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PDA Sales Fall for Third Year in Row
A reader writes "Reports ZDNet
on how PDA sales have slipped for a third year in a row now at a five-year low." Anyone have numbers for sales of cell phones? My cell phone has almost every piece of functionality I got from my PDA 3 years ago. Plus a crappy camera. Still no dice roller.
This doesn't surprise me. I am selling my T3 Tungsten Palm right now, and it's because I just don't use it. I mean, I *want* to use it, or, more accurately, I want to *need* to use it, but it's just not something I keep with me constantly.
I am torn between being geeky and liking tons of devices, but also moving toward simplification as a central theme in my life. Simplication, in the world of gadgets, unfortunately means using a single, do-it-all device. That for me equates to my Blackberry, which I am now syncing with my OS X machine (I refuse to be a M** person).
Anyway, that's the trend I think -- single devices doing everything. Few people want to lug around multiple contraptions.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
It is a technology trend, noted by a study at UPenn that new technology almost always has a dip after its first big increase. So the jury is still out.
I personally had a Zaurus SL5500 which suffered from stupid autonomy problems as well as a poor ergonomy and a lack of decent performance (try to edit a decently sized Excel sheet in his spreadsheet).
So, I swapped it for a read-only PDA : An iPod, that is.
I think people now either get a smartphone or an iPod for such needs.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
TFA states that no Blackberry or Blackberry-like devices were counted.....Could this have pulled the numbers up?
I think the line between pda/cell phone is starting to blur....Might as well have counted the Blackberry....Hell, you can do most of what you need to on a PDA on a cell phone these days. And they come free/relatively cheap with new service
thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
Another thought is that modern mobile phones have more akin with PDAs (albiet in a different format package) than they do with older generation phones and that the 'phone' feature was the killer applications.
that are replacing pda functionality. Hell, even the iPod has most of the functions of a basic pda sans an input method. I use it as my pda because my phone sucks, I just plug it into the cradle at night and it charges, updates my calendar, to do list, contacts etc.
Might not be good for people who constantly have to write stuff down, but for me it does what I need to do, oh yeah and plays music.
Monstar L
I took mine back when I found out that you could not point them at a settlement and see on the readout how many humanoid life forms there were in it, and that they were not capable of detecting nearby warp drive fields.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I only use my PDA nowadays for reading ebooks, nothing else.
Hail to the king, baby!
I am currently workign on a project where PDAs would be used in the industry. I helped a student with a thesis and attached project a year ago and I've had a HP Jornada 620 since 2000.
For every generation of the PDA the operating systems have gotten much slower, bloated, hiding necessary functions, doing the usual MS oversimplification of the interface (hiding file extensions, not actually closing the apps etc).
Add more crashes, data loss and an abysmal battery duration and I'd say it's no wonder why the PDA sales drop, especially with phones getting more and more PDA functionality.
PDAs never got their killer application, which could have been a few of: phone capability, superior data input method compared to phones, instant messaging, mail, cheaper packet based data transfer or porn.
I can only see one way PDAs can go, and that is to be smaller, have a longer battery duration and have phone and instant messaging support and by that definitely Edge/GPRS/UMTS or other 3G telephony and data transfer capability, in effect becoming a lot of things at once.
The only way this can be achieved is with a total rewrite or replacement of PocketPC/WindowsCE
When the PalmPilot came out I found that it could do 90% of what I could do on my Newton in a smaller package. I was using Grafiti on my Newton anyway, so it didn't make sense to keep using it.
Then I stopped taking notes on the Palm and just used it for calendar and contacts. One more thing to remember to take with me.
Now I can sync my (iCal) calendars and my address book to my iPod. I take that little white gem with me pretty much everywhere anyway, and it's doing 80-90% of what my PalmPilot did. And it "just works" on my Mac OS X box.
So it isn't a surprise that this is happening: few people really need to read and write email on the Blackberry. Can you not be disconnected for a few minutes a day?
MAC is supposed to natively talk to palm devices. I do not have first had knowledge, but Mom is the Technology coordinator at her gradeschool where everything is Macintosh. She has an older Symbol scanner/palm like they use in hospitals to help keep track of hardware. I know she didn't have to load any new software to get the palm and the Mac to talk.
I am using Windows and Linux, but I gave up trying to use a palm a while ago. I have a Garmin IQue that I really need to get working again, especially since I have a new job that puts me on the road a bit.
I hope someone has first hand information out there.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
" I've been thinking about getting one and syching it with OS X. How well have you been finding it works?"
Yes, it seems to be working quite nicely. Alarmed events from iCal don't come over with alarms in the device (unless I'm missing something), but other than that it seems pretty decent.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Not surprised...
I had a Palm Vx. Most stable piece of hardware I ever owned. But, then it got stolen from me at my workplace. (Bastards). I replaced it with a Palm Zire 71. Nice color screen. Software was slightly unstable. Sometimes it would freeze up while doing something (usually while playing a game).
I just replaced it with a Tungsten T5. The software is total crap. It fried its own memos database during a hotsync. Luckily I had a backup of that... and, oh yeah... Palm dropping the Universal Connector platform... real smart idea there.
Idiots. I'm not surprised.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
I just got a new PDA actually - a Tungsten E. I don't really need all the "bells and whistles" of some of the multi-media PDA's and converged cell-phone/PDA's out there right now. What I needed was new calculator. For a bit more than what a good calculator cost, the Tungsten E also provides the following:
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A way for me to keep a material/hardware reference commonly used in my industry right on hand via SD card (FAA document MMPDS-01 in case your wondering).
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A "lightweight" Octave (LyME) for more complex calculations (I use NeoCal otherwise).
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An organizer that's independant of my office scheduler so I can integrate my personal and work schedules without storing personal information on my office computer.
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A means to check my home e-mail without storing personal data on my work machine. (although I could use the web).
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A way to securely store my ever increasing number of passwords, pin #'s, etc. (yes, my handheld is password protected).
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So, for me, it works out. I thought about getting a converged phone/PDA, but I take my phone places I'd never take my PDA. A phone can be replaced, the data I have stored on my PDA would be a much more severe loss.
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Anyway, my 2 cents.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Simplication, in the world of gadgets, unfortunately means using a single, do-it-all device.
That will simplify one's cartage/storage needs - using one device is pretty straightforward, after all - but can very easily complicate other aspects.
I carry a laptop, a PDA (Clie), and a mobile phone. I don't need all of them all the time, so I carry what is necessary. However, if one item goes south I will still have the other two. If the all-in-one device breaks it becomes an all-are-gone. I find this unacceptable - YMMV.
Small all-in-one devices also frequently suffer from substandard input options and user interfaces. A fair compromise might be a PDA/phone device with an optional full-size (e.g. folding) keyboard, but that still leaves the user with the risk of losing all functionality with one mishap.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
you figure a lot of people that were happy to carry a Palm Pilot may have upgraded to a Treo (or one of the other Palm OS phones) and those do not count as PDA sales either.....
i have not carried my Palm in a few years, but if i was still willing to deal with the bulk of it i would have gotten a Treo already. my cell phone is not all that smart, but it keeps more contact info than just phone number, schedule, memo pad (to do list, shopping lists) and some other stupid things. i miss the Palm OS and the bonus apps.... but i do not miss the size of it.
Interestingly enough, this is how Opera makes most of it's money. While their PC browser is excellent, (IMHO), it's the ability to render sites on small screen's that's making the company money.
I was always skeptical of tablets until my business partner got one (he wasn't at the time).
:)
1. Impresses the hell out of potential clients, most of whom have not seen anything like it.
2. Makes it very easy for a designer to mark up a design during a client meeting.
3. Swivel screen is convenient when you're meeting with others and need to show them what's going on.
4. We carry our laptops everywhere anyway... no need for a PDA, especially when it can't match up on features and usability.
Now I want one.
Well, if you're using a Palm device there is a decent dice roller called Gamer's Dice Roller. Can't remember where I downloaded it from, but the help screen says...
http://palm.dahm.com/
Hope this helps!
"When half of your head is metal, having a few screws loose takes on a greater meaning". - Jack
Not only are mutli-functional cell phones talking away from pda sales but, now that we have wireless in our building, everyone in my office just carries their laptops to our meetings. No syncing necesary; just type your notes straight on the network. I do keep mine around (mainly out of force of habit) but I'm one of the few that do.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Therefore it isn't much of a surprise than standalone PDA's are dying when my current pda/phone combo is nearly the same size as a Nokia 7610 and comes with a decent input method (which always was the killer issue with using a standard phone pad to enter details), sends and receieves phone calls/sms/mms and works as a PocketPC with a large base of useful applications. A Nokia simply doesn't cut it and the SonyEricsson P9xx is only discounted because it's syncing with Outlook isn't particulary great (especially with the categorisation of tasks and notes).
A friend of mine is selling his iPaq after getting a Blackberry from work. Sure it doesn't have a NES emulator, PocketScumm and a few other of the niceties - but it does everything he needs.
I'm going to really hate having to give this back.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
My friend, you are talking about the PalmOne Treo 650 with SanDisk's Wi-Fi SD card.
I bought my Tungsten | E less than a year ago (April 2004). After less than three months, the chrome had completely chipped off the "down" button, last week its stereo jack stopped working, and the battery is on its way to dying.
I went to the Palm website to see about at least getting my TE's stereo jack fixed. Turns out the warranty only spans 90 days(!), after which repairs cost a $125 flat-fee(!!). Coincidence that this is almost as much as some new Palm handhelds? The support section of their website offers the following "advice:" Huh? Why would I spend $499 on a "new one" when I can easily obtain spare parts from a third party?. I smell the work of a MBA.
(I ended up opening up the Tungsten myself and soldering the headphone jack connections back into place. There was barely any solder on them to begin with. Hmmmmm....)
Now don't get me wrong, I like my TE and I use it a lot. It's just too bad that Palm designed a device that isn't meant to be used that much!
For $200 + shipping, you'd think they could give me something a little more sturdy.
It all depends where you are looking.
If you look at the smart phone sales figures they are skyrocketing, only stand-alone PDA unit sales are dropping.
The Register has an article that counts both sales figures together and has a nice table of figures at the end. Nokia alone shipped 4,949,5590 units with PDA functionality in Q4 2004.
It's 6ood xo see that somehbv4 else is vsing a Nevvton t0 make Slabbbot entries #
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
But where is the innovation? I want a few-gigas-hardrive (those I hear from toshiba might do the trick...), a nice-to-have-640x480-screen, decent battery, GSM/GPRS or UMTS, and even an integrated projector to do some presentations... I want a real personal assistant that makes me use it, or I will (again) leave my PDA at home and just bring along my cellular.
It seems the PDAs that come out simply don't have anything really new, besides an extra Mhz from a new Intel processor.
another report, from Canalys, shows that the recent trend is over 100% growth (doubling) in smartphones, while "PDAs" without phones shrank by about 5%. So clearly the trend is a transition to smartphones, rather than "PDAs are dying" - smartphones are PDAs, too. IDC's report is phrased to make Blackberry look good, without even mentioning their #1 competitor, Palm, which is the leader in the PDA/smartphone dual marketplace. #1 smartphone seller Nokia is surfing the same wave. But the real story, that PDAs, and Palm, have transitioned to smartphones, is the kind of story that the mainstream media missed when networking happened to PCs in the early 1990s. While the media was fascinated by their favorite corporate success, Microsoft's desktop rise, they all missed the Internet. Perhaps a similar benevolent neglect will help give the mobile Web the element of surprise when it delivers its own killer apps in the next couple of years.
--
make install -not war
A couple years back (and even today!) people whined about how Apple should make a PDA -- bring back the Newton, or whatever. Steve Jobs repeatedly said Apple isn't interested in that market; now we see why.
Sam
I had, successively, a Palm Vx, Sony-Ericsson P800 and now a Qtek S100. The latter two are not "PDAs" as such, but did not have anything to envy to any PDA. While I enjoyed the Vx a lot (probably the best Palm Pilot ever), I soon stopped carrying it around (keys + wallet + cell phone + palm = too much). It probably the best organizer ever, but there's just not enough room in my pockets... So I was overjoyed when the P800 came out. It really is a fantastic device. The form factor is ideal, and it's a really good phone. The best part is the sony "jogdial" (that small wheel on the side, whatever it's called) that allows you to do all you need with one finger. But the sync could be improved a lot, it only synchronised basic items with Outlook. Furthermore, there was no easy (or even logical) way to access phone specific items, such as contact photos. None the less, I loved this phone and kept it for two years until I broke it a while ago (bad fall). I thought of buying a P910, but SE had disapointed me with its marketing strategy. They never improved the sync and the P910 just seemed like a slightly upgraded P800. In addition, I had a really bad experience with a sony VAIO portable CD burner, which I paid a fortune 2 months before the release of XP, and never got XP drivers. So my impression of SE and Sony is that they release wonderful product from time to time, but don't expect any improvement or support for their products from them. The Qtek S100 (HTC Magician) goes around under several names, but it's basically a tiny Pocket PC with some mobile phones capabilities. So the Pocket PC part is excellent, albeit standard. The phone part is a bit disappointing however. It works fine, but the sound quality and form factor is not as good as the P800. I'm extremely happy with all it's pocket pc features (including skype) and wifi connectivity (with a special SD card) but I am disappointed by the phone. Overall, I would recommend it, but be aware that the phone experience is adequate but not fantastic.
Cell phone sales have risen 35%, and Nokia leads with 46 million cellphones sold in the 2nd quarter alone. That means Nokia sells approximately 185million cell phones a year, and thats only one company. Just mind boggling.
0 booming/2100-1016_3-5345047.html
http://news.com.com/Cell%20phone%20sales%20keep%2
So how is it surprising that sales have dropped now that 99% of those people have their PDAs?
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
Smartphones will continue to get better and PDAs, like boomboxes and those camcorders you used to attach to a VCR, will be another personal electronics form-factor that just won't make much sense in a few years.
Seriously my phone costs $0. My Palm is quite old but I could replace it for less than $200 bucks. If I want those functions in my phone I have to pay AT LEAST twice that amount. On the other hand there are already crude features like that in my phone but no way to connect them to my PC or any other service I can think of.
I mean how many of you have a cheap candy bar or flip phone that has an obscure data port connector in the bottom that no one can describe to you what it does or sell you a cable of any kind that will connect to it? Let alone show you some software that will at least sync to a Palm desktop or something quick and dirty?
I bet the numbers are huge.
On the other hand I think that people are discovering that PDAs are for the most part unusable devices on their own. Everyone has struggled for years with Graffiti, T9, Fitaly and all the others. Data entry just sucks. And when you're done entering data, then what? Are you really going to trade your stock portfolio i real time with one? Are you really going to bust out that Powerpoint presentation?
Nah, you're going to browse the sports pages, the weather report, CNN and that's about it besides some games.
So PDS sales are decreasing because PDA function really hasn't increased in 5 years. We're still limited in the same ways doing the same halfassed things we were doing 5 years ago.
I'll tell you what I use my PDA for: Avantgo, the address book, a DB of passwords and special calendars I need. Everything else is a waste of time.
But - if phone companies could provide this level of functionality I'd dump my PDA in a second. Even with the smaller screen and reduced battery life.
Does anyone find the utility of a PDA somewhat limited? I mean the form factor is somewhat limited and what do you actually use it for >? Contacts? Schedule? I have owned 5 PDAs and I simply find them too muc work to effectively use.
Thalasar
I have always loved the "idea" of a PDA, but I have never found one that meets the "idea."
My idea was that a PDA was a portable interface to a larger, networked computing environment, not just a portable hand held version of your desktop. You use your PDA as a portable means to access applications and data residing on the network with a little compute power in you hand for other things.
The reality is, unfortunately, this just doesn't exist. The network wasn't there and when it was, a PDA couldn't connect to it - it has only been recently that you could get 802.11x connectivity for you Palm. WinCE\WindMobile devices like the iPAQ had them but they were difficult to configure (type a 28 character WEP key in by hand with a stylus?!?!). And once you got them configured, what to use them for except surfing the net.
And then there are the other technical issues. If I leave my iPAQ in my bag overnight or over a weekend and the battery is sucked dry, it is the equivelent of a soft-reset. I loose many of my installed programs and data as the device resets to factory settings. They aren't easily upgradable for the expense of buying one. The data storage and capabilities of some of the OS are lacking. I would love to run full JVM (or at least a stripped down version that is customizable) on a PDA.
Just imaging an environment where your PDA can run some fairly powerful programs, can easily connect, or be configured to connect, to a network. It can display highspeed graphics, dynamically download code (via say Jini) and can connect to devices and service with say jxta - one minute it can be your remote control for the TV\DVD\Stereo, the next your VOIP soft phone, the next you are using an application to enter data at work. This PDA can be easily upgraded and wounldn't lose data unless you format the storage device.
Until the day comes when all of this is available in a consumer device rather than a geek-hacked, one-off experiment (cuz I know ALL of the above can be done with the right tools, apis and a soldering iron), PDAs will never live up to thier promise.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha