Slashdot Mirror
Death of the PDA?
An anonymous reader writes "The Economist has an article proclaiming the death of the PDA. Smart phone sales are predicted to overtake PDA sales this year."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
If the phone has all the properties of a PDA, isn't this a moot point?
.
By the way. .
FIRST POST!!!!
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Palm Zire 21 - $99 USD
Kyocera 7135 Smartphone - $499 USD.
Until they can close this gap, PDAs aren't going to be dead. And a $400 difference is going to take more than 1 year.
Propz to GNAA
Why the hell would you want to do PDA type stuff on a PHONE that is the size of a peanut with a screen the size of a stamp?
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
The article is really predicting the death of PDAs that aren't integrated with phones. This is quite different that the death of ALL PDAs.
All the article is saying is that PDAs will include another feature. PDAs are evolving. Very few things stay the way their were originally intended. Did computers die when we switched from punch cards to keyboards? Not quite. They're still computers, they just aren't exactly what they used to be.
Besides, I doubt that PDAs will merge ONLY with cell phones: PDA functionality is usefull and will be used virtually in all personal devices. And some of those devices will be far away from being called "a cell phone": watches, MP3 players, cameras.
Also, I am sure PDA functionality will expand from wearable devices to... drivable one? I always wanted to have my Palm being built-in to my car dashboard instead of being lost anywahere in my car.
Less is more !
First, there were the "brick" phones, the ones that weighed 20 pounds and had an antenna like a foot long.
Then over time they shrank all the way down until the hottest thing going were these tiny digital hamster pellet phones that people keep could barely find in their cavernous shirt pockets.
But now they've got to be "smart" so we're back to putting these "heavy flow maxi"-sized things against our head again, with a complete qwerty keyboard rubbing on our five-o-clock shadow.
So when do we get back down to peanut-size again? Presumably this time it will be a color LCD peanut with a stylus the size of a sewing needle.
If I want to do something that requires a bigger screen (like watch a movie and actually enjoy it), I use a 15" laptop. I'm sure there's room for devices inbetween - bag-size rather than pocket-size, but a decent resolution display can be very usable even on a pocket-sized device.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
until it includes:
1. Telephone
2. PDA
3. GPS
and fits comfortably in my hip pocket.
Other features like FRS, waterproof/resistant, rugged (hip pocket == sat on), bluetooth wireless modem for laptop, camera, etc. would serve to differentiate models.
Cellphones will become extinct as PDAs with cellphone capabiltiy become common!
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
You miss the point of smartphones. It's not that they are gonna replace the paper and pencil or the PS2 or digital cameras. It's that it gives you basic functionality in those areas, all in one device, which you can have with you all the time.
If I'm out one night with friends and we're walking around the city looking for something to do, it's easy enough to go online on a phone and find local spots and even reviews. Or during the train ride, I can take care of replying to emails for work, while listening to streaming Internet radio. I can access my corporate phone and email directories.
So no, I'm not using my phone for decoding DNA sequences but smartphones do alot to untether you.
I think convergence will eventually happen, but I wish it would look somewhat different and take advantage of some useful technologies. You still want a large screen to view lots of info, so convergence towards phone-size displays is bad. You also want a SEPARATE handset so you can read the screen and talk at the same time. How about moving the communications guts of the phone into the PDA and connecting a separate handset to it via Bluetooth? Perhaps make an oversized pen than also doubles as a handet. That would still make taking notes during a call pretty difficult, so maybe just use a regular old Bluetooth headset instead.
LOL. Is this like Bill Gates declaring Linux dead? Actually no, it's the opposite since smartphone is the underdog. This is more like Linus Torvalds or Steve Jobs declaring Microsoft dead. Why is this newsworthy?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
However a PDA doesn't usually have much stamina. It last three days or so with light use, and like the phone - it is usually running in a standby mode rather than being comeletely off. If you start to make much use of the PDA, the power consumption needed can drain the battery within a day (especially if its a Microsoft operating system). End result of combining the two is something that doesn't want to go to far from a charger.
See my journal, I write things there
Whenever I'm travelling, I always have important phone numbers and meetings on both phone and PDA.
"Everybody is forgetting the main cost... AIRTIME!"
:) I have a cell phone I use as a PDA and I pay $7 a month for the internet service (which can be funneled down to my PDA or laptop via bluetooth) but I don't pay actual air time.
Though your statement isn't wrong, it is a little misleading. Today the primary purpose of a PDA is for scheduling appointments and keeping contacts. Though the popularity of using a PDA for web browsing is on the rise, it's really not at a saturation point yet. Worse, the point of using your cell phone to get on the net is that 802.11 coverage isn't exactly ideal. So you get airtime charges (or just not use the net at all) when you're nowhere near an 802.11 hotspot. On top of that, the PDA phone I played with (I think it's made by Siemens or something like that) had an SD slot. There is a company who built an 802.11 card for that slot. If PDAs and cell phones merge more intimately, you can bet that 802.11 will be a serious consideration.
I think your other points (screen size, RAM, etc) are quite valid. I agrued in an earlier post in this thread that PDAs won't die because their slightly larger size affords them capabilities that a cell phone/PDA cannot accomdate. In other words, I agree with you. Just wanted to nitpick your airtime comment.
"Derp de derp."
I think the whole PDA vs. phone argument is missing the point. Just like there was the old 'battle for the desktop', there will now be a new 'battle for the pocket' or purse or whatever. The point is that the human-wearable technologies are converging to a new standard configuration. This includes telephony, traditional PDA functions (calendar, task lists, address books, etc.), music and gaming in a portable, wearable, wireless package.
you do realise that customer lock in freebie phones have nothing to do with the _real_ price of the phone? the freebie aspect was/is there to get the customer in and then leech him on the plan. the phone is not FREE, you pay for it dearly(but not up front).
gprs phones start from somewhere under 200$ new, average nokia costs 200$-300$ i guess(ngage being cheapest that runs symbian apps that are for series60, 3650 is around 350$ or so.). locked phones are illegal here so instead of luring the customers in with "free" phones the operators have to do things like build a decent coverage network and have cheap calls to get the customers(the result? everyone has a cell phone.).
and the trend has been that people ARE willing to pay 300$+ for a new phone.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Having friends who have these sort of devices and also seeing the Handspring Treo, I feel that they are usually too big as a phone or too small as a PDA. I don't doubt that one day a PDA-Phone will come out at the manages to solve the size issue correctly, but I am yet to see something that does.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.