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.

Comments

There can be only one...

[danielrm26]

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.

Re:There can be only one...

[Eric Giguere]

Note that smartphone sales are on the rise. Standalone PDAs are suffering, but the integrated devices are taking off.

Eric
J2ME articles and stuff

Re:There can be only one...

[gstoddart]

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 have found this with every variation on organizers, day-planners, scheduling software, etc. They're fun to look at and play with for a few days, and you try to convince yourself this time you'll actually use it.

The reality is, some people (like me) just don't use that kind of organizing tool and it's just a gadget. I know a lot of people who don't/won't use any such critter. I figure except for a small fraction of people, most people simply do not need this kind of thing.

Maybe they've already sold them to everyone who cares.

Re:There can be only one...

[mikers]

They're fun to look at and play with for a few days, and you try to convince yourself this time you'll actually use it.

Maybe you just never found your killer app. I did.

The PDA for me has worked the best as a raw text entry device. I used it in any university and extension courses where there is a huge amount of text or material that doesn't involve a lot of math or derivations or drawing (like History, Economics, Marketing. I even used it in my Intro to Databases course). Occasional diagrams can be put on a paper notepad, but try doing text search through 100 pages of notes. Or cleaning up and reorganizing notes -- talk about time consuming and clunky.

Plain text editing without all the formating crap is where its at on PDAs. Unfortunately, this required an external keyboard, something others didn't dish out for. Data entry techniques on the PDAs without a keyboard are almost impossible, and built in keyboards like the zaurus are almost useless.

Contrast this with taking a notebook computer to class. In university, my experience has been that usually the people using them are just fiddling with fonts, or colors or text layout... Anything but actually taking notes. It seems to be more a toy than an actual tool -- something to show off. But with my pda, I had no fonts or text layout to play around with: I could just take notes. And its tiny compared to a notebook computer, 10% of the cost and liability, the battery lasts weeks (besides being easy to replace at 2 AAA batteries) and it is light and small.

Re:There can be only one...

[Java Ape]

LOL! I am the laughing stock of WSU, where I'm working on an M.S. in computer science. EVERYONE has a laptop, and most of them play games or chat during lecture. I bring a $0.75 spiral notebook and a pencil, just like when I was a kid.

It works surprisingly well -- I get highly-formatted text, including greek and cyrillic characters as needed. I can reproduce complex drawings, including simple gray-scale shading. In shorthand mode, I can capture output in near real time, and in high-quality output mode other students can generally read my notes. Pretty amazing things, these pencils.

I watched a fellow student using both thumbs to frantically poke tic-tac sized buttons on his PDA's integrated keyboard, and offered him a piece of paper and a spare pencil. "No way", he said, "this is a $500 PDA!". Sigh.

Yes but

[2.7182]

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.

No Blackberrys?

[thewldisntenuff]

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

It's not just cell phones

[antifoidulus]

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.

because

[myom]

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

Re:because

[Glock27]

The only way this can be achieved is with a total rewrite or replacement of PocketPC/WindowsCE

It's called "PalmOS". PalmSource has announced a future version will be based on Linux, which is exciting.

Now if someone will just build some compelling hardware... :-)

Wearable devices are a dark horse in all this also, and might make a better base for converged comm/computer functionality (since you can comfortably carry bigger batteries that way).

About "converged" devices....

[StressGuy]

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:
-
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).
-
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.
-
-
Anyway, my 2 cents.

Simplicity counterpoint

[sczimme]

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.

Declining Quality?

[cyranoVR]

Unfortunately, it seems that PalmOne's current strategy isn't to innovate, but to make crappy devices that need to be replaced after 9-12 months.

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:"

palmOne does not provide replacements for lost or out-of-warranty parts and accessories. If the warranty has expired for your accessory, we recommend you purchase a new one (palmOne Store).

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.