Re: [NTLK] Before I leave, I must dispel a myth

From: Martin Howard (mvhoward_at_mac.com)
Date: Thu Aug 05 2004 - 11:39:14 PDT


On Aug 5, 2004, at 09:12, karel Jansens wrote:

> http://www.ericlindsay.com/palmtop/omni100.htm
>
> for a picture of an Omnigo. It's at the bottom of the page
> (incidentally, this is a hugely interesting site!)

I surfed, I read, I sighed. Why is it that, when people wax poetic
about the Next Big Thing in handhelds, they always want everything
including a kitchen sink in their PDA?

I say it loud and I say it proud: I do NOT want a combined PDA and
cellphone!

The success of the Palm can be attributed to the fact that it only did
five things (calendar, phone book, notes, todo, sync), but it did those
five things VERY well. It was useful. The chances are that something
that can do twenty five things out of the box isn't going to do them
very well.

It's a bit like Unix. Each command only does one thing, but it does it
well. The power lies in being able to string commands together.
Rather than having a PDA with built-in everything, it makes more sense
to create a PDA with connectivity and expandability -- the Newton
route. Why is it I am no longer using my PalmPilot II, but my Newton
MP 2100 sees daily use? How much use will the Treos see once we all
transition to 3G phones?

These people who insist on making What I Want To See in the Next PDA
lists are constantly forgetting that while they may need combined
web-surfing, GPS, and mobilephone so they can Mapquest the address when
they get lost talking to Auntie May on the trip south for Thanksgiving
it doesn't mean that the rest of the world does. Nor do they want to
pay for it.

William Gibson put it best: "The street finds its own use for
technology". Conversely: build flexible technology that acts like a
building blocks so that the street CAN find its own use for it. As a
kid, the best toys were always those that could be molded by your
imagination to fit whatever the current game was. Lego often won. It
may not have come with a kitchen sink, but I could always build one,
should one have been needed. And chances are, it would have been a
much cooler kitchen sink that whatever the Lego designers could have
thought of.

M.

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