From: Adamson_at_aol.com
Date: Sun Mar 13 2005 - 13:46:05 PST
I think for the most part I agree with you David. Who buys PDA's? I do.
The reason is that I have adult ADHD and I function much better with organized
information at my fingertips. Here is my dilemma though. I bought 3
Newtons in November of 97, 5 months later, Newton was no more. I am a user not a
techie. I appreciate the knowledge on this list and admit that I have
improved my life by taking some of the advice freely give here. I went through
Handspring Visors, numerous models of iPacs, a Treo, and my latest was a Palm
based Kyocera cell phone. All of these devices failed to meet my expectations.
I think that they may have failed because they tried to adapt a current
operating system to whatever device they created. In the Newtons case the
operating system was specific and newly designed for the handheld device. Now from
my standpoint most of these devices failed because it was too difficult for
me to get information into the system as quickly as possible. Newton
succeeded for me because it recognizes my handwriting and converts it to text
easily. I may be the rare bird who writes clearly, but I get very near 100%
accuracy. Nothing else came close. I hate Graffiti. Carrying around a keyboard
works sometimes, but nothing beats the elegance of opening the cover and
writing right on the screen. Newtons fail me too, though. For a handheld device
to truly be functional it needs to sync with my computers seamlessly.
Unfortunately, this is not one of the Newton's strong points. As the computers
operating systems continue to evolve it becomes harder and harder for the
workarounds to work.
What would I want in a PDA today that I do not have with the Newton? A
color screen, more power (urh, urh, urh in my best Tim Allen impression), more
memory, slightly smaller form factor ( I like to write on the big screen of a
newton but it could probably be slightly smaller and still feel large), a
dedicated team to update the device as technology changes, and an integrated
phone would be nice but not necessary. Phones are small enough today to not make
a difference in carrying the PDA and a phone. I do not need mp3's but some
music would be nice. I do not need video or a camera. I do need reliability,
which with the exception of syncing the Newton has. So I guess what I am
saying is the world would be a perfect place if the Newton were resurrected and
updated.
Bob Adamson
n a message dated 3/13/2005 1:20:46 P.M. US Eastern Standard Time,
denstene_at_mac.com writes:
There is a huge problem with the PDA as it has evolved.
Does anyone want to tell me who buys a current PDA?
Its a harder question than it seems on the surface. Depending on how
your pitch it and what features you include it seems that anyone might
buy a PDA. But that is the problem: the PDA has become a catch all. The
PDA is now a "hey wouldn't it be cool to add this feature" type of
product.
Music, video, photos, wireless, e-mail, instant messaging, note taking,
voice recording, phones, word processing, network testing, web
browsing, entereverythingunderthesunhere.
The PDA has become an unfocused product. I personally feel this is
because Apple dropped out of the PDA market and the companies that
continued to fill the market had no vision as to the end result.
The iPod is very successful, that is because its a well focused
product. Most all of the iPod's other successful attributes stem from
it being well focused. Could PDAs achieve this? Perhaps but there is a
great circumstantial difficulty to overcome.
Convergence.
The iPod is a low end PDA. Its really a pretty bad PDA as far as PDA
functions go, it handles about the same stuff as a pocket organizer you
might buy at some retail store like Target. You can't do direct input
to the iPod like an electronic organizer but syncing sorta evens that
out.
What other PDA options do we have? Palm based devices and PocketPC
based devices. At first they were more like the electronic organizer,
now they are trying to be more like the iPod by taking on things like
music playback and photos.
We want things to converge, but no one has yet figured out the end
result of that convergence. This is why we have TiVo and PVRs and
Windows Media PCs and iPod Photos and AlchemyTV DVR cards and consumer
scan convertors and many other devices. Its one of the reasons
computers can play video DVDs and audio CDs.
Why should I keep my phone numbers on my Newton when I make calls with
my cellular phone? Having used a cellular phone - why would I *ever*
want to add more functionality, that is after realizing how feature
bloated it is already? Do I want to take notes on a device that is also
my phone? Sounds OK on the one hand because I only have to carry one
device, but then when I make a phone call and need to reference my
notes as I speak on the phone it gets more difficult.
How many devices do I want?
PDA
Phone
Music / Photo / Video device
What else?
Or just one?
Its sorta a tricky question what the right number is.
I believe that before the PDA can come back in any sort of meaningful
way, basically what I mean by that is something that is a modern Newton
MessagePad successor, the market will have to discover the desired end
result of all this convergence. Honestly, I don't see that happening
for a while.
David
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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