MacOS X & Bluetooth
I absolutely agree - MacOS X and Bluetooth would make a perfect couple on a PDA.
It's always the same if you work with "high-tech": most of the "great advances" are only academic 3 and 4-letter-words (...WAP, UMTS etc.).
But every once in a while, there comes a technology around that is really convincing and apealing for a mass market - because it solves real life problems and makes life easier.
Mobile phones is one example - and a PDA-BT-couple the next. I came to use Apple thru my first experience with the Newton way back in 97 - and at that time, the Newton already worked smoothly with a PCMCIA-GSM-card and a Nokia phone.
So email and faxes on the move were no problem whatsoever, at about 1/4 of the weight of a laptop solution - and a battery life beyond today's wildest imagination.
Since that time, I checked out both Palm and PocketPC - Palm, sorry to say and only my humble opinion, was like going back from laser guided missiles to throwing stones.
PocketPC is more versatile, but has the usual Windows drawbacks, like e.g. stability (advantage: PocketPC boots ca. 20 times faster than a Win98 laptop, so you don't care ;-)). The positive thing that PocketPC adds is full color and media support (...but it still has an awefull handwriting recognition !).
The only real increase in ease of use and productivity that I have experienced since the Newton / Nokia - experience is thus the arrival of Bluetooth.
It's really a marvel that you don't need to plug or unplug any cables and you don't need to align IrDA-ports or protect them against direct sun etc. It's really a huge step in the direction of REAL anytime, anywhere-philosophy - because you can actually use it without hassle and 10-min-setup times.
So, as you see, I "sleep with the enemy" on the PDA-side, but I believe that with Apple's record of ease-of-use and seamless, userfriendly technology integration, a PDA-Bluetooth-Cellular phone combination could finally pave the way for a rewarding "work-on-the-move"-experience.
And given the fact that most people actually DON'T do multimedia work on the move, but rather read or write texts or work, at best, on a spreadsheet, even an iBook is too much needless weight when you're serious about travelling light. My current iPaq & foldable keyboard get me everything done - but I would rather do it on a MacOS X - driven machine, and then get connected with a user-friendly technology like Bluetooth.
It's always the same if you work with "high-tech": most of the "great advances" are only academic 3 and 4-letter-words (...WAP, UMTS etc.).
But every once in a while, there comes a technology around that is really convincing and apealing for a mass market - because it solves real life problems and makes life easier.
Mobile phones is one example - and a PDA-BT-couple the next. I came to use Apple thru my first experience with the Newton way back in 97 - and at that time, the Newton already worked smoothly with a PCMCIA-GSM-card and a Nokia phone.
So email and faxes on the move were no problem whatsoever, at about 1/4 of the weight of a laptop solution - and a battery life beyond today's wildest imagination.
Since that time, I checked out both Palm and PocketPC - Palm, sorry to say and only my humble opinion, was like going back from laser guided missiles to throwing stones.
PocketPC is more versatile, but has the usual Windows drawbacks, like e.g. stability (advantage: PocketPC boots ca. 20 times faster than a Win98 laptop, so you don't care ;-)). The positive thing that PocketPC adds is full color and media support (...but it still has an awefull handwriting recognition !).
The only real increase in ease of use and productivity that I have experienced since the Newton / Nokia - experience is thus the arrival of Bluetooth.
It's really a marvel that you don't need to plug or unplug any cables and you don't need to align IrDA-ports or protect them against direct sun etc. It's really a huge step in the direction of REAL anytime, anywhere-philosophy - because you can actually use it without hassle and 10-min-setup times.
So, as you see, I "sleep with the enemy" on the PDA-side, but I believe that with Apple's record of ease-of-use and seamless, userfriendly technology integration, a PDA-Bluetooth-Cellular phone combination could finally pave the way for a rewarding "work-on-the-move"-experience.
And given the fact that most people actually DON'T do multimedia work on the move, but rather read or write texts or work, at best, on a spreadsheet, even an iBook is too much needless weight when you're serious about travelling light. My current iPaq & foldable keyboard get me everything done - but I would rather do it on a MacOS X - driven machine, and then get connected with a user-friendly technology like Bluetooth.
Comments
First, you're teetering on the wrong idea of what Bluetooth is and does. It is not a means to directly access a network. It is a replacement of wires and the IRDA port. Yes you can use a cell phone as a modem via Bluetooth but that's about it -- the data throughput is paltry.
Secondly, the PDA is dead. Steve thinks so and that's why he's backing Bluetooth. Because it allows Macs to extend the digital hub to the data on phones (iCal, iSync, etcetera). Cellular phones will truly become "wireless handsets" and within 5 years the PDA market will be swallowed whole.
A tablet is another thread entirely.
Screed