With the announcement by Palm of their new 64mb Tungsten C, and no doubt to be followed soon by an equivalent Sony announcement, I can't help but wonder about the changes this will bring to mobile content on PDAs, especially PalmOS-based PDAs. Yeah, PocketPCs have had greater memory, but not necessarily the same free ram that these new Palm devices will enjoy.

When I started with my original Visor with 2mb, I still *carefully* tried to run AvantGo, but could only manage a few channels. Then my HandEra with it's seemingly generous 8mb and expansion cards made me feel like I'd jumped to the moon, in terms of capabilities. But that setup, too, soon proved limited. Now with my SJ30 and 16mb ram and memory stick, the ceiling has been raised...although my initial 64mb stick had to be replaced by a 128m stick...and of course I battle the limitations of the 16mb ram! It's just like my closets at home: no matter how big the closet, either the wife or I manage to fill it, usually sooner than later.

What's going to be the effect on mobile content with the increased ram? With the increased capacities of expansion cards, not to mention the speedier processors? Will the benefit just be *more* files, or are we about to enter an era where the software capabilities will jump exponentially and offer new ways of viewing/using this mobile content? Now that the memory, storage, and processors seem finally to be unleashed, the only real constraint left is the screen size....and Sony is pushing that issue as well.

So what kinds of capabilities do you think we might we see in the near future using these new steriod-pumped PDAs?

I am not really sure if the increase in RAM helps to foster mobile content. I have most of my documents on external memory and that works very well with iSilo.

What I'd love to see is bigger and brighter screens. Oh and better a battery lifetime. Is that too much to ask?

Originally posted by Alexander
I am not really sure if the increase in RAM helps to foster mobile content. I have most of my documents on external memory and that works very well with iSilo.

I wasn't thinking that ram would change the mobile content documents, but rather change the rules for developers. There is probably a practical limit on how big a program can get for users...anything much beyond 400k is going to be grumbled about. Now with RAM increasing rapidly, that figure may be more in the 1-1.5mb range for a program. With that extra room, what features might a developer add? What a could a reader or clipper program do with that much code?

What I'd love to see is bigger and brighter screens. Oh and better a battery lifetime. Is that too much to ask?

For the first part I think they call them laptops. :D

As for the batteries...the new processors are supposed to be more efficient, so that may help...but there doesn't seem to be any real tech breakthroughs on batteries at the moment.

Three words: Wifi wifi wifi... or maybe 3G. ;)

I was just looking at the news stand, and saw five rags with wifi written all over the front of them. For a couple of good ideas of what's to come, check out unWired this month (wifi on the cover) as well as this week's copy of Business Week (also wifi on the cover). I feel the onset of heavy-duty cellphone/pda based units with mega storage coming on, but I contend that since wifi is most cost effective, there will be an integration of these two to save on cost and bandwidth and that this will be a standard by 2005.

I agree and disagree with your post


"Palm, Inc. Solutions Group today said it has accomplished a sevenfold breakthrough in memory for Palm Powered(TM) handheld computers. Palm Solutions and PalmSource engineers collaborated to develop memory technology that extends the amount of random-access memory (RAM) possible on a Palm OS® handheld from the current 16MB to 128MB."
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/030417/sfth021_1.html

Some Pocket PCs aleardy can be tweaked to 128MB of RAM, and recently the genio550C released in Japan came with 128MB of RAM

here is what some ppc users think http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11494&highlight=palm+128mb&sid=72a28e253535936c3aa111c08a57b73a


so news about the memory innovation is strictly palm related ... and not the PDA market as awhole



The notion that increased memory means a new era for mobile content is arguable..

Developers always try to make their apps as small as possible, increase in ram does not mean that apps should increase by the same ratio... but developers might be less worried about creating bigger apps..

but they would still try to make the app compact for 2 reasons
1- there is still a huge market of palm users who have limited amounts of memory still
2- increased memory means increased demand for other types of files (mp3s, huge ebooks, jpgs, isilo files ;) , videos)

also currently most palm apps support VFS, meaning users easily place apps in memory cards to run them and this is what i do with all of my games and huge apps .. and this makes me feel at ease incase of a sudden hard rest


But I do agree with you about this being a new era for Palm, mainly the Intel Xscale PXA 255 400mhz is a HUGE step, to me this is more important than the increase in memory
Did you know that there is currently only one PPC with that processor? meaning the tungsten C is a step ahead of all ppcs in the market.

but remember there is still something missing, most apps are not arm coded, but run on PACE which emulates Palm OS 4.01 .. developers creating new apps make them OS5 compatible and not OS 5 enhanced (which would not run on older palms)... so there is still a long way ahead

I would classify myself as a lite users, because of my work, I rely on the brute force of a laptop. The daily dose of 10Mb e-mails because in a corporate society, they think it's cool to send everybody a copy a recently pitched PowerPoint presentation.

My Palm serves as a nice note book to take a long when I visit customers. On my way back, drop by Starbucks and read a day or two old newspaper which I download the night before. Although I normally tune in to the BBC on my comute to the office, so reading the Isilo version is mostly to keep up with the local news (don't want to look stupid if the customer should be asking my comments on current affairs :D). Check my schedule and my to do list. Off again to endless meetings, telecon, etc.

Back in the office, it's laptop power time again, and make sure I sync my PDA, etc. before I check out for the day (actually, the night. always burning the midnight oil :( ). On Friday is off to the Mosque for me. So, flip on my Palm and continue reading the Isilo version of the Holy Koran.

So, will WiFi and bigger PDA be for me in the future? I doubt it. I think it goes back to what will be the "killer apps" for PDA. If they can blend the PDA with a handphone in a package that does not cut corners, I may opt for one. The Tungsten kind of forcing things a bit. Then again, it's the price to pay for all the "real time" news. I'm happy with reading "stale" news.