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Danger Device Reviewed
Andonyx writes "There's already a review out on Zdnet regarding Danger's Hiptop PDA / Phone device. It looks very interesting and the review is mostly positive. It has some minor niggles, but concludes that it is a compelling and polished first gen offering."
to the story.
Now there's a PDA that Steve Irwin would be happy to use.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
What does it tell you about ZDnet, when the advertisement in the middle of the article is five times bigger than the picture of the item in question?
Would it kill them to put a larger-than-thumbnail picture of the thing up with the review?
For "testing" of course. Go here.
"Wow," I though, "that's pretty good," until I noticed that it applied not to the PDA's screen, but rather to it's "illuminated LED push-wheel." Please tell me why I need a scroll wheel capable of blinking in 16.7 million different colors.
Or was there anything else fancy, than the market speech, that I missed?
Hiptop wowed Tycho from Penny Arcade.
/. was referring to earlier?
That should be all the press it needs.
Is this that guerilla marketing
[o]_O
Danger started releasing info on this device last year, and they've had nothing but delays since. It looked like a very promising device at the time, but it has been caught and passed by other mobile devices since. Had they met their original launch date of April, they'd have been early to market and wouldn't have had the egg on their face that they have today. It was then pushed to June, then to July, then was an early-August release up until a week or two ago when it was again delayed at the last minute. So it now supposedly comes out in September, while in the meantime customers who have been waiting for the device have likely moved on to non-vapor devices.
It seems from the demo this device comes closest to a way of accessing information and communication while being on the move. Vendors don't seem to understand that I don't want to do *everything* on a mobile device. And with PocketPC all developers can think of is porting desktop applications to a smaller form factor. Clearly the issues of human cognition and ergonomics is neglected by developers who are only concerned with enablement. Enablement is so often misunderstood for actual benefit or relevance. The Mac in 1984 understood this, including the one button mouse. The hardware wasn't exactly efficient as far as raw computing is concerned but it was efficient for human use. The QWERTY keyboard in Hiptop is example of this. Sure it is familiar. Sure it extends what is already out there. But is it useful. I recall anecdotaly that the QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow down typists. In any case it is meant for typing by a set of ten fingers than two thumbs.
That keyboard issue aside, the device screen shots look quite efficient in the manner they get the user from one function to other. The FAQ mention that they have their own virtual machine. This is important. A container environment, I think, is the best way to deploy applications (or rather applets) in a small device. A system of applets should surround data and provide "chaining" just like the Unix shells' filter/redirection rather than the desktop idea of apps/data. This might be a good way to approach mobile devices rather than the standalone app and file format crud.