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The Cell Phone-PDA Revolution
bdavenport writes "Several sites have stories on the unification of cell and PDA technology. Check out MSNBC and Wired. " This whole handheld convergence thing is an area where the Europeans seem to be well ahead of the U.S. - and everyone else. I still like my big monitor and keyboard, though. The WWW on a palm-sized screen seems to lose some of its flavor.
If you think of mobile internet access as the web, only smaller,
slower and worse, you're missing the point. Sure, accessing the WWW
via a handheld can be a great timekiller on the train, but the real
promise of connected mobile computing its that it allows the
introduction of computers and associated benefits in areas where you
normally don't see computers at all: think of doctors making the
rounds and having instant access to their patients journals, salesmen
that always can check the inventory and place orders from anywhere,
construction workers who have instant access to instructions, work
flow, incoming deliveries etc.
And you people who whine that if everyone wrote correct HTML 4.0, the
whole world would be nice and rosy: Give it a rest! For example, the
kind of information that you want on a PDA or cell phone display is
drastically different than what you want on a normal computer
screen. For example, the normal Slashdot front page might be perfect
HTML 4.0 Strict, but it still doesn't display great on a PDA because
of the navigation sidebars, slashboxes and other stuff that doesn't
make sense on a PDA. And you certainly don't want to download 50k of
HTML on todays wireless links (between 1.2 and 9.6 kbps,
typically). XML, combined with different XSL style sheets for
adopting the information to different requirements, goes a long way to
make things better here. WML (The markup language of WAP, Wireless
Application Protocol) builds on, and improves the HTML concepts with a
number of very useful concepts (Deck of cards and variable
substitution, to name a few). HTML simply cannot adapt to these kinds
of requirements.
One last thing, about the eventual merge of the PDA and the cellphone:
A lot of people seem to take for granted that a solution where
different devices each do one thing well (voice communication,
display, computing, storage, wireless/radio connectivety, to name a
few things), is the only sane way to go. If bluetooth (for the lower
layers of communication) and Jini or Universal PnP (for the upper
layers) take of, we might indeed see this vision become reality. But
there will always be room for an end-all solutions that does all of
these things in an integrated unit, with excellent integration between
the different capabilities (check out the Nokia 9110, for example). If
configuring your personal BAN (Body Area Network) becomes as
complicated as getting a Windows PC, a Linux Box and a Mac to share
files, printers and outside network connections, then we really
haven't learned anything about usability in the last 15 years....
Check your urls. It's AvantGo (no "d") and ProxiNet (with an "i", now a "y").
--'puter Geezer
I think the decision of whether or not you want one box or two is mostly dependent on whether or not you always carry both. I do, and for that reason I would love a Qualcomm pdQ, but since (a) Sprint doesn't have them yet, and (b) they cost a LOT, especially for last generation Palm technology, I decided for now on a Qualcomm Thin Phone as an adjunct to the trusty Palm Pro. The biggest downside to this approach is that you really can't carry both in your jeans pockets. (The rectangle worn on the left front pocket of my jeans is the geek equivalent of a Copenhagen ring on the back pocket of a kicker's jeans...)
Bluetooth will solve the two-box problem just after improved microelectronics make it irrelevant (at least in this context) by shrinking phone and PDA components to the curent size of a Palm V.
Why doesn't anyone build a CDMA phone (no cancer for me, please - GSM is, of course, a US plot to destroy Europeans) that will just let me snap in a Palm device? (Or maybe a CDMA phone plug-in for the Handsring Visor?)
For Sprint users: This phone has a built-in web browser, which isn't supposed to work yet, but does, at least here in Austin.
***The thing that strikes me most about using a phone-based text web browser is what an incredibly bad job the phone.com (WAP/HDML) folks have done at reinventing gopher!***
What we have here is a proprietary, hacked-up (in the uncomplimentary sense) web markup language that is *less* optimized for text browsing that the simplest gopher client. What were these people thinking? I won't be browsing with it much, that's for sure, but the CDMA IP connection may come in quite handy with the PalmPilot when I can buy the data cable for the ThinPhone (due soon.)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Cheers,
-j.
I read an interesting article a couple of years ago, comparing US and European cell service. Basically, in the '80s the US had excellent analog cell service (for the time), while Europe completely bungled that one--remember how much analog cell phones and service used to be in 1990 or so in say Germany? So Europe pretty much decided to kill that bitch and go digital all the way; they didn't have much to loose, not too much analog infrastructure.
The US on the other hand had very extensive analog infrastructure, and the cell phone companies had a lot of investment that hadn't paid for itself yet. Therefore they had little incentive to switch to digital just yet. Only now they're finally switching over, simply because digital is much cheaper in the long run--the per-cell user densities are orders of magnitude higher, depending on technology. Add to that the NIH (Not Invented Here) factor, meaning that US companies couldn't simply take GSM without screwing with it, which led to several different digital technolgies in the US. True, European GSM wasn't the best technology--particularly the 900 MHz fiasco--but it was an established standard and off-the-shelf. Hence spotty coverage, slow deployment, etc...
This is an interesting point.
People have often pointed to the post-WWII development of Japan (and just as spectacularly, West Germany's Wirtschaftswunder -- economic miracle -- of the 50's) as being in part the result of the *destruction* of their infrastructure, and resultant rebuilding. "From scratch" may be an exaggeration, but it approaches truth.
In a sense, because the Allies (esp. North America, where no combat took place, AFAIK) *won* the war, and had in the end less to rebuild, America et al remained more fragmented / 'inertial' in their various standards (goes this theory) as well as in other aspects.
I think this theory has a lot of truth, but at the same time, the conclusions to be drawn from it are not clear. A lot of people are in favor of government imposed standards, the more the merrier, and there certainly are tons of such standards to choose from;)
However: I think the government ought to be responsible for as little as possible, and in the case of all sorts of standards should follow this basic rule. I'm happy to let the French (or the international consortium whose name I forget) define the metric units, and let the US government define US measures in either explicit or implicit reference to these -- and that's already been done. Interesting book by John Lord called (I think) "Sizes - how big or small things really are." Beyond that, let the market decide.
What role officialdom should play in measures and standards is an interesting topic; it's one of the few places I see a positive (but minimal) role for government as an arbiter and archivist.
Asking / expecting government to come up with optimal engineering solutions though is a very bad idea, and the convenience of standardization is not worth accepting imposed standards over experimentation and freedom to innovate. (Sorry if tht makes me sound like a Microsoft employee -- I'm not! -- but I hope it also makes me sound like a Free software advocate, which I am.)
Just thoughts,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Whoops, I always stick the 'd' in AvantGo. (However, proxynet.net does in fact work fine, although it is a redirect to proxinet.com)...
jf
I suspect your going in the wrong direction. IIRC the GSM standard pre-dates the TDMA and CDMA.
The ETU (European Telecoms Union) adopted the GSM standard that a collection of manufacturers, interested parties, etc had put together. A bit like MPEG. I think the European companies have a more diverse market, so appreciate the value of standards. Especially if
it leads to cheap standardised hardware that
everyone can use.
I think the TDMA and CDMA were developed in the USA after GSM. Possibly prompted by a 'not invented here' attitude. AFAIK CDMA and TDMA are technically superior to GSM, but GSM has the advantage in that more networks use it. Allowing one handset to be used in more places, and cheaper hardware through mass production.
But I could be wrong.
I.e., sometimes a desktop machine with a big screen is the right answer, and sometimes a handheld device is the right answer?
Hmm. I seem to remember seeing a Slashdot thread referring to an article in which some expat Finn said, among other things
Perhaps he had a point? He didn't address "desktop vs. mobile", but I think that's another case where it's not necessarily the case that "convergence" is an unalloyed good - you don't necessarily want a single box that Does It All (I've read Slashdot with a Nokia 9000 whilst riding in a car - it works, but I'd rather read it on a nice big screen; I might, however, want to read some stuff "on the move", or order pizza, or whatever, on a mobile phone, or a Palm, or...).
See also the "IBM Unveiling New Transcoder Technology" Slashdot article; some folks have commented that they don't necessarily want Full Frontal Slashdot on their mobile phone or PDA.
One of the reasons why cell phones are more common here is that the quality of the land line phone service is sometimes absolutely awful. I personally live in the Czech Republic, and SPT Telecom, the PTT here, is crap. It costs less to own a mobile than a land line, the quality is better, and international calls are cheaper than calling a mobile from a land line now (thanks to voice over IP).
--
Everything I know in life I learnt from
Funny how certain consumer technologies are widely adopted in Europe before the USA, where the consumer is (supposedly) king. GSM, smart cards, teletext (remember that?), fast trains. But these technologies all require a widespread and uniform infrastructure, which the American fragmented ("comptetitive") markets and weaker government are not always able to provide.
No big social message here, just an observation.
BTW, I live in Canada, which more resembles the USA in this context. We have only one GSM cellphone company.
--
I still like my big monitor and keyboard, though. The WWW on a palm-sized screen seems to lose some of its flavor.
Very true, but I wouldn't mind being able to download the latest slashdot headlines and read them on the train on my way into work, as opposed to reading them for the first 45 minutes I am at work. I can live without the icons.
I work for a mid-sized regional communications company that offers DSL, cable modem Phone, CATV, CLEC, and PCS services throughet VA and WV. We just started testing and selling the Qualcomm pdQ and althugh its a little bulky, it runs on the Palm III platform with some extras attached. the one I tested did not have a browser of any kind yet but it would let you dial into your personal PC presuming you left your modem on answer (nice security) I did not have the chance to see what type of protocols it used to transfer data that way. It also had a standard POP3/SMTP email program, figures from the makers of Eudora. Still, it worked nicely but I would rather carry a smaller phone and a seperate PDA given the Retail Price of this monster, 800-1000 US Dollars, for basically a Palm III I can get a palm V for just over $400 now, why would I want a palm iii? Still its a good unit and has better sound/recption quality than any other Qualcomm handheld CDMA phone I have used, at least on our PCS network. I have always preferred Motorola's handhelds for more stability and less dropped calls. Plus the Motorola StarTac 925's have a GREAT hidden test facility that shows you receive signal strength in real time as well as the last and current PN (antenna on a cel site) your phone was communicating with. It woud even do 8k and 13k loopback tests and report not only YOUR receive signal strenght but how well the tower was recieving your signal. Nifty little phone :)
Anyway, as disorganized as I am and as little time as i spend at my desk a PDA is a great tool for scheduling and contacts. Merging it with a phone is a good idea for those who want to have less gadgets to break/lose/replace but what hapens when you do lose it or break it? You lose EVERYTHING your schedule, all the phone numbers you cant remember like your wife's, and you can't make a call without a uater (or now a quarter and a dime) and that big account that wanted to call you at the last minute and do lunch with you thinks your ignoring them!
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
One interesting thing to note is that the biggest players in the cellphone market (Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola and Panasonic) are all pushing Symbian's EPOC32 as an operating system for PDAs and "smart" cellphones. These companies are also quite hefty players in the communications infrastructure market in Europe, and GSM is much more widespread here than in the USA (it's practically universal). I'd say these organisations are well set to deliver a serious integrated mobile-comms system, at least in Europe, in the near future.
Yes, you can really browse the web on a palm sized say 160x160 pixel screen. You get little information on such a screen if you boost up your pages with huge graphics... but at the same time, many people use lynx to browse the web. Lynx at 80x25 is not that much more screen space than a palm pilot has....
Just think of the advantages: Anywhere you are, you can download news, the movie schedule, theatre reviews, or slashdot articles. It's the ultimate way of taking information with you - store it on a huge server at home and access whatever bits you happen to need with your WAP-enabled cellular. And the best is, you can have dynamic content. You can take along a movie schedule on your PalmPilot anyway - but you have to sync it all the time. And what happens when you are in a different city? Pay long distance calls once you find a place to hook up your modem, or use a cellular with modem anyway.
I say it rocks. It's the way of the future. Forget about the "web losing its flavor" - this is bringing the web back to its roots, back to its flavor - it was never intended as a multimedia layout engine in the first place.
Personally, I love my cell phone. I love to be in contact with the people around me constantly. Letting a certain sig-o know I'm coming home, etc.. However, it's interesting to think about how our lives have changed with the increase in connectivity. I know most of you don't really tune into Katz's work, but there is something to be said for not being able to reach someone (or be able to be reached) from time to time.
As much as I'm a wired person, I sometimes wonder if I'd rather be spending my life as a monk with nothing to my name but a thick robe and a stone slab to nap on. Sounds spartan? It sure is. But think about all the looking around and exploring nature-type-stuff you'd get to enjoy.
One thing not mentioned in the articles is Qaulcomm's pdQ, check it out here http://www.qualcomm.com/pdq. It is basically a digital cellular phone that is built around/ is integrated with a Pilot. You can even click on phone numbers in the pilot's address book to have it dial. I looks pretty slick.
/* CDM */
I have to save the people who want these item to become integrated need to step back and let the usability people in.
I agree that my phone and PDA should talk so that they can syn address books. They should connect using some wire/wireless protocol for connection to the net. (Preferably not optical methods, too much hassel on the train)
I too would like my PalmIII to talk to my GSM phone..... but would I want them in one box?
No, have you ever tried to write on something that is next to your ear? Or even type a number on your phone's scratch pad that somebody is dictating to you? Or tried to search AvantGo on your Palm to find out the cinema times for the person on your mobile?
Better to have two units.
Also when you forget one, the other still has your numbers on it.
Sorry rant over.
lonely is right.
... wait a second while I write it down into the PDA."
...--"
;) ). And since the grand scheme of integration that PDA / phone makers are heralding would call for the exact opposite - that is, total convenience.
I was talking cell-phones and PDAs with my former housemates, and one of them pointed to the PDq or similar device (basically a palm with a cellphone) as being pretty neat.
I started to mime how one would use such a device.
"Hello, honey? Can you tell me the directions to the Fergusons' party tonight?"
"Uh-huh, uh-huh
(scribble, scribble)
"Oh, and what's your new cell phone number?"
"Uh huh. Uh huh. Wait a second while I write it down into the PDA."
(scribble, scribble)
"Oh, and
KLIK!
"Honey?!"
Point is, the information that you'd want to *use* from your PDA will be only awkwardly available if you are holding your PDA to your ear (notably lacking in visual senstivity
As I write this message, I realize that there is one possible solution, which is widepread adoption of the in-ear microphone / speakerbud system. That would allow a user to both scribble on the PDA and talk. Of course, it will also speed our descent into a nation of mumbling, detatched zombies, but hey.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5