PDA

[Falleron]

Re: Apple's affordability

I can see apple producing a newton2 if no other company like palm does a good job integrating it into OSX! This wont be for at least a year I would say, this would let apple see if the pda market will pick up again before it enters it again.

 

[Doraemon]

Re: Apple's affordability

Originally posted by eyelikeart
Apple is trying to tap into every market possible...

No, I disagree. Apple did that before and - surprise - failed. I think Apple's product line will expand, but I don't think it'll exceed the digital hub strategy (we are definitely not going to see new printers, scanners, external drives, etc.). And I don't expect to see a new Apple PDA either.

 

[eyelikeart]

ok

ok so I may be wrong with the printers and such...

but maybe what I should say is they are trying to gain ground in a variety of areas....with an elite line of hardware?

 

[eyelikeart]

also...

Apple prides themselves upon being the company doing things others are not...

 

[bunge]

The thought of a PDA is a very touchy subject. I think the product more likely to be introduced would be a PDA sized portable VCR-like device. A multi-media player/recorder. Maybe it's not likely, but it's the type of device people seem to be leaning towards.

Not that I think it's going to be introduced in January, or ever for that matter, but I think the PDA idea is dead. If Apple releases anything it's going to have to have features that seperate it from a PDA, even if it shares some functionality. A portable A/V device could be useful for the market that Apple seems to be gearing their computers towards. Not only that, it would be fairly revolutionary.

Their offline-RT codec would allow for 5 hours of video on the iPod so a similar video centric device isn't out of the realm of possibility....

 

[Falleron]

Re: Re: Apple's affordability

Apple offered the original newton way before its time (I believe that it still offers superior handwriting recognition than any other pda today)! That is the only reason it failed (too expensive). So many people talk about it, there must be something good about it that cant be done well on the models that exist today?

Personally, I have no use for any sort of pda but I can see that they have their uses.

 

[newamiga]

Interesting Facts from Pen Computing Magazine

Ok I looked at their online version http://www.pencomputing.com but they don't have back editorials. In any case accoring to their editor a Mr Conrad Blickenstorfer (no I didn't make up that name) the PDA numbers are quite interesting.. he quotes Dataquest in saying that the Global PDA sales for 2001 should be about 14 million and 33 million in 2004.. they state the U.S. market is about 7-8 million units. A total of 17 million Palm devices have been sold 1.25 million pocket PC's. Another source Aberdeen Group say that the PDA number by 2005 is 39 million sold and 85 million by 2006. He goes on in the article to point out that a large number of these devices are increasingly more expensive units.. i.e. the Compaq iPaq and that the numbers are growing he states that going forward with slowing PC sales and growth projected in the PDA market that new vendors will have to align with Palm or Win CE. Now this is where I think Steve Jobs steps in.. we all know of his love for getting up on stage and selling us on numbers like those from Dataquest (especially if they say Apple owns the educational market). So take the stage he does and he tells us that now the PDA market will have a third option but not just a run of the mill PDA an Apple branded PDA with Apple's ease of use and an OS to die for.. also hot syncing that just works out of the box.. plug in your firewire cable and boom sync in seconds to your desktop. Want space no problem we have these neat little 5 GB hard drives in our .. want great writing recogniton we got it.. carry it with you when you shoot pics and just plug n that firewire cable again and boom download those pics in seconds.
The key here is that the numbers support Jobs making the case for the Apple branded assistent. The market is growing and not decreasing in size, as some would have you beleive and this is still consistent with Apple not releasing simply a PDA.. this is a truly earth shattering digital device.. who knows but I will be there the 7th in the crowd with fingers crossed.