|
The only odd thing about it is, we've had mobile computers for almost as long as we've had desktops. Remember the Newton? Or the Casio Zoomer? It's not like PDAs were just invented last year. So why the heck are they still bleeding edge?
The biggest drawback to the computer age is the fact that companies insist on releasing the latest and greatest, just because they know people will pay for the thrill of having "bleeding edge" tech, before its real value has been established. As fast as one HW/SW package is mastered, a new one takes its place. There hasn't been enough standardization to allow the industry to settle down and get the heck off that razor.
Laptops were a prime example of this problem, with their many years of trying out a new display technology seemingly every 8 months or so... manufacturers and programmers were going crazy keeping up, and prices were through the roof. Now that hardware is reaching standardization, prices are coming down, and overall build quality and performance is going up across the board.
Windows (yeah, I'm gonna say it) kicked off a software standardization that has stabilized the SW market... now no OS is released that doesn't adhere to the standards of an established OS, whether it's Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, etc, and we're all better off.
The PDA market has been in flux, I think, because of the "all things to all people" syndrome... nobody can decide once and for all what should and should not be standard issue on a PDA. And now, with cellphones added to the mix, it's even more confusing. This is why I'd prefer separate devices with specific tools on-board, as it would speed up standardization of each device. If a device had to have a specific set of features to be a PDA, say, it would be much easier to standardize the tools, HW and SW accordingly.
|