Apple PDA - Now a dead cert?
To recap, 10.2 will bring us:
- A new Addressbook
- a new Mail
- iCal
- iChat
- Ink
- Rendezvouz
And the subtly named
- iSync
A good implementation of all these items is essential if you want to produce a killer handheld.
The gloves are off with M$, and Jobs doesn't get on with the new CEO of Be-, er, Palm so there is no need to support PocketPC or M515 over an Apple device now.
September for release?
- A new Addressbook
- a new Mail
- iCal
- iChat
- Ink
- Rendezvouz
And the subtly named
- iSync
A good implementation of all these items is essential if you want to produce a killer handheld.
The gloves are off with M$, and Jobs doesn't get on with the new CEO of Be-, er, Palm so there is no need to support PocketPC or M515 over an Apple device now.
September for release?
Comments
Calendar and address book. That's all I use my Palm for.
Screed
<strong>We now have a PDA. It's called the iPod.
Calendar and address book. That's all I use my Palm for.
Screed</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's still not a PDA. Most of the time when you have information to add to a PDA it's not when you are at your desk, it's when you are on the road, and you can't do that with the iPod. But I do agree that this is Apple's attempt to get casual PDA users to get an iPod and it will probably work well.
<strong>
It's still not a PDA. Most of the time when you have information to add to a PDA it's not when you are at your desk, it's when you are on the road, and you can't do that with the iPod. But I do agree that this is Apple's attempt to get casual PDA users to get an iPod and it will probably work well.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Notice how the new iPod's (except for the 5GB) now have a solid state scroll wheel? Well, It paves the way for Apple to introduce handwriting recognition by writing on the solid state area. Perhaps it will be a bit awkward to write on a circular area, but now there's at least an area for Apple to use for input.
<strong>It's still not a PDA. Most of the time when you have information to add to a PDA it's not when you are at your desk, it's when you are on the road, and you can't do that with the iPod. But I do agree that this is Apple's attempt to get casual PDA users to get an iPod and it will probably work well.</strong><hr></blockquote>
"Casual users." Precisely.
Here's a point I made a while ago, before the Great AI Outage. The Palm in its current form is nothing but a PIM (personal information manager). Oh sure it can run other applications, but the buttons on the bottom sum up its prime function: Calendar, Phone List, To Do, and Notes.
If you want the Web or video, buy a laptop. Ergo the Internet Jr. analogy. (Here's where I refrain from going on a pro-Tablet rant).
With its MP3 capability plus the PIM features, the iPod can sweep up a lot of the light users or consumers who'd buy those ghastly consumer Palms. Myself being the former (maybe).
Screed
<strong>With its MP3 capability plus the PIM features, the iPod can sweep up a lot of the light users or consumers who'd buy those ghastly consumer Palms. Myself being the former (maybe).</strong><hr></blockquote>
But it's 2-3 times the price of the cheapest Palm's!?
So it's better than a palm in most cases, for most people.
However, this improved PIM capacity pretty much kills any hope of Apple releasing a Tablet/Full PDA anytime in the near future.
This latest keynote emphsizes what I think is great about Apple product development: Enhancing what people are already doing through better technology.
Later,
Composer
Dave Smith
[ 07-17-2002: Message edited by: dcsimages ]</p>
Unlike the old Apple, the new Apple doesn't try to make its own, "superior" version of all categories of hardware.
Unlike MS, Apple doesn't want to take over all hardware niches by
Instead, through being the first to develop (open) connectivity standards and to implement them, Apple makes its own products ubiquitous for the present day digital user. Apple unlocks the promises of GPRS, BlueTooth, VCards and a host of other interface standards by making them connectable through Apple hard/software interface hubs - the Digital hubs.
In reality, it's hijacking other producers' hardware - and it will increase: make a circle; write iSync and RendezVouz inside it; then write the names of all the Apple iApps along the circle and connect all of them to all the others. Now, consider how each of them connects to each of the others. Some of the connections you have already heard described at various Keynotes: iChat to iAddress - you can see the person you are chatting to; iPhoto to iTools (Sorry, now it's .mac) - Internet publishing of photo albums and sending personalized iCards...
Others are yet to be developed; what could connect iChat to iMovie, for instance (okay, you already read the answer to that one here on AI), or iPhoto to iPod? Quadruple the possibilities by adding the Quicktime sections to the circle, and the many hardware possibilities found in the GPRS standard.
Already mentioned is also the possibility of tracking people's position through a combination of iAddress, GPS and GPRS, and calling people via Bluetooth on their cell-phones. That is an extended version of localized paging - without having to pay phone company charges. Sending pictures via iPhoto to a cell-phone is obvious, as is sending tunes (Nokia, eat your heart out!). But wait... (etc)
A $50 digital camera, the size of a matchbox, was introduced recently. Okay, 640x480 pixels won't help much in a Cuba crisis, but it can be used as a webcam too, via USB. Now, take this tiny thing out of your pocket and connect it to the USB port of your cell-phone... there you go, a cheap wireless snapshot-cum-webcam, to be distributed through iPhoto (which batch-optimizes it automatically) via Bluetooth, or AirPort, or a cell-phone connection - or even through Mail! The open standards for sending commands, data and addresses from cell-phones to computers already exist. Now Steve the Pirate implements them - NoConfig.
engpjp
ow come InkWell barely got mentioned? To save it for a big product release of course - a PDA.
Or is it just me?
This MWNY proved to me that for now Apple is content to focus on making the iPod the best MP3 player available, and they aren't standing still.
As for Inkwell, it's very possible that what Jobs said is true: Apple had the technology on hand, so they incorporated it into OS X, where it can be used with existing products. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Now an Apple 'slate' would be a different proposition altogether
Instead he focussed mostly with it's synching possibilities with an iPod and cell phones.
But the bottom line is while an iPod comes close, but you cannot input data remotely.
That is a big distinction in that a major reason people have a handheld is the ability to jot down info in a pinch.
Just wishfull thinking.
[ 07-18-2002: Message edited by: fireants22 ]</p>
[ 07-18-2002: Message edited by: Tulkas ]</p>
The future of the iPod must be a colour LCD and support for quicktime 6. Imagine being able to export you home movies from iMove into a small QuickTime movie for the iPod to gether with your mp3's or MP4's.
So that's my vision of the future, Phone-PDA's and iPods with a colour screen and video support.
I think Steve's comments during the conference call point to a very sophisticated understanding of the PDA market, I totally agree that pure PDA devices, Palm and Pocket PCs, will be dead within five years, replaced by phones with more sophisticated PIM features, and tablet PCs.
Will apple make a phone with iPod and PIM features? I doubt it, but that doesn't mean they won't partner with Sony Erricson to do somethign like that. Phones with limited MP3 playing capability exist, Phones with limited PIM capability exist, now it's just time for the paths to cross.
I do hope Apple makes a tablet, though.
ciao,
michael
<strong>Steve Jobs has said more than once that Apple will not be making a PDA in the near future...
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.</strong><hr></blockquote>
And sometimes it's a musty sex toy. That's about the size of it, though. And, speaking of office rendezous... "can you imagine what kind of devices will be released."
Mobile Sherlock.
On demand access to movie, restaurant, map, phone directory, etc.
Now add to this the possibility of a mobile .mac client. It's mobile Sherlock that accesses .mac resources. (email, iCal, iDisk, etc.)
Come to think of it. They should just release Sherlock as an app on Palm OS so I can still use Palm OS apps if I choose to.