Are PDAs Dead?10 November 2003 Judging by the press handhelds get these days, you'd think the form factor was doomed. Toshiba talks about the failure of their Pocket PCs and how they might stop making them. The Economist reports that handhelds will never be a mass market. Sony, long the standard bearer for PalmOS, lays off thousands. Only HP, Dell and PalmOne seem strong and dedicated to the handheld market. New devices from those three companies are compelling, but are they enough, or has the "Palm Pilot" finally reached the end? According to the Economist article, "everyone who wants a PDA already has one." As my regular readers know, my day job is managing the Communications and Imaging department at one of the largest CompUSAs in America. I sell MP3 players, cell phones, digital cameras and yes, PDAs. I can tell you from first hand experience that I sell PDAs every day to people that have never owned one. If anything, the existence of inexpensive devices with bright color screens like the iPAQ 1945 and Palm Tungsten E is drawing new users like never before. While it's taking a back seat to the color Tungstens now, I expect the $99 Palm Zire 21 to sell like gangbusters for the holiday shopping season. People that already wanted PDAs might already have them, but there's a constantly growing number of people who are just now figuring out that they want them. While Franklin Covey is refocusing on selling paper planners, I'm selling PDAs to people that are fed up with paper and want a smaller, lighter and lower-maintenance way of dealing with their commitments. The Economist article does bring up an interesting point. The article is really not as negative as it sounds, and is really more about stand alone PDAs in the classic "just an IR port, thanks" mode being supplanted by smartphones and other connected devices. There's some truth to this, but I think it doesn't tell the whole story. The theory goes like this. Most people already carry a cell phone. For most of these people, a smartphone (of the Microsoft, Symbian or PalmOS variety) would be a better choice than carrying around a cell phone and a PDA. Even "dumb" phones and heck, for that matter, iPods have basic calendaring functions now, and a smartphone would be able to handle the information management duties of an entry level PDA with no problem. Why carry both? On the surface, I agree. I see no reason to carry a smartphone like the Nokia 3650 and a PDA like the Palm Zire 21. Anything that Palm can do, the Nokia can do just as well. My Microsoft Smartphone is plenty for Outlook calendar, contacts and tasks, email, texting and very light web surfing. But that's far from all I want from mobile technology, and I don't think I'm alone. Of the time I spend using my PDA, I probably spend less than 10% on scheduling, contacts and other time management activities. I spend a lot more time managing my finances, reading ebooks, reading saved web pages, and editing office files like documents, spreadsheets and even the occasional presentation. I've made no secret of the idea that I think the true strengths of a PDA lie beyond the "digital daytimer" that most people think of when someone says "palm pilot." When I demo my Palm Tungsten E to customers, I don't show them the schedule and contact stuff. They already know a PDA does that. I show them Audible. I show them ebooks in Palm Reader. I show them remotes for my whole home theater in NoviiRemote. I show them Word and Excel documents in Documents To Go. Then I break out my Palm Wireless Keyboard and show them the smallest laptop they've ever seen. And the response is almost always, "Wow, I had no idea these could do all that!" A Palm Tungsten E and Palm Wireless Keyboard costs around $270 plus tax. New laptops are finally dropping below the $1,000 level, but they're nowhere near as inexpensive as a PDA. (Well, the right PDA. Some PDAs are almost as expensive as low-end laptops.) Tablet PCs are even more expensive per unit of computing power than laptops. And try as you might, it's a bit difficult to keep a Tablet PC in your pocket. Converged solutions do seem to be the way of the future, with a merger of the PDA and the phone inevitable at some point. But most pundits seem to think the final result will be more like a phone than a PDA. I'm not so sure. Most of the connected data devices are too much compromise. The PalmOne Treo 600 is the closest I've seen to perfection, and even it has some concessions to size and battery life that I'm not thrilled with (A 160^2 pixel screen in 2003? Really?). Most Pocket PC Phone Editions are short on RAM and short on expansion. Smartphones are nice, but the lack of any comfortable data entry is a bit limiting (smartphones won't really come into their own until voice command, if not full voice recognition, is perfected). Phones are great, and everyone knows how to use them, but phones are limited by the nature of being phones. An emerging and often overlooked trend in mobile computing is the rise of Personal Area Networks, usually connected via Bluetooth. A PAN is a system of devices usually worn or carried by an individual that work together to share data and be greater than the sum of the parts. A typical PAN today might be a PDA, cell phone, Bluetooth headset and perhaps a Bluetooth GPS. PDAs have a future as part of a PAN, a handheld control console. For many, the PDA will be the most visible component of a personal area network, the only part you interact with directly. I'd for one love to see the actual phone merge with a Bluetooth headset like the Jabra Freespeak. All the circuitry needed for a GSM cell phone can now be found on a single board the size of a dime. How hard would it be to add that to a self-powered earpiece and microphone that could be voice-activated sans PDA or controlled via Bluetooth from a PDA? More than that, a PDA is the ideal interface to control a Bluetooth-equipped home theater, Windows Media Center, ebook server, etc. A touch screen handheld with a largish (yet pocketable) screen has so many uses that I'm sure the form factor is here to stay. Jeff Kirvin
Jeff Kirvin is available for consulting on mobile technology. Email me today! |