Did the iPhone offically kill the PDA?

[el-John-o]

I used Palm OS 4 the last time I had a PDA, and I USED it, ALOT. It was my life! However, my PocketPC 2003 cellphone killed it, and up until a month ago, I used Windows Mobile. With the iPhone 4 (and my upgrade eligibility a month ago), iOS was undeniably the NEXT frontier for me. But yeah, it's been dead for a while.

It still has it's uses though, my girlfriend has one, for example. She doesn't want to pay for a data plan she will barely use and, since we're on AT&T, nearly every decent smartphone will REQUIRE a data plan. So she uses a "dumb phone" and a PDA with WiFi (one of the later Palm devices).

However we were looking at upgrading her Palm PDA and realized... um... nobody really makes those anymore LOL. In fact, an iPod Touch might actually be the best replacement.

-John

 

[ATC]

My doctor still sports a Palm when he's looking up dosages and drug interactions. I was a huge Palm fan, owned the original Pilot Pilot (by USRobotics) to my last one (Tungsten T2).

As much as competition started hurting Palm, I think the damage was mostly self-inflicted. They not only stopped innovating but their support was just pathetic. Their desktop manager software was so fragmented and buggy. I never got good support from Palm directly, but instead from its loyal user community which itself started dwindling down a long time ago (Brighthand community was awesome back in the day, a lot of very helpful and knowledgeable users). In specifically this regard, Palm reminds me of Google a lot.

 

[DeBaryFL]

Yeah, they were. I had an iPaq around then and didn't get the iphone til the 3G version. Oh, and I sold that iPaq this year (been sitting around) for around 140 dollars so people still even buy them (at least used).

I'm a high-tech-toy junkie and was really into Pocket PCs (e.g., iPAQs, Dell Axim, etc.). I'd buy every significantly new iPAQ as soon as it came out, as well as a few others such as the Dell Axim x51v. Then one day I saw an ad for the iPod Touch, bought one, and was blown away by it. A few months later I bought my first iPhone, and haven't looked back since.

 

[firewood]

Saw a guy today pull out an old Palm PDA! Wow talk about a dino, but it got me thinkin'. Were PDA's still around when the iPhone was introduced back in 2007?

The Palm Treo (a Palm PDA disguised as a cell phone), and the WinMob equivalents, were still selling decently up until the iPhone App store opened, although Palm's (and the PalmGear App store's) sales numbers started tapering off roughly three years earlier, about the time Sony gave up.

Now PDA's are still around, but in the form of professional and business use iPod Touch's, which were more popular before iPads, and now iPhones.

 

[Bobby Corwen]

Great topic to remember back to the old days!

Like the other OP, many medical professionals (and business professionals) swore by PDAs back in the early 2000s.

I would say the PDA market "peaked" around 2001-2003 when new models were being brought into the market every 3-4 months, with each manufactuer claiming to have the latest greatest. The beginning of the end for standalone PDAs probably happened in 2003-2004. We had a couple of major things happening. First the war between Palm OS and Windows CE/Mobile and MSFT was clearly starting to win. HP purchased Compaq and really didn't do much to Compaq's best selling iPaq models. They basically made a couple of new updates but didn't invest the time into the iPaq models. The killer for Palm was lack of 3rd party license partners. Sony discontinued their Clie models in 2004.....and Palm OS war with Microsoft was essentially ended. We all know when Microsoft wins, they stopped innovating. Than we were all stuck with Windows Mobiles even on our Palm Treo devices because the Palm OS had lacked 3rd party support.

But I don't think the iPhone killed the PDA. More like the iPhone took the smartphone market to a new level. The iPhone really reinvented everything that a personal smartphone should be able to do and it's still a fluid market. Everyone has had to play catch up to Apple.

Google has been the most active in it's approach. Microsoft essentially botched everything. It usually takes 2 years to build a new OS. iPhone was introduced in Jan 2007. But MSFT was trying to save money and rig their aging Windows Mobile to become touch screen friendly. It took them about a year and a half to ditch that plan. That's why they didn't announce Windows 7 mobile into late 2008 and it took another 2 years to build the new OS. Palm's WebOS is probably the 2nd best mobile OS but they lacked financial means until HP purchased them.

Wow, Im gonna memorize all that and repeat it back to someone nonchalantly at work when someone makes a comment about my 4.

One thing I would add is that the Palm Treo was still going strong up until the iPhone hit. The Treo 650 was top of it's class because its competitors were slow compared to it.