T Bryce Yehl: Bryce's PDA ChannelExploring Pocket PCs and the Zaurus SL-5000D / SL-5500 Linux PDAs.SmartPhone attacks Brittons- October 23, 2002 Microsoft's SmartPhone platform is finally becoming reality, thanks to the Orange SPV (aka HTC Canary). Forbes reports a US$260 selling price. infoSync has a thorough pre-release evaluation. InfoWorld says that AT&T will offer SmartPhones in the US by mid-2003. According to Microsoft's specs, the SPV is tri-band. Probably won't be long before someone starts importing them...http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/22.html#a1305 Newton Lives- October 21, 2002 nSync synchronizes Newton PDAs with Mac OS X Jaguar. via Boing Boing Blog The Newton MP130 was the first PDA that could read my handwriting. I have noticed that Transcriber's accuracy improves greatly if I write in cursive, but it's still not as good as an ancient Newton.http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/21.html#a1299 Standardization vs. Innovation- October 18, 2002 Frank followed-up on my post on the lack of PDA innovation, writing that "What one calls a lack of innovation, others call standardization." Steve follows-up on that with a list of some things that would provide him with a "more "mobile" digital assistant." My take is that Pocket PCs have been commodities since Microsoft dropped support for non-ARM processors. Declining component prices have made them cheap, now it's time for vendors to start taking steps to differentiate their products. Better.http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/17.html#a1297 More on Palm's Survival- October 12, 2002 Bow Lewis of InfoWorld writes that PDAs are here to stay, but Palm may not be: Two years ago I predicted hard times for Palm. Hard times have arrived, in the form of plummeting market share and negative profits.It was not a difficult prediction. When I wrote the column, Palm hadn't given customers any reason to buy a new PDA in years, and there are still only two reasons to replace a Palm PDA: (1) You dropped your old one; or (2) you want to upgrade to something better, which means either a...http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/12.html#a1292 Lack of PDA Innovation- October 11, 2002 Steve has a rant on the lack of innovation in the PDA market, spurred by my earlier entry. I had actually started that post as a long rant, and started restating my arguments again just now, but I don't think we really need another long rant. I'll keep this relatively short and sweet. All of the innovation is happening with non-PPC devices. The primary reason for this is that PPC vendors depend on contract manufacturers for just about everything, following the PC model. Palm OS licensees mostly.http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/10.html#a1290 Danger Follow-up- October 10, 2002 I realized sometime on Monday that it was gonna happen. Too many people reading it, the Network Effect had been triggered, and I was expecting an email any minute. Sure enough, I got an email from a web app engineer at Danger, in response to my rantings the other day. Anil After reading Anil's original rant and posting about Danger's lack of developer information, I sent an email to developerdanger.com asking if they had any "guidelines for creating web content that renders well" on the HipTop.http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/10.html#a1289 How the Pocket PC market will shake out- October 10, 2002 Here is how I see the platform and price aligning. The Pocket PC platform will be low to midrange in price depending on memory, screen quality, and expansion capabilities. Prices will hover in the $300 price category. The Pocket PC Phone Edition platform will be the new, high-end platform around the $500 price and feature wireless voice and data, along with more memory. Frank McPherson Agreed. I want to believe that there is still room for premium, non-vertical devices that aren't simply...http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/10.html#a1288 The End of Palm- October 9, 2002 The upcoming line of inexpensive color Pocket PCs are going to shake up Palm OS market. At the low-end of the B&W Palm OS spectrum, Palm has just come out with the $99 Zire. It is a physically attractive device with 2MB RAM, rechargeable battery, and no backlighting. What's interesting to me is that Palm already had a $99 device, the m105, with a backlight and 8MB RAM but no rechargeable cell. You would expect these models to be primarily impulse-buys from first-timers. Pocket PCs don't...http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/09.html#a1286 Viewsonic Pocket PC review- October 9, 2002 ZDNet previews the Viewsonic V35 via Pocket PC Thoughts. Previous reports had called it a 32MB device, but this review says 64MB. If Viewsonic can do a 300MHz 64MB device for $299, Dell's rumoured pricing becomes quite credible.http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/09.html#a1285 Dell aiming for $199 Pocket PC- October 9, 2002 CNET is reporting that Dell's Pocket PCs will start at $199. Pocket PC Thoughts says "Dell isn't firing a shot across HP's bow. They are aiming their cannon right at the hull." Robert Scoble suggests that Palm is dead. I'm also reminded that I neglected to blog Viewsonic's planned $299 device and HP's $200-$400 iPaq. If the pricing rumour is true, I'm with Scoble: Dell is aiming at Palm, not HP. My reasoning is two-fold: Declining component prices aren't enough to achieve such low...http://radio.ntwizards.net/categories/pda/2002/10/08.html#a1284 |