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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."
People want either highly specialized mini computers (ie audio players), or they want the full power of a computer. Budget laptops don't cost significantly more than some high end PDAs, and you get a lot more flexibility.
Mobile phones with PDA-like functions are whupping the PDA's out of the market.
;)
Bluetooth r0xx0r j00.
Heck, if the iPod could input calandar and contact info, I definitely wouldn't need a PDA.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
It sounds silly, but if we could disable the phone part of a smartphone it could actually be more useful!
I think that the PDA world will take a dive once Handtop computers become available. Computers like the OQO, Flipstart and the Sony VGN-U70 will start to take over. Why have a PDA when you can bring the actual applications and data you want with you anywhere.
Things may not really take off till the second generation of these devices, but I'm looking forward to taking one of them for a test drive.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
The PDA is failing for the same reason 3G technology has a slow uptake and is in danger of slipping into moribundency. It's just too much technology that's useless in such a small device while you're on the move. Who really wants to do wordprocessing with something half the size of a tissue box while they're sitting on the toilet? The tech just isn't feasible; it's cramped and the UI is poor. Costs are still ramped up, which doesn't help either.
Yes.
I have an iPaq and a Palm (built into my phone). The biggest problem with most PDAs are their battery issues. The last time the battery went out on my iPaq and I lost everything that was it. It's too frustrating to have to completely re-install all the software when something like this happens. I know there are work-arounds, but most of the PDAs out there by default have this issue.
I generally used my PDA for an address book. It's useful there but otherwise it's a gimmick.
Anyway, the Treo 600 has it's flaws (most notably the mediocre screen resolution). But before I got this device, every PDA I ever had was something I used for a few months then it fell into general disuse because of the effort to charge it, sync it and use it. This is the first PDA device that I actually use regularly and believe I will continue to use regularly, and that convenience is worth a whole lot. So the PDA is dead... long live the PDA-phone.
Yep...Satnav. I work as a lorry driver in the UK (trucker) for an employment agency. I've got an Ipaq 2210 and run TomTom Navigator 3 on it. AS I'm not in the same vehicle for more than a couple of days at a time it allows me to take it from vehicle to vehicle and as it does street level, it has replaced the massive box of town/city maps I had. Its bluetooth too so it uses GPRS through my mobile phone to get traffic updates as I go.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
As someone who routinely carries a PDA, mobile phone, digital camera and USB keychain drive, I love the idea of convergence, but I don't think technology has reached the point where it's matured enough to make combination devices really as useful and as feasible as separate devices are currently. The reason? Primary battery power, IMO.
My cellphone is a fairly basic Motorola, its batteries can last for days without recharging, and I can leave it switched on at all times, day and night, just popping it into the charger as required. Sure, it doesn't have a colour screen or multimedia messaging or PDA functions, but the fact that it's always ready to use is crucial to the way I use a phone.
My PDA, on the other hand, has a big 320x320 in full colour, oodles of flash memory, sound and video capabilities, and so on. However, the way I use a PDA is totally different. If I left the PDA on for more than around 4-6 hours, the battery would be gone. Fortunately, I use the thing intermittently, only turning it on when I want to check my tasks and appointments or record a memo.
If you can make me a Smartphone that has audio and video capabilities with a large screen that can be left on all day like my current cellphone can, I'd buy it without much hesitation. But that's not the case at the moment.
Today's smartphones are cellphones with poor battery life and/or PDAs with small screens and limited abilities. They're not perfect for either task. Until they are, I'll keep carrying my separate devices, and until we see a PDA with a 4 megapixel camera with an optical zoom lens, a flash and full manual exposure control, I will keep my digicam, too.
Perhaps fuel cells are the answer, but until they're mainstream, why aren't we seeing more Smartphones that could be put into a "super low power" mode - where the colour screen is switched off and replaced by a simple 100x100 pixel mono display, and the 400MHz XScale is switched off and the phone functions run on a 1MHz VLSI to conserve battery life when the thing is sitting in your jacket pocket?
I disagree that PDAs are a gimmick. Maybe for most people they were, but they've led a silent revolution in medicine. My PDA is indespensible, and I know of no young physician who doesn't rely on one heavily.
It can store several texts at once, drug information (including indication, dosing, and interactions), and most importantly the ever-revolving formulary your insurance company uses. There are many programs that make calculating certain medically related formulas a cinch.
The PDA may be dead for the general public, but it has found quite a nice niche in medicine.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
I think it's less an issue of PDAs not having uses as it is an issue of market saturation. Sony's mistake is that they literally came out with new PDAs almost every month (and if they weren't released in the US, they were released in Japan and never made it to the states). People who use PDAs just don't replace their PDAs often enough to sustain as many handhelds as there are, much less as many as Sony came out with. Sony's other mistake was to revamp its high-end line so often. $700 PDAs are especially not replaced very often. With the speed at which these things were replaced in their lineup, I can't imagine they were able to produce and sell enough to get good margins on those products. It would have been nice for them to have researched how people actually use their PDAs rather than try to cram everything they could into one of them, since a PDA too big to take with you is not one that you'll use, no matter how much "convergence" you've got in one.
I think Sony's other mistake (one that PalmOS might be repeating with its next OS) was to not support the Mac platform out of the box. Many Mac users (and I'm including myself here to some degree) are notorious for wanting the latest and greatest gadgets. My first PDA was an early Sony. When I switched to the Mac platform shortly after that I had to buy a third party conduit, which became outdated when I upgraded shortly after that to Mac OS X--and then there was NO conduit I could use, no matter how much I was willing to pay. So after three yearss my Sony PDA outlived my ability to use it with my current computer. When I was ready to replace my Sony CLIE with a new Palmtop, I didn't feel that I could rely on my Sony to be "supported" by even a third party after three years, so I went with another brand.
Alex.
So what's wrong with this picture? Should I upgrade my cell phone to do all this stuff rather than just be a phone? BTW, my wife depends on her PDA as a physician for everything from textbooks of internal medicine, to drug formularies, to calculators for blood oxygen levels. Please don't take away our PDAs!!
You've touched it really - these things need to solve a real 9 to 5 problem. And for doctors - probably because doctors don't bring their desk to the bedside - the PDA is the right thing.
But hospitals have invested heavily in the WIFI infrastructure to accomidate a PDA in the hostpital almost like a cellphone in the outside world.
That said - i think the real tool for medicine is a simple barcode reader - scanning patient tags, medicine bottles, blood pressure readings, and a range of tests into a portable scanner - allows the objective facts of medicine to be collected in real time and consolidated without double entry.
You mention cross checking medicines - that can be done by scanning the patients current collection of pill bottles - and the recommended new entry, the patient id and - viola - a printed drug cross check.
AIK
I edit my fiction using DocumentsToGo.
I keep my comics collection in an excel spreadsheet so when I'm going through 25 cent bins I know exactly what my wantlist is and I don't accidentally buy any duplicates.
I read Project Gutenberg texts and books purchased from Peanut Press (or whatever they're called and whoever they're owned by these days) when I'm shopping with my wife.
I listen to lectures and audiobooks in MP3 format.
I do play games, though not very often.
I write memos and story ideas down on the go. There's also a voice memo recorder which I use when driving.
I keep organized with my address book and calendar. I've never been able to be organized in either area until I bought a Palm.
I keep some photographs with me.
I keep a dictionary on my Palm, which is invaluable for when I have time to write.
I'm just as likely to take my Palm with me when I go out as I am my phone. If/when my Palm breaks, I'll replace it.
They should have taken a page from HP and released a version of all their pda's that have a camera with a version that does not have the camera. I'm just wanting on HP to release a pda that has 480x640 resolution and I will buy one. This isn't so much HP's faught, but the idot at MS who decided to hard code in the screen resolution at 240x320 into the OS!!! I mean seriously, did they REALLY think that no one would want to use a resolution other then that? Did they believe that LCD screen technology would not continue to inovate and develop higher resolution screens? Or were they simply pressed for time because they were late to market on an immerging new operating system market for mobile devices? I think it was the latter...
Anyway back on topic, I would have been glad to fork over $400-700 for a top of the line clie that had WiFi, bluetooth, a 480x640 3.5" screen, and possibly CF or SDIO memory slot, WITHOUT a camera. Besides if I WANTED a digital camera, I would have just spent the $50 for a similar 1.1 megapixel camera (or modded a Kodak "1 time use" digital camera to a multiuse camera for $25).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Well, it depends. I owned a Visor, one Clie, Tungsten C and now I have a Zaurus C760. I have also cell phone which has some rudimentary PDA functions (calendar, notes, addressbook). It all comes down to what you want to use the device for.
If you need just to keep track of phone numbers and occassional appointment, then probably a PDA is an overkill for you. The same if you expect a PC-like functionality from it. It was just not intended for that use.
However, if you need an ultra-portable device, which is capable of decent networking (there are no cell phones with WiFi and data connections via e.g. GPRS are very slow and for exorbitant prices.), has usable screen for data entry and a bit of computing power to handle e.g. VPN, decent mail client and web browser, then probably a cell phone is not going to cut it. Also I want my cell phone small, not a huge brick it would have to be if the manufacturer wanted to accomodate large screen usable for PDA functions. Just look at the Treo smartphones, they are very big for a phone and the screens are still the good old crappy 160x160 Palm resolution (not sure about the recent 600 Treo). And Treos are probably the best PDA-phone combination (or smartphone if you want) that there is on the market today.
Compared to laptops, yeah, laptop is more powerful than any PDA, that's true. However, my Visor ran on one set of AAA batteries for two weeks with normal use and over 12 hours with intensive use in a day long meeting entering data via external keyboard. Even the most recent Centrino laptops have problems to last that long. Not to mention the portability - I am carrying my Zaurus all the time with me, my T41 Thinkpad has 2.5kg, which do not count as a brick yet, but are not something pleasant to constantly lug around neither.
Finally, usage patterns - with PDA, you can just whip it out, power it up, look up some phone number or whatever and turn it off again in seconds. That's about the time you manage to type something on your cell phone fighting with the clumsy interface or your laptop starts to be usable after waking up from suspend.
So, I do not think that because Sony exited the market with their horribly overpriced and often flaky PDAs, which refused to support e.g. Compact Flash because it would undercut the sales of their expensive Memorysticks (even in the NZ line, which had the slot for that - the slot can be used only for their proprietary and very expensive WiFi card), the whole market is going down the drain. There is a saturation in the market and little compeling reason to buy a new PDA if your old one still works fine. The amount of innovation brought by Palm, Sony and HP (iPaqs ..) is abysmal in recent years, so no wonder that people do not buy. The largest peeves of the current PDAs - decent keyboard, decent display (Psion anybody?) and finally stable OS (yeah, both PalmOS and WinCE suck here) are still missing. Sharp is on good track with their C7xx line here, however the software leaves a lot to be desired and in the marketing department Sharp is shooting itself in the foot, IMHO. Fortunately, there is plenty of excelent free software for Zaurus available.
Calling PDAs fad which is dying out is at least bit premature, IMHO. If you have no use for it, do not buy one. For me it was a tremendous help, regardless of having a laptop and cell phone already. I like devices that take the "UNIX approach" - do just one thing and do it well. Laptop and cell phone do not do PDA role well, so why to push them there.
Regards, Jan
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, with the exception of...
Maps! These work better with a larger screen.
PDAs were a gimmick, nothing more...This happens to fads.
Would you say that electronic calculators were a fad? Or typewriters? PDA's served a specific and indispensable role in people's lives. They were a low-powered computing and data storage platform, able to encrypt sensitive data and store thousands of pages of notes, and proved so useful that they were finally integrated into other indispensable pieces of hardware. How is that a gimmick?
Now that mobile phone operators are integrating PDA functionality into their phones (in most cases on originally PDA operating systems like Symbian), the platform can be considered redundant. But realize, the platform is not going away, it is merely being integrated into another device (and vice versa). The fact that they are being integrated into mobile phones and released in higher numbers than before show that they are not a gimmock.
Who the hell games on a PDA? Who complains about gaming on a PDA? That's like complaining that your mobile phone doesn't scrub dishes, or that your car stereo isn't bright enough to read by.
I can only guess that the vitrol in your post comes from buyer's remorse... that you expected your three PDA's to be far more than they were, overpurchased, and were sadly disappointed. Between my girlfriend and I, we've owned several of the original Palm Pilot and Palm Pilot pros, a pair of Clie 320's, and a newer Clie NX80V with camera and MP3. We knew the limitations of each one, and have come to rely upon them tremendously. We store lots of e-texts and avant-go websites for our morning commute. We store everyone's number, address, and birthday on them, and try to keep ahead of our lives with the scheduler and to-do list. We use YAPS to encrypt passwords and other sensitive data. Essentially, we offload those parts of our brain which we don't have the capacity to store, and store external data that we don't have the time to upload. At that, the PDA's excell. The addition of a camera means that we can store people's faces along with their address, making it that much easier to remember who people are.
I'm lost without my PDA. Now I'm looking into upgrading to one of the aforementioned mobile phones with PDA functionality. Does that mean that I've abandoned the platform? Does that mean the platform was a fad?
The ______ Agenda
Its called a Universal Turing Machine...
I use my PDA to carry arround the thousands of pages of .pdf files I need for work. If it wasn't able to read those comfortably, I would have no use for it. A friend who is a doctor has put his medical references on his PDA and carries them everywhere.
As a note-taker, appointment maker it sucks.
It plays nethack, too.
I've really enjoyed PDAs over the past few years, but This Tungsten C is probably my last. What *I* use my PDA for is keeping track of my contacts and appointments. I also use it for brief emails when there is access to WiFi.
But enhanced cellphones really do this job BETTER. I can dial or message my contacts straight from the addressbook, and there's one less device to carry.
The article is right that PDAs will survive, but I think they'll find new users. As they become available with hard drives, PDAs could become portable (and continuously update-able) manuals, databases, order entry devices, etc. Heavy messaging belongs on small laptops. Contact management and appointments get shunted to cellphones.
PDAs end up being networked business devices: information terminals for people who need portability but aren't doing much content creation. That's the province of laptops and tablet computers, which will get lighter and more powerful. Cellphones are the communications platform (group calendaring is a communications feature). I think most people will prefer their entertainment to be on a dedicated device like an iPod. Who wants to be interrupted by the boss while you're listening to music or watching streaming video? Keep that crap on another box.
Someone mentioned note-taking. Heavy note-taking, such a meeting minutes, is content creation. Use a laptop. I think voice recognition will fill the need for post-it type entries. Dictate to your cellphone, and it gets recorded or dumped to text. MUCH better than Graffiti or a small keyboard, huh?
Apple saw this coming. They were right not to bring Newton 2 to market, cool as I'm sure it would have been.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
are you ready for it to break? just judging by personal experience and the experience of everyone i know who's had one, your sidekick is past due for a catastrophy.
one of my friends has had his sidekick replaced *four* times already. i'm going to wait for 2.0 before i try one again.
A PDA is a satalite computing device. You use it for quick updates and little else, typically. Its major use is that you can pull it out quickly from a pocket and check your contacts, todo list, and more! On my Palm, for example, I can pull out the application Due Yesterday and check my GPA in all my classes, what assignments are due, etc.
People may say, "hey, why use a Palm when you can use a cell phone or laptop?"
I also have a cell phone that claims to have PDA support. Unless you own a P800 or a P900, the interface on a cellphone is too clunky. Graffiti or the recognizer on a PocketPC will beat the shit out of the tap entry methods that cellphones use. The major cons of the cellphone are that the interface is crap, there isn't a large library of extension software, and it's not easy to sync with my PC.
The cons of a laptop are just as serious. First, they cost about 3-4x the price of even the most fancy 500$ Palm units with built in cameras. They don't really fit in my pocket, either. Even if they could, chances are I wouldn't be able to whip it out and hit a button and have the unit power up in less than 1 second like a Palm does. I'm always having to use a large physical keyboard, even if I'm not seated at a desk or table with a laptop. And chances are I'll have to deal with Windows, unless Apple starts making the units, as Linux doesn't tend to work on a laptop without much messing around. For all the effort, I'd rather have the smaller unit which costs less and Just Works (TM).
Plus, with Bluetooth, my Palm can sync its contacts with the cellphone, control it for outgoing dialing, use it for sending SMS, etc, while it's in my pocket. The PDA interface is much more flexible and has a much larger screen real estate, so it's like I've upgraded my phone without making it into something the size of a brick!
So why choose something that doesn't have these size, speed, and cost benefits? I don't get it.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
the sidekick can't be used with any other service. problem... solved?
I couldn't agree with you more. I love my SideKick (that I'm using to post this reply), and frequently have PDA owners drooling over it. This is especially true in the MANY circumstances where I whip it out to google for something, check the weather or traffic-cams before hitting the road, check online prices while at a computer-show, etc. About the only problems with it, really aren't problems with IT, but problems with T-Mobile! You can't install non-T-Mobile ringtones. You can't install non-T-Mobile software. I use my AIM on it all the time, but many of my friends only use YahooIM... someone already wrote a Y!I'm client for it (check freshmeat), but you have to be a registered developer to be able to install it!
- Posted via Danger HipTop2 / T-Mobile Sidek!ck II -
I used to be a palm zealot. Great design, initially. 68k, 1 meg of RAM, and always on. Thousands of programs appeared on the net for free. I used it for a calendar, and to schedule appointments, and to keep track of my time, and where I was. I used the address book rather violently -- and picked-up hundreds of contacts (imported from my old Casio BOSS, and collected through the years). I also downloaded neat programs, and experimented with development. Truly a neat system 1997, and ahead of it's time. (Of course, I drooled over the Apple Newtons!)
Connectivity is really the thing for me, being able to transfer data/programs easily, as well as to other people is something I need to do. I admit it, I'm a geek, and rely on this stuff. The Palm's serial port, while great, required a special cradle, and even with two, it's still a pain. Don't get me wrong, AvantGo, and the whole syncing thing is great, especially if you spend time on trains, busses, airports, or meetings. Infra-red is a really great technology, and I'd like to see it's use more widely expanded, to include tv-remotes as well as whatever other standards are out there for transcieving via infra-red (ie IrDA, etc).
Bluetooth really takes the cake on connectivity, except for it's bloated stack, and silly implimentation. Wi-Fi or soft-modem technology would be a great alternative. Using bluetooth, I can synchronize my Nokia 3650 without even taking it out of my pocket - nuts a-frying be damned. This is something far more attractive than even more icky cables, and easier than pulling-out the device and pointing it at something.
Having a Nokia 3650, I take pictures all the time, so it's nice to bluetooth them at my workstation, or drag them from my phone onto my desktop. I can do this while my phone is charging in the other room!
All of the features I used to use my Palm for, work on my phone. Plus, I can take pictures, and make calls. This makes me not wonder why Sony stops making PDAs. Why do we need an additional device? Now, having more computing power, that's one benefit, but for special applications, and extended uses, a full-on PDA might make more sense.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
My mobile (Japanese PHS system) has a color screen plus all the usual bells and whistles and I swear I only need to charge it every week or so. Granted I don't get a lot of calls, but at least the standby time is great. It must be the different system.
As for PDAs, I started with a Newton years ago and up through a handspring and a clie, all of which I gave away after a while.
Now I just carry a little Moleskine notebook for PDA-type functions.
Really.
I'm not a Luddite or anti-technology, but the benefit of having a thing full of notes that will never be obsolete or need batteries is strong. (Don't worry, they're overpriced, too, satisfying that "spend" urge. )
For backups, I scan pages that I want to keep. I've even emailed scans to coworkers. It works well, as I have one of those scanners with a "single button scan" setup.
It never crashes and if I lose it, I'm only out the 15 bucks for a new one.
My writing is better, too, as I use the notes I make in the book as a reference when I type it into my powerbook later.
I really love not having to charge it.
No wall-wart to buy funky European adapters for.
Great tactile experience: Good paper that you can use with a fountain pen. It's just the right size. The strap makes a satisfying "snap" sound. It's black. I even sketch occasionally.
For input, my current choice is a sterling silver Parker 75. $40 from an antique shop.
My PDAs were never this useful. No phone interface will ever be this useful, though a camera phone could easily take photos of the pages in the book and mail them to your regular email account or even to your blog as appropriate.
There's also the "cafe coolness" factor. I never felt like really putting thoughts and impressions into my PDA. I do with the notebook. Even an occasional watercolor, though it hasn't replaced my Nikon. It's a pleasure to sit at a cafe and actually WRITE something.
Of course, it doesn't do audio or video, but I have an iPod that I rarely carry anymore and a PowerBook that shows video full-screen when I want that, which never happens to be when I'm out somewhere where I wouldn't have my laptop.
-- My Weblog.
I am responsible for IT matters in a company with 28 remote sites. Although I'm never 'on call' after working hours, I need to be 'available' for consulting on technical issues nearly 24/7 but I also have a life (honest!). If I'm 'out and about' I can still access any of our network resources via my GPRS mobile phone and a bluetooth link to an iPAQ PDA. The PDA acts as a:
1) SSH terminal (pockeTTY) for our Linux servers
2) Remote Desktop to our Windows servers
3) Remote support tool for desktop PCs using a Pocket PC version of VNC.
Plus of course the usual Web browsing and email checking.
The PDA means I can go out without lugging a laptop everythwere or having to go home or to the nearest office if there's a minor crisis. With the PDA I can 'dial in' from almost anywhere - a few months ago I fixed a print spool problem on a Windows 2000 server while the passenger in a car travelling along the M4 motorway in the UK, and more recently I took a 10 minute 'timeout' from a meal in a Chinese restaurant to reprogram a router. The alternative would be for me to stay in all the time.
I have tried a smartphone for all of this but the screens are just not big enough.
AT&ROFLMAO
It's my personal opinion that PDAs do not serve much more than a personal organizer or a toy for 90% of the people out there. Most people do not need a personal organizer, let alone most of the other functions on a PDA.
PDA input is awkward still in most cases. We don't have voice input unless you're recording audio - and a specialized device is still better at that. Handwriting recognition is finickey at best, and chic-key keyboards are only marginally better.
It would be my suspicion that PDAs were so wildly popular for a couple years there because of Star Trek and its tricorders - people wanted those nifty tricorders, but jumped the gun a bit. However, PDAs don't have enough practical use for the common person. Even for business use, PDAs seem to be a niche market for those that are more into technology. A pad of paper is often less hastle and more convenient for most folks, what with battery concerns, keeping it from falling on the floor, etc.
I don't think PDAs will become truely useful for most people until they become the "ultimate information tool" with little tinkering - a digital keychain, of sorts. Use it to store your unlock codes for your car, use it as a TV remote, use it as a dictionary, use it with GPS and for referencing city maps, and use it to communicate.
I'm sure there are a lot of interesting, truly useful features which will crop up in the next couple of years. Current phones seem to be going in that general direction, but at htis point they've just got gimicky features - much like the first PDAs were themselves - such as cameras. The market might very well kill itself off (due to the quickly-evolving cell phone networks), but if not, I suspect highly-integrated "communicators/tricorders" will become all the more niche, while most people stick to the phone + camera.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
PDAs are going away? Did they ever get started?
Since the early days of these PDA devices, I have always found them to be overrated, lacking in features and too expensive for what they do.
My wife and I own two PDAs, but they both mostly collect dust. I bring mine with us on vacation so that I have easy access to a bunch of information, but that's about it.
I would love to be able to combine my PDA and Cell Phone into a single device. Basically, I want a mobile phone with the 3 basic PDA functions: Contact list, Calendar, Todo list.
However, I have never seen a model that does this well for a decent price.
I see alot of crappy devices with features I don't need: I don't need 16-million battery draining colors, I don't want a video camera in my PDA and an mp3 player is nice but not necessary.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
/. is largely populated by faithful, Unix-loving geeks who view anything to do with Microsoft as The Great Satan.
The Unix model of programming is to have one tool do one thing well and another to do another thing well. This is why so many text editors, etc. The Microsoft model is to have one tool with the kitchen sink and more.
Having a separate phone and PDA neatly fits the Unix model. The phone is there to make calls and can also act as a modem (Bluetooth is your friend). The PDA is for email, contacts, checkbook, notes, etc.
By contrast, smartphones represent Gatesian bloat and feature creep. They are, inevitably, a half-assed kludge of the two that do both things half-assed but neither particularly well. Usually, you end up with a PDA on a cell-phone sized screen.
Sony's failure had nothing to do with the PDA market being dead. Granted, it's not like it was in the boom days, but it's far from dead. No, Sony's latest units were huge, overpriced ($600 or so), and used their proprietary memory format that just happened to cost double or triple what the others did. Hell, the NX60 (?) had a CF slot, but it only accepted Sony's proprietary wifi adapter. A Sandisk CF wifi adapter costs on the order of $30. Sony's cost $150.
Personally, my Palm Tungsten T has all the usual PDA stuff on it (contacts, calendar, note pad, etc.) plus my checkbook, several games, and an MP3 player. Oh, and did I mention that it also has Bluetooth *and* uses industry-standard SD/MMC cards?
Score another one for open standards.
I've had various PDAs; none of them helped me to achieve anything. Most of them were presents that I used for roughly 2-4 weeks after receiving them. Most of the time I used the because I either had nothing to do or during boring lectures when I enterntained myself with some stupid games. With this in mind, I declared PDAs absolutely useless and decided to sell all of them. I have been PDA free for over a year and it feels good.
First of all, PDA means having one more thing that I need to use. If I want to use my cell phone, I need to get the numbers from PDA into the cell phone, if I get a new phone number via a phone call (caller ID), it means that I have to put it into my PDA. Then there is Address Book and iCal that sit on my Application folder on my Mac. I need to syncronize them with my PDA and the phone that has been out of sync with my PDA. The fun never stops. The best part of having a PDA or a cell phone that remembers numbers for you is the fact that you do not know any of the phone numbers!
I decided to cut back on automation once my mom moved into a new house. She had a new phone number that I stored in PDA. I was too freaky lazy to put it into my phone and when I lost the PDA I realized that I did not know my moms phone number. It was the first time in my life when I understood that without that damn PDA I could not call any of my friends. Fuck, that totally sucked!
I sold all my PDAs, got rid of the cell phone (the landline works just as well, thank you very much!) and decided to keep all my information on my computer via Address Book and iCal. My computer is backuped on a regular basis, therefore I am not afraid of losing important information. Moreover, now I am actually forced to memorize phone numbers and it feels great. I can call almost everybody I know without checking some freaking device. I have less things to carry in my pockets and if I am bored while riding a bus, I read.
I do not think that any of PDAs that are currently out on the market can justify their costs. The built-in cameras suck, most of the features are designed either to drain the battery or to purchase more accessories from that specific vendor. Going back to paper organizers was not for me; therefore, I decided to settle for the solution that came with my G4. It is not the best option, but it was there already. I am sure that there are certain products for Windows and *Nix that can do the same thing.
I think the next step of PDA evolution should be to either integrate more useful things into them (IR-related tools, mostly, to interact with all those IR gadgets about today's modern environment), or for a form factor change away from the awkward square single-hand "palmtop" device.
If the second evolution, this is why: PDAs are much more powerful than the data assistants of 5+ years ago, and are even as powerful, if not more powerful than, the desktop processors of the time. They could do a Lot More than they are currently being used for - glorified contact books and notepads, with a little bit of playing cards and fooling around. Even holding a square PDA is a strain on the wrist for a prolonged period of time - it's awkward.
When I bought my laptop, I was looking for something that was ultra portable, sturdy, and had good battery life. I couldn't find anything on the market with a reasonable price which fit my needs and could still serve as a short-term-use device (ie, something I could use for a day or two, and then sync with a workstation/server, only keeping small amounts of work at a time). There is currently nothing in the market which provides a full day's worth of battery life and allows for use as a general use computing device (and by "general computing" I mean geeky shit, not Word and solitaire).
I see the technology employed in handhelds as ideal for this. The Sony Clie Communicator (to be RIP shortly, it would seem), as well as the already extinct clamshell Zaurus were steps in the right direction, I feel - but they stopped short by failing to have a 10-finger keyboard. They also cost obscene amounts of money - largely, I suspect, due to the novelty of such a device.
I imagine there's a fairly large undeveloped market for devices with 4x3 aspect ratio screens with 10-finger typeable keyboards, sturdy construction (aka, TI calculator/gameboy classic sturdy), and day-long portable use characteristics. I can imagine paying $600 for such a device personally - even if the technical specification is less than current 'cutting edge' PDAs - because there is a significant amount of functionality which is gained by having durability and full-fledged typing characteristics.
I imagine an inexpensive solidstate 'laptop'/typeable PDA/palmtop/whatever could be made for under $1000, and maybe even $600, quite reasonably and would see a fair amount of sales, considering the popularity of some similar attempts in the past - the original Libretto, the Fujitsu Lifebook P1000, and any number of others. I imagine the actual cost would be roughly 800$+, though, as demand would likely make them fairly expensive. Considering the cost of a Sony Clie peg-ux50 is $600 and comes with a built-in camera and wireless, and the Zaurus SL-C860 can be found for $700 with much more impressive statistics than the Clie. Here's what I imagine could be made for such a general fee:
- Xscale 400MHz CPU
- 96Mb RAM
- 64Mb storage
- 640x460 res screen of moderate (5"? 6"?) size
- typeable keyboard (large enough for an average person to fit a full set of hands on)
- TypeII CF and SD Card slots
- direct USB connectivity to other devices
- a microphone and an earphone jack
- a reasonably rich operating environment (I'm thinking Linux/Qtopia, as you'd be able to do actual work)
- a sturdy titanium case w/ rubber corner pads
- a 10 hour battery (which the clie communicator has)
- possibly built in wifi, or an easy way to 'perminantly' add it (so as to not require the use of a wifi CF card when a CF storage device is in use)
The basic idea here would be for an ultraportable device which wouldn't need a seperate keyboard, and could be used for a full day's worth of work on a single charge of a standard battery for actual productive work (coding, presentation, whatever). I believe that I've heard there already are similar products in Japan; they just haven't made their way over here yet in serious number.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I never have to worry that data on my Palm Tungsten might leak out, via Bluetooth or a cellular network.
I can look up info on my Palm while talking on my cellphone.
I can carry my LG 5250 cellphone easily in my hand while I jog.
I can hand someone my cellphone to use and not worry if they wander into another room to talk.
Recently, I dropped off my cellphone at the cell provider store to get the firmware updated. I'd certainly not feel confident doing that with all my PDA data on it.
I have a tiny Motorola cell phone with no gimmicks or doodads aside from being a wireless modem. A Dell Axim PDA I bought for $250 on Ebay that I use daily. And a Dell Latitude LS subnotebook if I need more juice.
The phone is perfect for me: tiny, loooong battery life. For phone use it's perfect, slips in a shirt pocket and weighs nothing, goes 5 days without a charge.
The PDA carries all my contact info and schedules, a CF full of about 100 ebooks I'm in the process of reading, 3 states for TomTom GPS Navigator, and email, notes, etc. I've got a carmont for it, I can connect my Motorola to it with a slim cable and get online to use Terminal Services to reboot my servers or check my email. I can read at night in bed without annoying the girlfriend with a light. It charges every other day or so. It gets the most use from GPS in the car (powered), or reading (low-power).
For working on the road, I take the laptop. The same slim cable connects to my Motorola for use as a modem, anywhere, anytime. Or, stumble onto an open hotspot with my USB key wifi.
For me, it's the perfect troika. No one tool could do all those functions with the same convenience. Until those handtop PCs are under $500, I'm happy with this combo.
Anybody remember Hasbro's "Clueless Organizer", in bright pink, aimed at high school girls?
What we really need is a standard for hot-synching all the low-end devices.
The PDA isn't dead. It's changing. The need for wireless was grossly underestimated. As for the comments about scanning pill bottles, you're not talking about something that a doctor would do, that's a nurse, or a lab tech. You're talking about jobs for at least 3 different people in a hospital. And those jobs are going to be treated differently. If you think a barcode scanner will help a doctor, you might think again. A doctor rarely will need it. A doctor writes prescriptions, orders tests and x-rays. If they dispense anything, it's with a nurse assisting them. The nurse might need a barcode reader.
PDAs are not a gimmick. For years, meetings were much more convenient with the previous days' take of email and info at hand... saving a lot of time running back and forth without a laptop. Are you trying to tell me that all that convenience was wasted? A PDA/cell phone wouldn't have done me any good.
Sony has hinted that they will attack the PDA market without the high-branded CLIE "we've got every feature you could imagine" attitude. They've hinted that the market for the PDA will be specific features, more focused, lower-priced.
Frankly, wireless would be the feature I'm most interested in. And to all you clods crying "Bluetooth r0xx0rs." Balloney. The last thing I need is another dumb box sitting on or around my home machines. Wireless router/firewall, cable modem, USB 1.1 hub (for an old machine that can't get USB 2), USB2, firewire, KVM switch, and now you want bluetooth? Get a life.
I've found a really good PDA without the one feature I want most... 802.11 wireless, but they stuck a f-ing 1meg video cam on the thing. I have 2 mini-DV cameras that fit in my palm. Why would I want somethign that does 240 x 180 in a PDA? Huh? Who's the brain surgeon here? As for wireless, I don't care which format, I can handle all 3. I don't want an add on module that sticks out 3 inches. I want something small. I don't need a phone. If I switch phone companies, I'm screwed. I want it separated. I'm sick of the phone companies locking features away, or charging $10 a month for something that should be free.
Speaking of phones, I want to be able to put my own ringtones in the phone. I don't want to have to pay some schmuck in NJ $2.95 to try out Battle Hymn of the Republic on my cell phone.
And, I don't want to pay $10 a month to send 125 text messages with a cellphone keypad. It's f-ing ridiculous. I don't want to pay $600 for a PDA phone either. I really want them separate. I want to be able to tell my cell phone provider to take a hike if they can't provide service. I'd like to be able to take my PDA with me when and if I left my phone carrier.
-- No sig for you!
I own two ipaq H3600's first thing I
did was dump the Pocket PC crap and
put linux on them. With a pcmcia sleeve,
a 10/100 integrated card, and real
trouble shooting tools like tcpdump.
They are the cat's meow when you find
yourself in drop ceiling with a hub
someone stuck there years ago and forgot
about. Last time I pulled out my PDA
in that situation, the tech I was
working with would have killed for
one. If you are trouble shooting a network
problem that takes you into a attic or
into a crawl space that laptop is
not the animal you want to use.
Install prismstumbler and add a
directional antenna, getting a idea
of what the wireless neighborhood
looks like is a piece of cake.
Contacts, phone numbers, notes hell
I got a cheap Casio device that's
better for that stuff and If it gets
run over by a car tire I'm out less
then $50.00.
Great tools do only ONE thing, but do that ONE thing very, very well.
Why oh why can't someone produce a decent PAD like they used for passing reports around on Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise?
I had a Jordana for several years and recently replaced it with a iPAQ 4150 (the smallest iPAQ with built in wireless lan). I know this will cause a sharp intake of breath, but as I use Windows the integration with Outlook is superb. I love the way I can copy important information on notes in Outlook and I know it will sync automatically onto the PDA. Over and above the usual contact and diary info too of course.
Other functions are less useful, but nice to have. I have written short articles in Word on a PDA - slow, but beats humping the laptop - used the browser (+ mobile phone) to find train timetable information on the move, and used it to keep up with email while on holiday.
But, it could be improved. True portability at PDA size is nice, but I'd sacrifice a little of that for a larger screen. Which brings me back to the Star Trek PADs. The ones they carry around on Enterprise are about twice the size of a PDA, which seems to me to be ideal. A PDA with a 640 x 480 screen at around twice current PDA width would be great. Small enough to be easily portable but big enough not to feel cramped. Ideally it would fold in hald for transport too
With my iPod doing most of what my palm can do as far as reading documents and having my calendars and contacts, as well as a few games and a buttload of music, I find that my Palm does not get used as much as it used to.
If the iPod had a way to enter contact and calendar information with using a computer, then I would find little use for my palm other than having my Filemaker databases, word files and few cool games. Syncing the iPod is certainly much faster than syncing my palm.
... so this is really just a semantical argument. What we're really saying here is that *unconnected* PDA's are on the way out, which I think is true for a lot of devices. Hell, they're even putting Bluetooth into cars.
The major PDA manufacturers are in fact shifting toward producing such connected devices - PalmOne has publically stated this on several occcasions. Within a year almost every PDA will have either telephony and/or WiFi.
And since instant messaging is rapidly emerging as a Killer App for connected devices, imputting methods are going to evolve beyond the simple phone keypads we all know and love. A phone with a QWERTY keypad, for example, and a decent screen looks a lot like, well, a PDA.
Whether the traditional *PDA* players can remain in the game is another question, but we'll still be carrying around devices with our schedules and a few games on them, and they'll make pleasent beeping sounds as well.
You can call them anything you want if it makes you feel better.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
I couldn't live without my Palm IIIxe. Ebooks on the bus, note-taking in meetings, studying with SuperMemo on potty breaks, are too deeply imbedded in my life now to give up. So if PDAs are dead, what will I do when my Palm's buttons stop working? I'm already on PDA #3 due to worn-out buttons.
If the PDA does die, it will be by suicide: WinCE, massive RAM increases, wireless, etc., all nudge PDAs into the space already occupied by laptops. In that niche, they're doomed--a PDA just isn't as good as a laptop at being a laptop.
That's why I've reluctantly retired my Zaurus and gone back to Palm. What's the use of a handheld that can run MySQL, if the batteries last about 40 minutes?
(The IIIxe sits right in the sweet spot for me: enough RAM for a dozen ebooks; battery life measured in weeks; small form factor; acceptable resolution; easily replaced batteries available from any store; standard serial interface that can talk to my XP, Linux, Mac and GPS. And graffiti kicks the thumb-keyboard's posterior.)
Think about it. The hardware makers treated PDA's as disposable. They keep replacing previous models instead of upgrading them. I don't think people have lost interest in using PDA's. There are plenty in use all around my office. I just think "we" just got collectively tired of blowing $400+ every year for something that still works. Also, many geeks have gone on belt diets. I for one have gotten tired of haveing a pager for work, my personal cell phone, an iPaq, and my ipod on my belt. In the fight for space, the iPaq and pager lost. I just routed the pages to my personal phone, put my notes on the ipod and replaced my watch with a Fossil MSN direct watch that has my calendar. Now I only have a cell and ipod on my belt.
"What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter."
I've been using PalmOS based PDAs since the fist PalmPilot was released and digital organizers prior to that. I don't leave home without my PDA ever.
I have a very hard time understanding how the average person goes through their day without one. I use mine for contact information, calendaring, games, looking up words (carrying a dictionary with you at all times is absolutely fantastic), cached websites(updated twice a day), belive it or not I use that cheezy mirror program that turns your screen black so you can see your reflection better all the time, universal remote, informational databases, notepad, password storage (how the hell do people remember all of their passwords? I have over 50 passwords and the list is growing), family photos, ebooks,...I could go on but you get the point.
I believe the market has gone sour for a few reasons:
A. Modern cell phones do most of the basic PDA functions. B. Old PDAs do most of the basic PDA functions. C. Most people don't own and have never owned a PDA before so they don't know what their missing.
Like I originally stated however, their just going through a transitional period. Once the technology advances to the point that we have phones with month long power supplies, MP3 players, high quality digital cameras and PDA functionality that will make our current PDAs look like calculators (oh yea, I use my PDA as a calculator as well).
^^vv<><>BA
A serious multifunction device - somewhere closer to a smaller tablet PC, than a PDA. My pocketPC is limited by is display size and software - it is quite capable(in terms of memory and processing) of doing a whole lot more than my main computer 5 years ago.
If they were to use some clamshell or flexible screen design to make a larger (100mm square) screen, with resolutions up to 800x600, continuing with Arm rpocessors at around 400-800 mhz - these would be small scale general purpose compuing device. I would definately own a general purpose device that could be stored in my pocket.
Communication wise - the device would need to provide Wi-Fi and bluetooth access, with a VoIP system when in range of a Wi-Fi AP and switching to cellular when not. You would have a BlueTooth ear/mouth peice, so all calls would be routed to it, with a stereo option for playing games/listening to mp3s.
An optional fold out keyboard - or simply a mini-usb port for desktop keyboard access would be welcome.
Memory wise - it should be possible to expand main memory, or flash storage. I would recommend CF (for microdrives). Both main memory and storage should be non-volatile - as an eseential feature of the device, and any software for it - is the ability to shut it down - preserving state - anywhere. This would include any games - and having them well written enough that pop-ups and alarms do not crash the machine (pocket PC - scummvm - popups mean crashes).
I would retain the touch screen and stylus, as well as one-touch dictation/recording.
Anyway - this is probably very niche - I do not know how many people would appretiate truly general purpose handheld devices...
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