. Just An old TalkBack review, a mention in a Slashdot thread, and something a furriner wrote.
--Blair
Shut up already and let me alone! If it can't talk back, you shouldn't talk to it. If it does talk back, then talk to it in private.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Ah well, nevermind. Maybe I'll just swing over to one of those auction sites all the kids talk about and look under computer->fogey for any Newtons for sale.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
A script for non-stop working goes like this:
And there you are!! Pleae don't tell me it's just a matter of choice, that you can unplug the damned thing anytime, etc. You just can't! First you use it to check your emails, then you do something related to the mails you just read, pretty soon you'll be working at the beach or at the pub!
I'm sorry if this sounds anti-geek, but I for one never take my work files with me, exactly because I've an identical setup at home (except for the slower computer :| ) So I protect my quality of life by having no chance of doing things off duty.
Please consider if going out more, having some laughs with friends and doing some more exercise instead of looking at a small screen isn't worth leaving some of these geek toys behind. That's just my opinion, of course. But remember you can't upgrade your body as years pass.
Linux *is* user friendly. It's not idiot-friendly or fool-friendly!
What happens if you umount /me?
Is that what happens after fsck /me?
Or is that what happens when you sleep 8h?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
without a case
Notice I didn't ask for:
So what I'm reading hereis that aside from putting aside $$ for my young daughter's college, I'm also going to have to allocate some funds so she'll be the geekiest kid in the class when she enters kindergarden. Great, anyone know where I can find some Veggie Tale skins ?
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
I'd buy a PDA; I'd love to have one. But I already carry a cellular phone and refuse to lug two devices around. Include the following features in a PDA & I'll bite:
- Built in cellphone. I'm not talking about a bulky add-on module, and if I have to hold the whole PDA up to my head, you can forget it. Unless, of course, the PDA is the same size as a typical cellphone.
- Bluetooth support for wireless earpiece. That way I can leave the damn PDA in my pocket and receive a call with a small earpiece. Not a full headset, just a little thing that sits in my ear.
- Size. Keep 'em small. They're doing a pretty good job at this already.
- Power. Give me enough power to run the thing for hours. Power for the cellular feature alone should be at least 8 days standby/4 hours talk, on par with current phones. And give me a nice way to quickly recharge my wireless headset. Maybe a small port on the PDA itself that can recharge the headset in a matter of minutes from the PDA's battery.
While you're at it, make the headset strong. I want to be able to shove it in my pocket along with my keys and who knows what else without worrying about it getting torn up.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
From the article: "However, no PDA, according to my research, comes complete with a spreadsheet or presentation application."
:-)
My Diamond Mako (a psion revo+ clone, for those not in the know) has a built-in spreadsheet program, Sheet. It's fully compatible with Excel, very user-friendly, and I like it very much. How dare the author of this article claim that one of my favorite Mako programs doesn't exist?
USA Intellectual Property Laws: 5 monkeys, 1 hour.
I'm the stranger...posting to