New PDA??? - don't yell at me just yet...

[keithcobbett]

Here's a thought.

Palm currently owns the PDA market, which Apple created. Tablet PC's were not really all that good because of their size or maybe just the way they were promoted and their features. What if Apple has developed a Tablet pc (8"x6") with a touch screen running a slimmed down version of OS X. I know, it probably has been mentioned before. But, what if this "PDA" also had a docking station and only weighed a couple of pounds. Attached to the docking station could be a keyboard and a mouse. The "PDA" could be taken from the docking station and used like a normal computer, which in actuality it is. Just carry away, do your thing and plug back into the docking station to recharge the battery. Connect to the internet via Airport and you have everything that you need.

Remember, Billy boy is showing off the new Viewsonic monitor which does not need to be plugged into the computer at all but sends the transmissions from the computer wirelessly. What do you think????

 

[strider42]

Doesn't sound like it would be competing in the PDA market at all, but rather the laptop market (a couple of pounds?a screen that size?). Which means that for it to succeed, it would have to offer something adventagsous over current laptop offerings. It wouldn't at all though would it. The OS would be stripped down, there's no keyboard when its out of its "docking station" (which is infinitly faster than using handwriting recognition), no mouse of any kind ( a touch screen stylus is just dumb on something that size), its screen is smaller than laptops and it would probably be less powerful. If its to compete against PDA's, what advantage does it offer. its heavier, bulkier, probably not particularly cross platform compatible, and certainly not as supported by developers as a palm or pocket PC device is. Do we need a glorified calender that size? Tablet PC's were a dumb idea from the get go, and PDA's are practically useless for a lot of people.

I'd also point out Palm does not own the market at all, and in fact are projected to only have 50% of the market in the next few ytears despite having 100% of it a few years ago. What does this mean, the market is saturated with competition, and its not growing particularly fast anymore. Where would apple fit into something like that.

My question is this: Why in the world do people want an apple PDA. Go get a palm, handspring or pocket PC if you actually need one (which I doubt you do). What possible advantage is there for apple to come up with a new, unsupported OS for a PDA, no matter how great it is. And if not that, there is even less to it to make a Palm or pocket PC device or an apple branded device made by another. it just doesn't make any sense. no one seems to have a single good reason why they want an Apple PDA, other than it would probably be cool. That cool factor would last a month and then they'd see it wouldn't be able to do much more, if anything more, than the current offerings out there. Gte over it. its an idea that was cool ten years ago, apple missed out, its over and they aren't going to try it again, thanks god. I'd rather see apple come out with digital devices that allow us to interconnect different areas of our lives, similar to the iPod but more far reaching. I think we'l see more of that over the next few years. Apple can't convince people to buy a mac because its better, and even if they are poor imitations, there is very little on a mc that can't be done (at least from an davertising stand point) on a PC, so you're left with trying to make really cool things that work directly with the mac. a PDA doesn't fit into that category at all.

By the way, apple said they weren't going to work on a PDA.

 

[mischief]

FOR GODS' SAKES STOP USING THE WORD PDA!!!!!!!!!!!

What is described above is NOT a PDA.What is described above is what I've been describing for a YEAR: An iBook with no keyboard and IR for Home Electronics control.

Think about the iMac. The iMac is one thin battery, Airport card (PCMCIA size mind you!), and touch screen from being exactly the described product.

I can't think of a reason you couldn't use Sahara G3's and very small RAM and HD options. This device would of course make most sense as a "Terminal" for all your digital devices: remember the QT6 Keynote?.

 

[Macmaniac]

PDA

Steve said no PDA.

 

[eyelikeart]

ok...

I'm about to start slinging my iPoop again!!!

WHO'S FIRST?!

 

[AlphaTech]

How about an Apple e-book reader?? Give it an OS (9.x or X) and the e-book reader software (or Apple's own version). Slap in either a 1.8" hard drive, or one of the slim 2.5" used in laptops and I think it would be nice. With that, you can have anything from a 5GB drive, all the way up to the 60GB (store your entire library in it).

You know that if Apple does it, it will be done right. Make the screen just a little larger then a soft cover book (to allow for the menu selections). Integrate either a touch pad (smaller then in the current laptops would work) or some kind of pointing device. They could make it with a FireWire port (and maybe a USB as well for the people with pre-firewire eguipped PowerBooks and iBooks) for both data transfer and power (a-la iPod).

I think that would have a market niche similar to the iPod, and allow us to get more quality Apple products.

How about that instead????

 

[mischief]

Eeesh! NOW they get it.......after M$ puts out their illustrations of Mira.

8 by 10 with a Lexan "border" like the iMac screen. 600-800Mhz Sahara G3. 30-40 Gb Hd. 512Mb RAM. Drives, RAM, processor and most ports on the base. Communicates wirelessly to the "terminal pad" by way of "Airport-lite", better known as GigaWire.

 

[Spock]

Apple is working on a PDA I have the specs,

Size:10*15*1cm and is constructed from three basic layers of imbedded circuit-composit material.

Power: This new PDA codenamed P.A.D.D runs on a new type of power supply that will last up to 16 hours. If the PADD's battery is about to exhaust it can send all it's information into the docking station via Airport.

Memory and Speed: The PADD contains a isolinear optical chip for memory capacity of 4.3 kiloquads. The computer capabilities of the PADD are distrubuted throughout the divce as preprocessors attached to the varius sensors and twenty-seven polled main computing sectors The main processor
is made up of 14 wafers of nickel carbonitruim crystals for speeds up to 6.91 kiloquads.

Screen: The screen is composed of a tripolymer-coated transparent aluminum wafer which is imbedded in a senor matrix. This matrix detects tactile contact input from fingertips.The aluminum surface wafer is chemically bonded onto a triaxel optical display crystal membrain which serves as a high resolution full color graphic display medium.

 

[evildead]

I still want one

I know you all hat the idea of an Apple PDA... but I want one...

A 800x600 would be cool too.

 

[quanta]

in reference to Spock...

is this guy for real?

i'm going to have to get back to my holodeck program where i'm devising a way to use a stream of tachyon emissions to actually perform complex processor calculations in negative time so that i can be done computing before i even begin. And the cool part is that the entire machine is contained within a tesseract and occupies negative spacetime dimensions so that i don't have to sacrifice deskspace for my computational directives.

you will be assimilated....

 

[mischief]

I already have a Nullspace Wozcomp

It has no physical presence in this reality but interfaces at the quantum level with the 333 G3 in my rev D iMac. Theoretically I could hack ANYTHING so I just keep my head low and try not to comment on Dubyaw's E-mail.

 

[Nosaj]

PDA

Personally, I think the PDA market is to competative for apple right now. What they are interested in is the "Diital Hub" concept and bringing media to the consumer. I imagine an ipod type divice with at least a 20gig hard drive*, a high contrast possibly touch sensitive color screen. It will use 3G or some other network and use new quicktime MPEG-4 technology to stream MP3 and video to where ever you are. You could listen to any radio station you want, watch movies (they could make it so you can plug it in to a TV, possibly through an included firewire to analog adapter). Who knows, in a few years you might be able to plug in a heads up display and and have a fully imersive media experiance from a divice not much bigger than a deck of cards.

*the company that makes the 5gig hard drives in the current ipods just came out with a 20 gig thats the same size.

 

[Spock]

Quanta,
Using a negative spacetime dimension to contain anything violates the Temporal- Time Prime directive. Please deactivate all tachyon systems and sub-systems.
Thank You,

United Federation of Planets
San Fransico,CA Earth/Vulcan

 

[Spock]

Quanta,
Using a negative spacetime dimension to contain anything violates the Temporal- Time Prime directive. Please deactivate all tacyon systems and sub-systems.
Thank You,

United Federation of Planets
San Fransico,CA Earth/Vulcan

 

[JOHNGAETANO]

APPLE SHOULD TRY A PORTABLE DEVICE AGAIN

Sure everyone can say the PDA market is competitive, but so what. If you design a product that everyone wants, it doesn't matter. Nobody has the balls to try a PDA again at Apple. When you look at the Newton 2000 series, ask yourself what is available now thats better? Nothing. It's sad, but true.
I think a great Apple PDA would move peopel more toward Apple desktops.

Key Things:

Battery Life 16 Hours.
Wireless email built in as an option.
A OS X type interface.
PIM Software the rocks!
Size, it can't be huge.
Fire Wire Sync.
Handwritting Recognition.

 

[teetoo]

I've been using a ipaq pocketpc for the last 9 months - it's a great device - it originally got it to develop Flash content for the web. It can do loads of stuff and there are hundreds of apps developed for it, but I only use it for a handful of things - Internet access via Avantgo, playing mp3 & video (windows media player & CFlash cards for memory), playing games - MAME, GameBoy & GBA emulators, using Word & testing stuff I've done using Flash.

Now if Apple knocked up an OSX like pda that could intergrated with both pcs & macs it'd get one.

An apple PDA would make my life some much easier, I use a cube at home, a G4 destop at work until two weeks ago I had a G3 PB266 (but sold it expecting a revised Tibook to be announced soon--bugger).

At the moment I have to use a PC the office to sync because options to sync on a mac are pretty limited. I'd really like to beable to use a PDA as a storage device too (that would mean I would really need a laptop), I could just plug it in via firewire at home or at the office and have all my work, music & email ready to access, and then when I'm on the move I could still do the stuff I do at the moment.

Looking forward to more iMagic from Apple...