The Perfect Writer's PDA
7 July 2002
If everyone's needs are different, then follows that everyone's PDAs will be different as well. One size, as it turns out, does not fit all. So what would make a PDA perfect for mobile writers?
I got to thinking recently about what makes PDAs a compelling purchase for consumers. It's a tougher train of thought than you'd think-- or at least tougher than I thought-- because everyone has different needs. The perfect device for a doctor may be quite different from mobile nirvana for a construction foreman. A student's PDA might be worlds apart from that of a soccer mom. You get the idea.
So I narrowed my thinking to mobile writers-- after all, that's who this site is really for. As a mobile writer myself, I came up with a dozen features my dream mobile device would have to have. These are in no particular order.
High-resolution screen readable indoors and out. It goes without saying that if you're going to write on a PDA, you should be comfortable reading it. No one's first drafts are perfect. And keeping with the idea of mobility, if I can't see the screen outside or even indoors next to a big window, I may as well be at my desk. Transflective screens like those in the Sony NR-70V and the HP iPAQ 3950 seem to do the best job at this, although organic LEDs (OLED) or electronic ink might do even better. 1 megapixel or better digital camera integrated into the unit. This one's mainly for journalists, but it would be darn handy for those of us that do reviews as well. Let's face it, kids, a picture really is worth a thousand words, and if you can capture a process a picture on the same carry-with-you-everywhere device you use for writing, so much the better. Sony has the right idea with the NR-70V-- what good is that fancy 5 megapixel digicam if you left it at home?-- but it needs a little more to be really useful. Slap in the 1 megapixel unit Pretec uses in their CF camera and we're in business. Wireless radio capable of data and voice. Lemme ask you something. If you use your mobile device to write a great story on the go, but no one can read it until you get back to the office and sync it to your Internet-connected PC, did it really matter if you were mobile? Okay, yeah, I know, setting and ambiance help; I myself seem to do most of my best writing in restaurants. But how much more effective would you be if you could email your piece to your editor the moment you finished it, no matter where you were, then called him to tell him to check his mail (and send you your check)? Mobile and wireless go hand in hand, and as much as it pains me to admit it-- because I don't have wireless data access myself yet-- a mobile device without wireless connectivity is quickly becoming about as useful as a PC with no Internet connection. Professional-grade word processor. All three of the major mobile platforms-- PalmOS, Pocket PC and Symbian-- seem to have this one covered by now, with gaps here and there. Word count and spell check are musts for mobile writers, and WordSmith, QuickWord, and Pocket Word have that sewn up. But even the best of the current mobile word processors fall short of perfection. Mobile writers need editable tables. They need stylesheet support. Embeddable graphics. Basically, anything that it would take to make a document fit for publication straight from the handheld, comprende? Email capable of sending attachments in desktop-readable formats. Of course, the reason that mobile word processors have to be so full-featured is so mobile writers can submit assignments from the field-- or from McDonalds. This means also having an email program that can attach fully-formatted word processing documents and send them without requiring any format conversions by the recipient. Inbox on the Pocket PC does this, but mail handling is still a big Achilles heel for PalmOS. Good outliner/brainstorming application. Ideally, this would be built into the word processor (Pocket Word on the Handheld PC 2000 platform supports outlining), but I'd settle for a good third party application. It may seem like I write most of my columns "off the cuff," but a lot of thought, organization and planning goes into making the good ones. The best I can do now is a quick bulleted list in Pocket Word before I start fleshing it out, but I'd love to be able to have a real hierarchical outline. I bet a lot of other writers would too. Card expansion. Internal RAM is never enough. Card expansion is a must so that storage for documents/pictures is effectively unlimited. Such storage should be integral to the unit, and not require the removal of the storage card to enable networking. What good is it to put big documents on the card if you can't email them without copying them to RAM before you swap out the memory card with a NIC? Voice recording, from both a microphone and the telephone. I'm a big fan of voice recording for quick ideas when I'm in the car, walking or otherwise unable to stop and grab my stylus or keyboard. Let's face it, a lot of life's best ideas come to you when you're not able to write them down right away, and if you wait, they pass right on out of your head. But more importantly, voice recording is a necessity for recording interviews so you can review and transcribe later while focusing on the conversation of the interview now. (Bonus points if recording can be directly to MP3 to save space.) Heavyweight PIM. Do I even need to explain this one? A mobile writer has to keep track of assignment deadlines (tasks), meetings, interviews (appointments) and contacts. Lots of note space a must, since it makes sense to keep all the notes for a contact with that contact. Note to PalmSource: 4k of note space isn't enough. The former president of the Colorado Palm Users Group switched to an iPAQ mostly because he needed more note space for client records. Wide variety of input methods. No single input method is perfect for all situations. Handwriting recognition is great for quick jots, but a pain in the rump for long text. A detachable keyboard is great for hundreds, thousands of words, but requires a flat surface and set up time. A thumbboard is a good middle ground, but less "natural" than pen input and slower than a full-size keyboard. Include the option to use any of them, as well as on screen keyboards like Fitaly and anything else people come up with. Variety is good. Pocketable form factor. Again, do I have to explain this one? For the tool to be useful, it has to be ubiquitous. It has to go everywhere. The first time you need it and didn't bother to bring it along, it wasn't worth the money. And while pioneering early adopters like me might be willing to carry a couple of pounds of electronic gear everywhere I go, eventually the whole package-- PDA, detachable keyboard, thumbboard, radio, etc.-- will have to come in under 10 ounces, preferably as low as 6, or people won't bother. Good battery life. If the device has all eleven of the other features listed above, but conks out after 90 minutes of use (ahem, iPAQ 3650), then it's not a tool, it's a chunk of useless metal, glass and plastic. A writer's PDA needs enough battery life to get a full day of hard use on a charge (12-16 hours of on time with side/backlighting). Given the size constraints listed above, this might not be possible with current lithium battery technology. Word on the street is that the Toshiba e740's battery life goes straight in the dumper as soon as you turn on the radio. So we might have to wait for alcohol fuel cell technology to mature before we see this materialize.
The choice of OS isn't really an issue-- I don't care if it runs PalmOS (with beefed up mail handling), Pocket PC, Linux or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. The device described above seems like a cross between a souped-up Clié NR-70V and a Pocket PC Phone Edition device. I do know that it doesn't exist.
Yet.
So, who's gonna be the first to make one? Who's going to build something that every journalist, every novelist, every poet in the world just has to have?
Oh, and one more thing. I'll go ahead and turn this list into a baker's dozen with one more condition that I'd like to see, but don't really expect.
Reasonable price. Let's face it, most journalists and other mobile writers aren't rolling in dough. While an HP iPAQ 3970 with a few accessories and a Bluetooth cell phone could do most of what is listed above, the price makes it impractical. $750 for the 3970 + $250 for a Bluetooth-equipped phone + $100 for a Pretec CF camera + $100 for a CF Plus sleeve to fit the camera + $45 for a thumbboard + $100 for a Stowaway comes to $1,345 before tax and shipping charges. That's real money, and despite what I said before about mobility coming at a premium, fourteen hundred bucks is probably too much for the average mobile writer to justify. As more people adopt mobile technology, the price of that technology should be going down, not up.
Jeff Kirvin
Jeff@writingonyourpalm.net
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