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A Palm for Every Purpose
fm6 writes "We can look forward to a round of niche devices running PalmOS. According to the Forbes article, we're looking at PalmOS in: a game device called Helix , a platform for developing 'customized handheld instruments' called the Meazura, and of course, the usual round of PalmOS cell phones. On the other hand, fewer manufacturers seem to show any interest in making general-purpose PalmOS PDAs. Food for thought."
Yeah, I'm sure a black and white palm OS PDA will be perfect for playing games. How about adding some scheduling capabilities to a gameboy advanced? The size is very similar, the screen is way nicer, the expansion abilities are still there, and the gameboy actually has decent games.
Also, since when are deadlines and schedules and lists of contacts "grown up" matters? I think games fit the "grown up" matters list just as easily...
The anti-salmon
Were not all these concepts intended for the Palm platform originally? Mobile computing has come a long way in the past 5 years, with more and more powerful processors leading to smaller and better things. Where is the PalmOS headed? The place it's always been going- to provide a comprehensive interface to perform certain computing functions on an ultra-portable level. The introduction of more/enhanced features/functions/uses is only following the initial path set by mobile computing.
I just bought a Nokia 3650 which has enough average person pda functionality to satisfy me: calendar, todo, phonebook...christ. it runs symbian and java midlets so there are a whole lot of apps out for it, including doom ;)
point is...ive always been interested in a pda to use as an organizer, but theres no way in hell im carrying that bulk in addition to my phone.
now that problem is solved. I'm usually against multipurpose devices ie : vhs/dvd players...but space is a concern with things you carry.
Basically my phone is a phone, a digital camera (640x480),a gameboy(has emulator), a pda...and more (mp3...) and of course it has internet connectivity.
The $99 Zire is an example of the non-general purpose PDA concept. Zire is only for scheduling, to-do lists, and an address book. It seems many were buying loaded PDAs and ended up using it as an organiser...
Will we ever see a balance between integration and segragation of digital devices?
My guess is not right away... Integrated components usually come at some sacrifice to quality or function, e.g. integrated motherboards for computers. Sure, it's cheaper, and more convenient, but if you're looking for performance, do you really want a 8mb Trident video card onboard with no expandable AGP port? Same thing with integrated cameras on phones and PDAs... the resolution isn't anywhere near what that of a stand alone camera would be. Generally speaking, the more you try to do with less space, something must be sacrificed to make it work. With completely seperate components, everything is free to take up as much space/power as necessary to produce quality results.
Bottom line is- budget minded consumers will happily embrace integrated hardware, who could care less about quality or function than a phone that can take pictures and play 32kbit MP3s for under $99.
Meanwhile, consumers who know what they want and don't mind spending the extra money for it will always seek out the best resolution on a digital camera, the largest capacity MP3 player, and the phone with the best reception/service plan/.
As long as the market itself is segregated, the electronics themselves will be segregated to fit their specific niches in what a consumer wants.
(warning, slightly OT)
I don't know, but it seems like the industry is also missing out on some of the most sensible types of integrations.
For example, I haven't seen much with integrating pagers, but I sure know that if I had both cell phone and pager service, I'd much rather have an integrated cell phone and pager than I would an integrated cell phone and PDA or cell phone and digital camera. (Heck, I'd rather have a pager/PDA than a cell phone/pda, too.)
You realize, they are building a new device geared towards gaming. Not using the old design.
Btw, all you need for pacman is a 4 directional game pad. For legend of zelda's (except wind waker (maker?) and 64) you needed a digital pad. Super mario world, f-zero, final fantasy, sonic the hedge hog.. they don't need the analog stick
Now they may not be YOUR favourite games, but they were hits that many people will play.
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
I think the issue is not everyone needs a PDA. It got to the point where everyone was buying them and then discovering that they didn't really need them. I'm just a programmer, for the most part I sit in a cubical all day tapping on a keyboard. I may have a few meetings every week but I certainly don't need a PDA to keep track of things. My wife owns her own business and has to deal with distributors, customers, employees etc all day. She uses her PDA and her cell phone to the hilt and they do actually make her life more effecient and easier. A few people do actually benefit from these things and use them for what they were intended. For the general public things like wireless networking, games, music playback, cameras are far more interesting and specific applications like data entry and hardened versions for field work and factory environments are going to be far more imortant in the long run for corporations than just having PDAs for all their execs. Trying to build a super PDA that can do everything is not going to be very usefull for anyone. I think it's good that Palm Source is getting a very diverse group of customers purchasing PalmOS for a wide range of devices. It's better than the one size fits all attitude that a certain other PDA/Smart Phone OS vendor has.
yeah, but they should have moved the up and down buttons one to the left so you could use the left two app buttons as left and right with one finger. the left four buttons would act like steering cross and the right two buttons like normal buttons.
Flashy isn't necessarily better than functional.
What *do* you look for in a PDA's OS? Personally I look for small footprint and low power consumption. My Sony Clie SJ-20 fits that bill perfectly. I only need to recharge it once every couple of weeks, and it does everything I want a PDA to do, and it only cost me $200 CDN.
And it has a 320x320 display...
Palm is not perfect, but you're wrong in a couple respects. Palm still dominates the market. They are still the single largest manufacturer in the entire handheld space. Their platform, PalmOS, which they license, also has more than 50% of the market. The pocketPC platform collectively fights over something around 30 to 40%--the remainder occupied by Epoch and other platforms--despite the best efforts of Microsoft who has spent an inordinate amount of money trying to overcome them and has the advantage of controlling MS Outlook/Exchange Server on the desktop (that many people depend on on their PCs).
Palm's success was due largely to their narrow focus, they defined what the modern PDA is and then built it, not by trying to be everything to all people. What you call a failure is not a failure in this vision, but rather it was the result of a good understanding of precisely what a PDA is and what is practical. They didn't produce even more expensive gadgets to compete with PocketPC because the timing was questionable and because their utility was too. There have been dozens of competing platforms that have failed precisely because they tried to do too much while Palm stayed true to their course and continued to optimize their platform (which HAS improved over the years). Look at the early generation PocketPCs, that Palm supposedly lost market share to. Most of them were pretty mediocre devices--most of them were bought by early adopter types that have also bought numerous other PDAs. Yes, a good number of people bought them, but it's hardly been a proven money maker. These devices are still inferior to Palm as PDAs--the battery life still needs work, the usability is significantly worse than Palms, they're still bulkier, and so on.
This fancier concept of a PDA, really handheld computers, is only starting to become economically and technically viable--even if the market for the idea itself is still unproven. If you take a look at what Palm and their licensees have done lately, then you'll see that they're very competitive with PocketPC even in this emerging high end market. Have you tried the new "smart" phones? I have a Tungsten W--I love it--GSM phone, GPRS data, built in keyboard, marginally faster CPU (but generally fast enough for what it is), and a good form factor. How about the Tungsten C? It very very slick too (built in WiFi, fast processor, keyboard, sound, etc). How about the Zire 71? Built in camera (640x480), high res color screen, sound, etc--all priced at less than 300 bucks (with space to drop the price too I'm sure). I don't see anything that really competes, that isn't a total hack, from PocketPC or anything else. I predict that Palm is going to take "back" much of what you think they've lost in the handheld space and even from their PalmOS licensees with their latest generation of hardware, namely the new Zire and their integrated wireless concept.
In my experience, the folks in favor of integration are the engineers, while the folks in favor of segregation are usability specialists.
Maybe it *is* possible to get a phone, PDA, camera, pager, gameboy, audio player, etc. in a single small device, but how the hell are you going to get a decent UI on it? Perhaps the problem is more that there are too many single-function buttons on current devices, and that a multifunction device would just have a bunch of multifunction buttons that the software would use differently for each feature, sorta like the PS2 does.
You'd lose the dedicated "zoom in"/"zoom out" buttons but on the gadgets I have, those are so small that the icons for them are inscrutable anyway (so they might as well be unlabeled).
It's probably possible to come up with a good UI for such a thing, but since gadget buyers still buy based on features instead of usability, it'll probably be a reeeeeal long time before we see it.
Now try writing down a phone number while you're talking over it! :)
I can't help but feel that what makes a good palm-held computer makes a crappy phone, and what makes a good phone makes a crappy palm-held computer. Among other things, the physical profiles are incompatible; the Palm has to be wide enough to write on, and the phone has to be narrow enough to be comfortable.
Nope. I'll take the smallest phone I can that's comfortable, and a reasonably sized palm, and rely on them linking together to exchange data.