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Are PDAs Simply Finished?
angkor writes "After Sony's sudden plan to discontinue the Clie and pull out of the American PDA market, many industry observers have increased their speculation about the demise of the PDA, in general. The Japanese electronics giant was defeated in the American market by increased competition and an industry-wide decline in PDA sales."
Well, I use my PDA to read books and would think a phone would be a really poor reader given the small screen and smaller battery life. Personally, I don't find carrying a PDA in my shirt pocket and a cell phone on my hip to be that cumbersome.
Well, not really. Companies were making laptops smaller and smaller upon the release of the centrino chip thereby rendering the wimpy (by comparison) PDAs obsolete. But that wasn't really the final nail in the coffin - mobile phone manufactures kept upping the resolution on cell phones screens while increasing their size centimeter by centimeter. The result is a mobile phone that can store all your necessary info in one pocket, and computers that you had no reason not to take on lunch break and inbetween home and work.
PDAs were a gimmick, nothing more. No matter how shiny they got, and no matter how many I owned (which amounted to 3 at one point, a palm V, a palm Vx, and one of those ridiculous Sony Clie jobbers) they still couldn't replace the ease of use a cell phone provided me.
Gaming on them was a horrific joke as well. What with the release of the PSP on the horizon and my Gameboy SP charging next to me through USB, the PDAs of the world were simply replaced by superior technology.
This happens to fads. I don't see many people wearing 'hammer pants' anymore, despite the fact they provided the same use as any other pair of pants.
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I make no apologies for the run-on sentences contained above.
schild
editor, f13.net
Um.... It can. I keep all of my OS X address book contacts and my iCal information in my iPod and use this frequently when on the road. I use my iMac account to synchronize all the data from my work mac, my home mac, laptop and iPod so all of my contacts, bookmarks and calendar events go with me wherever I am. It's VERY cool!
So yeah, looks like someone's already though of it :)
The iPod can display calendar and contact info. It has no input capability, which is what the parent wanted.
It's tragic. Laugh.
Unless I'm completely missing the point of his post (which is possible because it IS early sunday morning).
if I turn on my iPod and from the main screen select "extras" there is a "contacts" and "calendars" option there.
Selecting contacts brings up a list of everyone in my contact list on dotMac. Selecting a person shows me (on the LCD) their name, address, phone, email.
Same with calendars.
Now you can't edit this data - nor can you input new data because that would require a better input interface, but you can view the data. So it's not 100% PDA functionality, but it's been handy in many situations when I needed a phone number or an address. You can even put in directions and such in the "notes" section.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.
I used to carry all those devices too. Then I decided I needed a GPS unit for my car (I'm on the road, a lot, in Italy and if you have experience of driving in this country you would be painfully aware of how poorly sign-posted roads can be).
H ac k6
It was while trying to decide on a GPS solution that I came across Route 66's bluetooth GPS for symbian phones.
I'm now the happy owner of a Nokia 6600 which gives me ssh over GPRS for emergencies:
http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/
The early stages of Nethack:
http://www.nicolaas.net/erebus/item.php?key=Net
and Frozen Bubble:
http://handhelds.freshmeat.net/projects/fb-s60/
I'm really happy with my choice. If I need to do anything serious while I'm on the road, I connect over the phone with my laptop. The GPS can be a bit slow updating but I've been quite impressed with it so far. And, not forgetting its phone functionality, it's a very good phone for talking. My batteries last about 2 days under heavy usage.
It is 'to-do' because we hyphenate compound adjectives. A compound adjective is made up of two or more descriptive words that are intended to be used together. For instance:
A 'baby mulching machine' is a juvenile machine that mulches. A 'baby-mulching machine' is a machine that mulches babies. Similarly, unless there is a such thing as a 'to list' and a 'do list', it should be 'to-do list'.
You were aware that the Zire couldn't do these things when you bought it, weren't you? The Sidekick is sold by TMobile as a phone with e-mail and IM services, plus it doubles as an organizer. The Zire has no wireless connectivity other than Bluetooth. Your complaints above don't seem to be valid. Further, why would you buy the Zire if you're perfectly happy with the organizing functions of the Sidekick?
But honestly, why would anyone carry two devices (mobile phone, organizer) when the Sidekick (or another similar device) offers the functionality of both?
One of the big limitations of most phones that have PDA functionality is the UI. I don't want to enter appointments with the tiny little keyboard on my phone. I prefer the pen input of the Palm when I'm in a meeting. The touch screen gets me to my datebook month or week view in a few taps.
Move to something like the Sidekick or the Treo, and you get a phone with PDA functionality, but you give up size. PDA phones are huge. I keep my standard, no-frills GSM phone in my pocket at all times, and at about 3 oz and a smaller footprint (4.0 x 1.8 x 0.8 inches) I don't even know it's there. (This is a cheap Siemens GSM M46 phone, has a calendar/AIM/e-mail capability w/ T-Mobile). As I mentioned, I don't use the calendar functions with the phone as the interface is too cumbersome.
T-Mobile (Danger) Sidekick
Source: T-Mobile.comPalmOne Treo 600
Source: PalmOne.comAt any rate, if you're going to go with the larger PDA/phone solution, why not go with the Palm unit? An open API and thousands of available applications seems like a better route to me...
I think the major reason "PDAs" are dying is because virtually every cellphone on sale these days has most of the functionality PDAs are generally used for
So please tell me, how do you enter the phone number/ address/ important piece of information you've just been told into your cell phone while you are talking on it?
I'll take a small bluetooth enabled phone and a good PDA over a constrained convergant device any day.
I want to use these Mod points but I can't find anything Interesting, Informative or Insightful on Slashdot.
PDA might be finished in the US, but not in other parts of the world... You'd be surprised how many of those you can see on Tokyo's metro. In the US, you're never in a situation where you really need a PDA. You're in your car, at home, in the office, or with friends. In all of these cases you do not need a PDA. PDA's are great when you ride public transport, like I do in Japan. I can prepare my emails, my todo list, my calendar, check my trains, learn japanese... while riding the train, and that's really usefull. Cell phone screen is too small to do any of that. And I see many other people who also type away on their PDA, 2/3 in each car...