PDAs and why apple should make one

[emotion]

ok ok i know this has been done to death but please bear with me.

ok over the past few years i've gained experience of Palm, Handspring and HP/PocketPC.

The PDA market is reportedly dying. The reason why is that all the offerings are not fulfilling the need of the PDA user.

Pocket PC is aimed at laptop replacement. Newer PalmOS is trying to compete with this. This is the wrong approach for the majority of users.

Handspring/PalmOne quality control is appauling and customer service even worse. Only a fool would buy a pDA from this company (see amazon comments for zire21 for a start...any model has probs tho)

This leaves Sony who aren't Mac compatible.

I have 200 notes here (uk money) for a color (not completely necessary), very small PDA for just organising my life (and PDAs do help for mst people).

As the market clearly isnt providing what the user wants (like the MP3 player market before ipod) i think apple could step in.

 

[7on]

Apple's not going into PDAs because it has already done so and failed.
Nor phones because of service conflicts (if Apple went with Verizon, Cingular users would bitch)

PDA's need to replace wallets more or less. Be a datebook/addressbook too, but be small enough for comfortable pocket use. Maybe somehow build in a bank/debit card that will come out from the side and record your transactions onto the PDA. Yet Apple will not be the one to make one.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Apple will not make one. As Jobs recently said, they developed one but decided in the last minute not to sell it. Thats it.

 

[rueyeet]

The PDA market is reportedly dying. The reason why is that all the offerings are not fulfilling the need of the PDA user.

According to market research, the PDA is dying because cellphones now provide basic PIM functionality, which is all most users want out of a PDA anyway. And everybody and their mother has a cellphone these days.

The only thing a PDA now offers that a cellphone doesn't is the ability to install and run applications like PocketWord or what-have-you; and those kinds of things suffer from the limited screen real estate. Most people will prefer a real computer for that sort of thing.

All of this makes PDAs a niche product for a niche seems to be shrinking, as evidenced by Sony's exit from the market and the declining stock of those that remain in it.

I agree with Steve Jobs on this one....cellphones have all but killed the PDA market, at least possibly until cheap retractable/foldable screens fix the viewing limitations of current PDAs. Apple thus has no incentive to go back to making PDAs now.

 

[emotion]

i should rephrase my first post really.

there is a gap in the market for an almost walletable basic palmos style pda, with decent connectivity. ok, so mebbe apple shouldn't provide it (i don't care who makes it as long as i can sync with my mac)

almost everyone i know who uses a pda regularly uses lower end ones....no-one wants a low quality camera (sony, your sales have gone down cos of this approach, the japanese market is different to the worldwide one), colour is nice but not necessary, the mp3 playing abilities are extremely poor (pocketpc or palm os and to make it worse in europe we have capped volume levels)

so i guess this is the end of the thread as i just wanted to vent my frustration at getting the device i want. thanks for listening to my views

 

[emotion]

oh yeah and a cell phone will never be a pda...

a phone needs to be tiny to carry it around. try writing notes in a meeting with a sony t610.

the p900/800 approach is ok but the bricklike size just makes it unusable.

 

[Jo-Kun]

This leaves Sony who aren't Mac compatible.

my brother uses a Sony Clie with his 12"PB, synching trough BT... so they work with Mac, just needed to get the right patch for Entourage in his case...

I use a PalmOne Zire (the first model) ok its not fast, definitely not a laptop replacement, but what do I need?? my adressbook & my calendar, ok I can do this on my iPod too I hear you say... but I hate that it works like **** on an iPod (that's why its a music player and no PDA) and there is no input possible...