PDA Sales Fall for Third Year in Row

A reader writes "Reports ZDNet on how PDA sales have slipped for a third year in a row now at a five-year low." Anyone have numbers for sales of cell phones? My cell phone has almost every piece of functionality I got from my PDA 3 years ago. Plus a crappy camera. Still no dice roller.

There can be only one...

[danielrm26]

This doesn't surprise me. I am selling my T3 Tungsten Palm right now, and it's because I just don't use it. I mean, I *want* to use it, or, more accurately, I want to *need* to use it, but it's just not something I keep with me constantly.

I am torn between being geeky and liking tons of devices, but also moving toward simplification as a central theme in my life. Simplication, in the world of gadgets, unfortunately means using a single, do-it-all device. That for me equates to my Blackberry, which I am now syncing with my OS X machine (I refuse to be a M** person).

Anyway, that's the trend I think -- single devices doing everything. Few people want to lug around multiple contraptions.

Logical

[mirko]

I personally had a Zaurus SL5500 which suffered from stupid autonomy problems as well as a poor ergonomy and a lack of decent performance (try to edit a decently sized Excel sheet in his spreadsheet).
So, I swapped it for a read-only PDA : An iPod, that is.
I think people now either get a smartphone or an iPod for such needs.

It's not just cell phones

[antifoidulus]

that are replacing pda functionality. Hell, even the iPod has most of the functions of a basic pda sans an input method. I use it as my pda because my phone sucks, I just plug it into the cradle at night and it charges, updates my calendar, to do list, contacts etc.
Might not be good for people who constantly have to write stuff down, but for me it does what I need to do, oh yeah and plays music.

Ebooks

[Cheesy Fool]

I only use my PDA nowadays for reading ebooks, nothing else.

because

[myom]

I am currently workign on a project where PDAs would be used in the industry. I helped a student with a thesis and attached project a year ago and I've had a HP Jornada 620 since 2000.

For every generation of the PDA the operating systems have gotten much slower, bloated, hiding necessary functions, doing the usual MS oversimplification of the interface (hiding file extensions, not actually closing the apps etc).

Add more crashes, data loss and an abysmal battery duration and I'd say it's no wonder why the PDA sales drop, especially with phones getting more and more PDA functionality.

PDAs never got their killer application, which could have been a few of: phone capability, superior data input method compared to phones, instant messaging, mail, cheaper packet based data transfer or porn.

I can only see one way PDAs can go, and that is to be smaller, have a longer battery duration and have phone and instant messaging support and by that definitely Edge/GPRS/UMTS or other 3G telephony and data transfer capability, in effect becoming a lot of things at once.

The only way this can be achieved is with a total rewrite or replacement of PocketPC/WindowsCE

About "converged" devices....

[StressGuy]

I just got a new PDA actually - a Tungsten E. I don't really need all the "bells and whistles" of some of the multi-media PDA's and converged cell-phone/PDA's out there right now. What I needed was new calculator. For a bit more than what a good calculator cost, the Tungsten E also provides the following:
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A way for me to keep a material/hardware reference commonly used in my industry right on hand via SD card (FAA document MMPDS-01 in case your wondering).
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A "lightweight" Octave (LyME) for more complex calculations (I use NeoCal otherwise).
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An organizer that's independant of my office scheduler so I can integrate my personal and work schedules without storing personal information on my office computer.
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A means to check my home e-mail without storing personal data on my work machine. (although I could use the web).
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A way to securely store my ever increasing number of passwords, pin #'s, etc. (yes, my handheld is password protected).
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So, for me, it works out. I thought about getting a converged phone/PDA, but I take my phone places I'd never take my PDA. A phone can be replaced, the data I have stored on my PDA would be a much more severe loss.
-
-
Anyway, my 2 cents.

Re:PDA friendly websites

[RailGunner]

Modern mobile phones have proper HTTP (not WAP) browsers and sites formatted for PDA fit on their little screens quite well.

Interestingly enough, this is how Opera makes most of it's money. While their PC browser is excellent, (IMHO), it's the ability to render sites on small screen's that's making the company money.

Re:Tablet PC

[lukewarmfusion]

I was always skeptical of tablets until my business partner got one (he wasn't at the time).

1. Impresses the hell out of potential clients, most of whom have not seen anything like it.
2. Makes it very easy for a designer to mark up a design during a client meeting.
3. Swivel screen is convenient when you're meeting with others and need to show them what's going on.
4. We carry our laptops everywhere anyway... no need for a PDA, especially when it can't match up on features and usability.

Now I want one. :)

Wireless offices play a part, as well.

[Vinnie_333]

Not only are mutli-functional cell phones talking away from pda sales but, now that we have wireless in our building, everyone in my office just carries their laptops to our meetings. No syncing necesary; just type your notes straight on the network. I do keep mine around (mainly out of force of habit) but I'm one of the few that do.

Re:What I need...

[hotgazpacho]

My friend, you are talking about the PalmOne Treo 650 [palmone.com] with SanDisk's Wi-Fi SD card [sandisk.com].

No innovation

[z1d0v]

Where's the new stuff? Every now and then we see a new PDA, with Bluetooth, WiFi, and all...

But where is the innovation? I want a few-gigas-hardrive (those I hear from toshiba might do the trick...), a nice-to-have-640x480-screen, decent battery, GSM/GPRS or UMTS, and even an integrated projector to do some presentations... I want a real personal assistant that makes me use it, or I will (again) leave my PDA at home and just bring along my cellular.

It seems the PDAs that come out simply don't have anything really new, besides an extra Mhz from a new Intel processor.

Vx, P800, Qtek S100

[Sprotch]

I had, successively, a Palm Vx, Sony-Ericsson P800 and now a Qtek S100. The latter two are not "PDAs" as such, but did not have anything to envy to any PDA. While I enjoyed the Vx a lot (probably the best Palm Pilot ever), I soon stopped carrying it around (keys + wallet + cell phone + palm = too much). It probably the best organizer ever, but there's just not enough room in my pockets... So I was overjoyed when the P800 came out. It really is a fantastic device. The form factor is ideal, and it's a really good phone. The best part is the sony "jogdial" (that small wheel on the side, whatever it's called) that allows you to do all you need with one finger. But the sync could be improved a lot, it only synchronised basic items with Outlook. Furthermore, there was no easy (or even logical) way to access phone specific items, such as contact photos. None the less, I loved this phone and kept it for two years until I broke it a while ago (bad fall). I thought of buying a P910, but SE had disapointed me with its marketing strategy. They never improved the sync and the P910 just seemed like a slightly upgraded P800. In addition, I had a really bad experience with a sony VAIO portable CD burner, which I paid a fortune 2 months before the release of XP, and never got XP drivers. So my impression of SE and Sony is that they release wonderful product from time to time, but don't expect any improvement or support for their products from them. The Qtek S100 (HTC Magician) goes around under several names, but it's basically a tiny Pocket PC with some mobile phones capabilities. So the Pocket PC part is excellent, albeit standard. The phone part is a bit disappointing however. It works fine, but the sound quality and form factor is not as good as the P800. I'm extremely happy with all it's pocket pc features (including skype) and wifi connectivity (with a special SD card) but I am disappointed by the phone. Overall, I would recommend it, but be aware that the phone experience is adequate but not fantastic.

Re:There can be only one...

[mikers]

They're fun to look at and play with for a few days, and you try to convince yourself this time you'll actually use it.

Maybe you just never found your killer app. I did.

The PDA for me has worked the best as a raw text entry device. I used it in any university and extension courses where there is a huge amount of text or material that doesn't involve a lot of math or derivations or drawing (like History, Economics, Marketing. I even used it in my Intro to Databases course). Occasional diagrams can be put on a paper notepad, but try doing text search through 100 pages of notes. Or cleaning up and reorganizing notes -- talk about time consuming and clunky.

Plain text editing without all the formating crap is where its at on PDAs. Unfortunately, this required an external keyboard, something others didn't dish out for. Data entry techniques on the PDAs without a keyboard are almost impossible, and built in keyboards like the zaurus are almost useless.

Contrast this with taking a notebook computer to class. In university, my experience has been that usually the people using them are just fiddling with fonts, or colors or text layout... Anything but actually taking notes. It seems to be more a toy than an actual tool -- something to show off. But with my pda, I had no fonts or text layout to play around with: I could just take notes. And its tiny compared to a notebook computer, 10% of the cost and liability, the battery lasts weeks (besides being easy to replace at 2 AAA batteries) and it is light and small.

out: PDAs --- in: smartphones

[gearmonger]

I have several nice, expensive, capable PDAs in a drawer at home. Instead, I carry my Treo 600 -- it has a lower resolution screen, smaller keyboard, less RAM, and a slower processor than my PDAs, yet it's small, capable, and always with me.

Smartphones will continue to get better and PDAs, like boomboxes and those camcorders you used to attach to a VCR, will be another personal electronics form-factor that just won't make much sense in a few years.

Re:Newton - PalmPilot - iPod

[treerex]

Interestingly enough, you just indicated that your iPod only does 72-81% of what your Newton did...

Yup, which means I have pretty modest needs. And my Newton didn't carry around 36G of music either.

Usability

[Thanatopsis]

Does anyone find the utility of a PDA somewhat limited? I mean the form factor is somewhat limited and what do you actually use it for >? Contacts? Schedule? I have owned 5 PDAs and I simply find them too muc work to effectively use.

Re:There can be only one...

[will-el]

The point is that, faced with carrying two devices, one of which (a phone) they want to carry everywhere, they choose that one, and drop the other.

There are two ways (two independant axis, if you will) to increase the usefulness of a device. You can add more and more features/capability/power, or you can increase the probability that you will have the device with you -- by making is smaller, more durable, make the battery last longer, lowering the cost. The last one has been completely overlooked by the PocketPC manufacturers. I'm not going to go snowboarding with a $599 PDA in my pocket, because I don't want to worry about breaking it. But a $70 phone or a $199 Palm I'll take with me.

Good Form Factor, bad timing

[JohnnyCannuk]

I have always loved the "idea" of a PDA, but I have never found one that meets the "idea."

My idea was that a PDA was a portable interface to a larger, networked computing environment, not just a portable hand held version of your desktop. You use your PDA as a portable means to access applications and data residing on the network with a little compute power in you hand for other things.

The reality is, unfortunately, this just doesn't exist. The network wasn't there and when it was, a PDA couldn't connect to it - it has only been recently that you could get 802.11x connectivity for you Palm. WinCE\WindMobile devices like the iPAQ had them but they were difficult to configure (type a 28 character WEP key in by hand with a stylus?!?!). And once you got them configured, what to use them for except surfing the net.

And then there are the other technical issues. If I leave my iPAQ in my bag overnight or over a weekend and the battery is sucked dry, it is the equivelent of a soft-reset. I loose many of my installed programs and data as the device resets to factory settings. They aren't easily upgradable for the expense of buying one. The data storage and capabilities of some of the OS are lacking. I would love to run full JVM (or at least a stripped down version that is customizable) on a PDA.

Just imaging an environment where your PDA can run some fairly powerful programs, can easily connect, or be configured to connect, to a network. It can display highspeed graphics, dynamically download code (via say Jini) and can connect to devices and service with say jxta - one minute it can be your remote control for the TV\DVD\Stereo, the next your VOIP soft phone, the next you are using an application to enter data at work. This PDA can be easily upgraded and wounldn't lose data unless you format the storage device.

Until the day comes when all of this is available in a consumer device rather than a geek-hacked, one-off experiment (cuz I know ALL of the above can be done with the right tools, apis and a soldering iron), PDAs will never live up to thier promise.