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Do People Really Use Their PDAs?
TAL asks: "With Dell entering the market with their new PDA, the PDA market appears saturated. I work in a high-tech industry and I see more people carrying their PDAs than actually using them. At the same time, I see many people actually going back to their paper planners. I've ran the PDA gauntlet myself and have found that much time is wasted syncing, charging and reinstalling the software. Have there been any studies on PDA turnover? I think the PDA has become more of a status symbol than a useful tool."
I use mine all the time.... to read eBooks /:)
When I first got my Palm, people marveled at the chance to look at all the phone numbers I could store at one time. I even kept it in my pocket at all times and tried to incorporate it into my wallet (pretty tedious with the original Palm). However, within a couple months, I was only using it to play Galax. I eventually gave it away to my girlfriend, who also used it for a week or two before deciding it really wasn't worth it to have this giant thing for the purpose of only storing phone numbers and playing the occaisonal game.
So then I get a CE device from work. I thought I would give PDA's another chance. While this time, I had color and ethernet, and a decent media player, it fell prey to the same problems at before. I stopped using it within a month and it now sits in a drawer never to be used again.
I think PDA's are cool, but no matter how much I want to like them, they just aren't useful.
Seems people are trying ot find reasons to use their pdas once theyve got them. Realising they aren't as useful or as easy to use as they thought. My dad picked up one a few months ago and a lot of the price of the ipaq that he got seems to come in afterwards with memory expansions and interfacing wires etc. He doesn't need to interface it to everything, it jsut seems he needs to justify why hes got it and having gps and camera photos on their is really a status symbol.
Now if only I had a personal human analog assistant inputting everything into my digital one.
The law of excluded middle : Either I'm foo or I'm foobar
I used my PDA for a little while my freshman year in college (Palm V), I'd take some quick notes on it and use it to store schedules, important dates and addresses. Aside from that I used it for games during boring lectures, or to beam stuff to other classmates about the teacher =]
Now it sits in my deskdrawer and I don't use it anymore. Batteries, syncing, and everything else weren't problems at all. In the end it was too cumbersome to enter data (even if you knew it well), and the software offered was minimal.
I probably would have been happier with a Windows CE device, since they come with a much larger, easier to use range of applications. It's hard to say. But, I don't miss it much.
On that note, how much is someone willing to give me for an old Palm V? =]
What?
But I work in a large (50k+) high-tech company and NOBODY in my part of the world uses paper planners anymore. Even our over-compensated super-high-up VPs etc. use a combination of RIM, cellphone, and Palm/CE devices to stay on track. When you're quadruple-booked for meetings all day in multiple geographic locations, paper ain't gonna cut it.
;-)
My boss wouldn't survive without his blackberry! I make do with an iPAQ and sync when I get to my desk. The only way I get work done is that I don't have a cellphone or a pager. My boss keeps threatening to get me one and I respond with threats to quit.
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To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
Usually the people in the tech industry don't. They get them for a toy and then don't use them. I didn't use mine much, so I gave it to my wife. She uses it constantly and keeps a lot of info in there. It's much easier than the paper system she had before.
At my office the directors and VPs use theirs like crazy. They'd be lost without them. The guys on my team (network team) don't use them much, since we don't have all the meetings and contacts to track.
I have no idea how I got along before I got one. Mine isn't even a good one, Just a Visor Handspring, 16-bit grey scale, but damn is it useful. With my Nokia 3360 I can connect to the internet via infrared on the pda and phone and use PalmVNC to control my servers from anywhere. Also, the the infrared is hella useful as a universal remote control.. Between omniremote and pmremote I never have to miss my favorite shows whenever I'm around a public TV. I also use J-Pilot + the Keyring plugin to carry a nice encrypted list of l/p combos and general server info. I jot down notes on it all the time. I can also use the phone book etensively. I don't really use the scheduler at all, cuz I have no schedule :)
:)
But the BEST use for my pda I've had so far is basically as a gameboy
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
The reason I've stayed with my now old-school Palm IIIx is because it's invaluable to me. It doesn't have wireless or color, but it has my life on it. I now don't forget to carry the appropriate piece of paper or list with me because I always enter these things into my PDA. I'm currenlty 2700 miles from my home, but my PDA has all of the information I might need for my work or personal use (family phone numbers, infrequently seen friends who I thought of seeing because I was near them, and I had there number). It's also got important work information and useful lists. I can pop into a record store and pick up a new album on my list. I can also pop up several useful astronomy applications and get some casual binocular observing in, and log the results.
My IIIx is very useful because it's simple, reliable and omni-present. I carry it everywhere.
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
If people carry them is because they use them. Sure, you can carry some gadget for a week for its novelty factor but if you don't use it sooner than later you will stop taking it with you.
Having said that PDAs are not for everybody. Unless you spend certain amount of time away from you desk and in need of contact information, scheduling or some specific application maybe a PDA is not for you.
Personally I love my XDA especially because I have my email always updated anywhere I go. I don't use it as a phone very often but when I do it works very well although certainly not as well as a normal cell phone.
- Meeting schedule always handy even when I wasn't at work (plus beeping reminders).
- Todo list always handy (plus beeping reminders).
- Games to play during boring meetings.
- Email Inbox always available
- No more scrabbling for a pen when I want to get a girl's phone number
reason I stopped using itHmm-- I am all for Public Displays of Affection. And yes, when I get the chance, I use them ;-)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I just got a cellphone module for my Handspring Visor. That nice address book becomes much more exciting when you just hit a button to call the number.
~ Patrick
On top of that, the PocketPC devices-- despite being way more powerful and generally cooler-- are much less suited to the basic tasks of a PDA (storing numbers, calendar, etc.) They're just too big, eat too much battery, and the software isn't as concise as Palm's.
I really thought my shiny iPaq would be a great replacement for my Palm and my laptop, with it's ability to handle an 802.11 card (and Ricochet back when that existed). Turned out that it was an enormous and inferior substitute for both, and it crashed a lot with the network card in. Now I don't use either, because I'm dissatisfied with the inflexibility of my Palm and the flaws of the PocketPC.
Lately, though, I find that my Palm Vx sits in its cradle most of the time. I still need the planner, but a palm-top is just too big a pain. I'm so keyboard-centered. I can use Graphiti just fine (faster than I can legibly write), but it is still to much of a shift.
For my next laptop I'm seriously considering an ultra-light such as the Fujitsu P2000 series. My previous laptop was a Sony Z505ls, and it was almost small and light enough. Too bad the base battery only lasted a hour and a half. Reguardless, something with the following features would be perfect for me:
Best fit I know of is the P2000 series. I think I could work with that. The Apple iBook is in the running, but all the samples I have examined have seemed cheap and fragile. Perhaps just perception. The keybards do have a lot of flex to them, though. Yuck. Also, sigle button "mouse" is a pain. (yes, I know I can define keys as mouse buttons. so what. when I'm using the pointer I want to use the pointer, not the keyboard, and vise versa)
Anyway, that's my take. I still like the Palm the best of all the PDAs I've tried, and I still go through stages where I use I quite a bit. Perhaps if it were even smaller and lighter, like the new ones.
You think so? I think atleast here in Finland the trend is beginning to reverse - if you carry a communicator - like I do - that is a sign of you being just a workhorse :) If you have the luxury of not needing it - then that's a real status symbol :)
Anyway, I don't think just the PDA functionality would be enough a reason for me to carry it. But when it is at the same time your only phone, and a use anywhere SSH client then there is enough value.
I have several clients who might as well have had their PDAs surgically grafted onto them. The first thing they need installed whenever they get a new machine is Palm Desktop.
I had a PDA for awhile, and there were a lot of neat things you could do with it, but it never really stuck with me. Toward the end of my use of my PDA (an older Palm) all I basically used it for was to play chess in the bathroom. Addresses I keep on my laptop, which is almost always on (or closed and asleep for quick access). It's much easier to take notes on my laptop than my Palm. Syching was always a pain in the rear.
Guess it just depends on the person. Some people just love them. Some people can't stand them. Different strokes for different folks. *shrugs*
These days I'm carrying around a Sony SJ-30 model, running PalmOS 4.1. Color, 16 megabytes, hi-res screen.
What do I use it for? My calendar and address book, certainly. As a diabetic, I use it to record all my blood sugar readings. I have a very nice multifunction scientific calculator on it which I use all the time for anything for simple math or better. I have several games on it. I have a dozen e-books on it, which I read whenever I've got an idle moment. I have a dozen of my less-used passwords stored on it in a triple-DES encrypted form using Gnu Keyring. I use Plucker to download and carry around web clippings from national newspapers, and the Austin Chronicle's movie listings and reviews. I have several technical references stored as well, along with some utility calculators for special purpose conversions.
I carry my Sony around with me all the time; I would feel rather naked without it.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I have a friend who worked in an office where several people had identical PDAs. There had been problems with people picking up the wrong PDA after meetings, so he asked my wife to engrave a design on the cover of his, to prevent this kind of confusion.
He sketched the design he wanted, then fished the PDA out of his bag. The thing was covered with little yellow post-it notes with phone numbers, addresses, and appointment times scrawled on them. There must have been 6 or 8 at least!
I'd been thnking about getting a PDA myself, but that made me think again.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
personnaly i bought a Palm IIIx and after a year sold it and went back to pen and papers... (agendas) Syncing is annoying and the palm lose everything if you don't have fresh batteries.. i cant forget it in a corner for a long time. I did read some eBooks but it's not really worth it. I did have some fun with the software available but after a week you do something else :)
- Surrogate laptop.. until I become re-employed (and buy my iBook) it subs as a laptop.. ok, more of a compact email/web terminal. Between PalmEudora and AvantGo/EudoraWeb I still manage to get my various mail/web fixes. I only wish I could find a better NNTP client than the few out there so I could sync ASR.
- Along those lines, AvantGo is great for snagging latest site content from news.com (I can hear the hissing here), AnandTech, BBC, Kernel Traffic (hey, you can roll your own), etc. Nice to read online content while sitting at a park, waiting at an airport, before going to sleep.
- With pocket telnet/term programs, it makes a GREAT serial console in a pinch. I've used my Palm to reconfigure ethernet stacks and capture kernel oopses (doing that right now to debug an aic7xxx error).
- Yes input can be a little cumbersome, but you can pick up a keyboard for ~$30 these days.. and I do a few journal entries.
- I think I have the PDF for Linux LVM1 and a set of release notes for Tru64 in there.
- When all else fails, I have a good Euchre program and DopeWars.
:)
So yes, I still use my Palm. It's not as fancy or new as the latest crap, but for what it is and what it does, it is and does better than I expected.-'fester
I bought mine with the sole intention of trying to make simple games on it. After a few attempts at a Diablo 2 port (You can run around a basic grass level with a necromancer, never got beyond that), I basically gave up on it because it never seemed to be as handy as the old pen & paper combo. Of course, this may be due to myself owning a pen knife that was much cooler then the PDA itself :)
OtherTechGuy: "I got the newest Palm"
Me: "I got a pen knife"
OtherTechGuy: "So..?"
Me: "I'll cut yah"
OtherTechGuy: "Here..take the Palm pilot..." (nervously hands me his PDA)
could you do that with a PDA? I thought not. Now mod me up, or i'll cut yah.
---- Anyone can act smart, but it takes a smart person to act stupid. ----
It absolutely only depends on the way you live your life. The PDA is a good solution for some people, and a really crappy one for other people. This was illustrated to me with my ipod.
I got one as a cheap bonus with my ibook during my senior year in college. I used it *everywhere*. Since I walked to and from everything I did, it was permanently inside my jacket, frequently synched with my newest music, always synched with my contacts.
Then I graduated and started driving to work every morning. The ipod immediately offered me nothing. Sure, it can play in my car stereo, but with a 20 minute drive, I may as well play MP3 CDs. I didn't use it for months.
Now I've got a new job where the commute includes a 40 minute ferry ride and a 15 minute walk, each direction, every day. I'd shoot myself without my ipod. But I never use the contacts/scheduling features because I can do all that with my PC at work.
Blah, blah, blah. The point is, PDAs, or any other such device, are useful if your life fits their uses. They don't conform to you. You shouldn't conform to them either. If you're a homebody, drive only between work and home, or home and the bar, your PDA isn't going to do anything for you. If you constantly find yourself not having your information when you need it, get a PDA. This is, at max, like 5% of the population.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
but a question of style. My style used to be to rely upon my wife for tracking every bit of important info. Phone numbers, dates, to do lists, she had it all up in her head. Sound weird? Well, maybe it was.
The point is, some people don't like to be organized and others do. If you like to be organized, the first trick is to find a system that works for you. Any time management class will teach you that. What works for 95% of the world may not work for you which is why we have options.