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Why Have PDAs Failed In The iPod Era?
mikejz84 writes "As the owner of a PocketPC PDA I am a very happy camper, with wifi internet access, Skype Voip, video playback, and of course the ubiquitous mp3 playback. In an era were everyone seems to talk about the Video iPod, and the next generation of mobile devices, it leaves me wondering - I already have all those abilities in a PDA that costs about as much as an iPod. My question for Slashdot: Given that modern PDAs have almost all the functionality of these separate devices, how has Palm and Microsoft/PocketPC developers failed in making PDAs a force in this new era of portable media devices? It is the poor marketing, bad media apps, public perception, or do people simply not want an all-in-one for mobile media?"
Because I don't need or care for a PDA.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I'll change one word to two words - drive space.
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
Possibly the most idiotic mac-fanboi statement I have ever read.
Yes, you could fit all your music on there. But would you really need to. I'm happy just having a device that carries around 10 hours of music. 15000 songs on a portable device just sounds like too much to me. Is music that bad that you can't listen to a song more than twice in a week? And what's the point of listening to lossless audio formats on earbud headphones, while walking down the street in the city, with tons of other noise interfering with your music. At that point, nobody can tell the difference.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Yeah, no kidding. I have no pity for people who after all these years buy anything from Redmond and expect it to work. I have been using Nokias for years and have never had any problems with them. Meanwhile all my friends get these new whiz bang phones that are supposed to sport bunch of new features and turn out to have horrible user interfaces, unreliable call reception, etc. Oh well, I'm sure we'll be reading from you in a few months^H^H^H^H^H^Hyears about how bloated and unreliable/unsecure/unstable Vista is and why can't you just buy an OS that just works...
Why do so many people prefer to buy a $5,000 rolex than a $20 Casio, when the casio can do far more, is much more accurate, and doesn't stop working when you put it down for more than a day? If you take a look at the wrist of the typical pocket PC user, you are far more likely to find a functional, inexpensive watch than a status symbol. If you take a look at a guy carrying an ipod, i can GURANTEE he will not be wearing a Casio. I cannot understand the mindset of someone who buys a Rolex, just like I do not understand the mindset of someone who buys an Ipod. A couple of years back I bought a $5,000 watch, because I had the money and was sick of hearing from my friend "you have to own one to understand". Well, 6 months later, it was on Ebay. I was even more confused than ever why someone with money would want to own a watch that has to be reset whenever you put it down for more than a day. (and please, don't try to explain it to me, I've heard it all before and it still makes no sense to me.) I wear a $200 citizen on my wrist that tells the time in unlimited time zones that I can program in, has a stopwatch, day, date, two alarms, coundown timer, and both an analog and digital display. I use many of the functions regularly. To me, only someone with an inferior mind would ever own a rolex or an ipod. To them, I am probably seen as a nerd. Just like you could never convince the in-crowd in high school to spend their time at a computer club meeting instead of the mall, you could never convince them today to own a pocket PC. The point I am making is that this discussion should not be about failings of the pocket PC, but rather some core psycological differences that different people have. My honest take is that Ipod and rolex owners have weaker minds, so they buy things they can easily undersand (ipod), and own expensive watches to compensate for their mental failings.