Ideal PDA Feature Wishlist? 498
RichiP asks: "My memory is so poor I forget friends' birthdays and appointments I made a day ago. I sometimes have an idea I want to jot down but that I end up forgetting when I finally come upon pen & paper. To help myself, I was thinking of purchasing one of those integrated PDA and cellphone devices (first the Handspring Treo then another by Samsung), but I've always felt that these devices were still far from ideal. I was wondering if the Slashdot community would share their wishlist of features for what they believe would be the ideal Personal Digital Assistant. Features for input, processing and output are all welcome. Perhaps the device I want may be years from becoming commercial. Given the right ideas from input from others, I might be able to come up with my own device or start an open project geared towards it." Even if you do feel that PDAs have a limited lifespan, if you had a chance to add a feature to a PDA (especially if you felt it would increase the lifespan of the PDA), what would it be?
Well... (Score:4, Funny)
1] Longer battery life
2] An actual keyboard (or a stylus that works)
3] Upgrade-able software
4] Lots, LOTS of memory
5] Ofcourse, the ability to run in a Beowulf cluster...
Re:Well... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
And when he says longer battery life... We mean it. 8 hours... Why not 16? Why bot 24? Why not 72? Why not 100? Yes, we can recharge batteries. Do we want to recharge it every day? NO. Do we want to do it often? NO. Once a week is about right.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Oh, I'd like to add one. A five year warranty with same-day repairs. At least. (The point is; make them unlikely to break down).
I've had a Psion Series 3, and an IPaq. I'd consider the psion the superior device by far, even being almost a decade older. AA batteries for a fairly long battery life, did what I needed it too, had programming tools for fun. But eventually it broke down.
The IPaq lasted about three months, then the constant glitchiness and constant need for recharge, eventual discharge coupled with final battery breakdown left me not bothering to get it repaired. I cant use something that's more unreliable than my own memory for a PDA.
How about... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How about... (Score:2)
A decent keyboard (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A decent keyboard (Score:2)
A while ago I was wondering about possibilities with proper keyboards in a Palmish form factor. Daft idea occurred to me - what about the keyboard from the Revo but rotated through 90 degrees anticlockwise? Hinge on the end, fix it to the screen. You could then hold it at the hinge and look at the screen while typing or using your finger as the stylus for input. Course, typing will be slower but I'd be willing to bet it'd be faster & more accurate than Graffiti.
We have just massively bumped up the moving parts count, though, and the manufacturing cost with it.
Re:A decent keyboard (Score:2)
Granted the Revo and Diamond branded PDA is easier to get then the 5mx. But Revo is lacking compared to its bigger brother.
Voice recognition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Voice recognition (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Voice recognition (Score:2)
- Open calendar Calendar open New item meeting with joe tuesday at three thirty for two hours New item entered for tuesday june eighteenth two thousand three at three thirty for two hours - meeting with joe end calendar calendar closed
- open todo list todo list open new item get latest phaser mark... new item entered in todo list priority one uncategorized get latest phaser mark extend last item extending mark eight with enhanced disruptor last item now reads get latest phaser mark eight with enhanced disruptor categorize last item fry's shopping list last item placed in fry's shopping list category close todo list todo list closed
- voice recorder on recording blah de blah de slash who? de blah blah end recording... recording off playback blah de blah de slash who? de blah blah store as text memo slashblah converted to text and stored as memo slashblah
Although it's a little verbose, I think at least the first versions will require the confirmations so you learn to trust it (or not, depending on whether it works). And it needs to have wireless and a long battery life. There's an empire the likes of which Microsoft only dreams of having awaiting the inventor of a good hi-capacity, quick recharge battery.Re:Voice recognition (Score:2)
Re:Voice recognition (Score:2)
Re:Voice recognition (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? Because you end up yelling,"WIFE!" or "HOME!", to get the damn thing to "match-voice-to-number". After repeating the same name five or six times, I realized its just easier to just dial the 7 damn numbers.
Plus, you make a complete idiot of yourself around other people when they see you screaming at your phone:)
Mipad.. (Score:2)
download and unzip the video from the mipad link [flashenabled.com]
I could only find a zipped copy of the video, but its worth watching.
Build in screen protector (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Build in screen protector (Score:2)
http://www.staples.com/Catalog/Browse/SKU.asp?B
Re:Build in screen protector (Score:2)
speech-to-text (Score:2, Interesting)
Cheap. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cheap. (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if the el cheapo ones cost $5 at your local drugstore, it's useless unless it's easy to move data into and out of it. Nothing sucks worse than building up your data for six months and then getting a PDA with a completely different data format as a gift.
Re:Cheap. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cheap. (Score:2)
I have one of the original Timex Datalink watches. I got it for a gift ~6-7 years ago. It still works great. The only issues I have with it are 1)limited memory (the 2nd edition solved that), 2) no way to add info on-the-fly, and 3)no Linux or Win2k support. I've replaced the battery once, and the band several times. And it just keeps going.
Timex, it takes a licking & keeps on ticking. Hmmm, maybe Timex needs to make a Palm...
vim (Score:2)
-metric
A personal digital assistant (Score:3, Funny)
and force feedback
The biggest issue... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's it.
All I know... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh fer chrissake! (Score:5, Funny)
Sheesh.
- Steve
Re:Oh fer chrissake! (Score:2)
Phillip.
Re:Oh fer chrissake! (Score:2)
JOhn
If you made on like this I would buy it (Score:3, Funny)
A feature-rich PDA... (Score:3, Interesting)
640x480 screen, extensible (by yanking it out) to 800x640
Integrated pinhole camera
Runs Linux (duh), w/compile-on-PDA
64 megs operational memory, as-much-as-it-can-take storage memory
Grafitti or similar writing system, with add-on keyboard (a la GoType)
IrDA access
Extension capability via high-speed, low pinout interfaces (more than one).
Battery lasts for about three weeks under heavy usage.
Re:A feature-rich PDA... (Score:2)
Ugh,... not Grafitti. Try using the Transcriber handwriting recognition on the iPaq or similar then try going back to Grafitti. It's unbelievably painful. Transcriber aint perfect, but it's a hell of an improvement on Grafitti, so I'd change that requirement to "decent handwriting recognition"
Re:A feature-rich PDA... (Score:2)
What I'd want... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is so much I could do if I had a web browser in my pocket all the time, and I wasn't nickled and dimed for using it.
Re:What I'd want... (Score:2)
My Ideal PDA/Cell Phone (Score:2, Interesting)
1) MP3 player functionality, with 256MB flash memory and USB interface, mountable as a hard drive.
2) Infrared/802.11/Bluetooth modem support, plug & play with any laptop computer, log on from anywhere. (No need to cram a web browser onto the cell display itself.)
3) Ability to make calls over cell network, cordless landline, or internet, at will.
4) GPS/navigational functionality.
5) Last but not least, optional laser engraving for a paltry additional $49, of course. (Do-it-yourself paperclip engraving is just so five-seconds-ago.
Maybe Apple's next Digital Device will be something like this. I have a Powerbook G4, and it's surprisingly difficult to find a workable log-on-from-anywhere solution.
Plain-old Cell Phone (Score:2)
Start with the Newton (Score:3, Interesting)
- At least a GB of nonvolatile memory (why is it that my digital camera can accept a microdrive but most PDAs can't?)
- 802.11
- Firewire
- MP3 player
- Color screen with MPEG-4 player
- Microphone for voice recording to MP3, preferably with voice recognition but could be downloaded to desktop PC for VR later.
- Wireless short text messaging/email with ability to use its wireless modem from a computer when I need a bigger screen
- Microsloth-free
I guess what I'm looking for is the bastard child of a Newton and an iPod with a few extra bells and whistles.Re:Start with the Newton (Score:2)
Newton 2.0 handwriting was AWESOME! (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, I'm a bit biased in that I tested the 2.0 recognition engine.
Looking at the references you give, most of them only criticize recognition on the earliest models, The sole exception is the document Handwriting Tips for Newton Power Users [catamount.com] which was a guide to how to get the best possible recognition out of OS 2.0. As the person who anonymously wrote the bulk of that guide, I'd like to say that it was not my intention to slam the general quality of 2.0 recognition. Newton handwriting recognition rocked!
My hope is that when the ARM-based PalmOS devices come out, Sony will release a Clie that has decent word-based recognition. Newton's incredible achievement wasn't just that they got get great recognition but that they did it with such a small memory footprint. Given how much cheaper ROM and RAM are today, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Palm or WinCE device with decent recognition some time in the next few years.
Re:Killer handwriting recognition? The Simpsons sa (Score:2)
The main reason the 1.0 Newton got such a bad rep is that it shipped with a configuration mistake, which is that it only recognized words that were in the dictionary. So if you wrote "Martin" on a MessagePad 100 and that name wasn't in the common names dictionary but Martha was, you might get "Martha" instead. Simply unchecking the "only recognize dictionary words" preference item cured the worst such surprises.
feature set (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Off-processor or otherwise more efficient multimedia processing. This would allow for a slower, cooler CPU to conserve batery life when not playing mp3s, movies or fancy shmancy games.
3) Full access to the hardware via a standardized API (either CE, Pocket PC or PocketLinux).
4) A microphone jack. Give me a mic jack and a wireless CF card with the ability to log into a GSM cell system and i've already got my cell phone.
5) Seperate peripheral and memory slots. The new Toshiba unit goes a step further than this, with seperate "Secure" digital memory and compactflash peripheral slots, as well as a built in 802.11b slot. That's what I want.
6) Built in "cradle." That is, I'd like a USB / firewire port on the unit and a USB slot on the machine, so that I can use quality, inexpensive USB cable and not the expensive proprietary stuff. If I could draw power from the line to charge up, it's an added plus.
7) 802.11b. Then I won't need a cradle at all
For my money, that new Tosh Pocket PC unit is close to perfect. It may offend you "pad & pencil" palm folks and you linux lovers to hear this, but the CE OS is very mature, has a ton of apps, is easy to develop for without heavy licensing costs (even if it is for the evil empire), and has so many genuine choices on the market, eg machines with very different hardware for people with different uses.
Re:feature set (Score:3, Insightful)
Handera 330 has had this for a while (CF and SD/MM slots).
-DVK
My wish list. (Score:2)
QWERTY Keyboard
Blackberry-style scroll wheel
>128MB Flash memory
PCMCIA slot
USB connector
Max 3.5"W * 6"H * 1"D dimentions (approx same size as a thick checkbook)
Integraded wireless (data + voice)
Headphone jack
Stereo sound
mp3 audio / mpeg video
TV-out
Short List (Score:3, Insightful)
Work as a cell phone
Wireless Internet / Email access
Simple database to track lists
Encrypted data vault for PIN's
Synchronize data with computer
USB 2.0 port
Smart Memory port that will use generic SmartMedia
How about a PCMCIA port?
Infrared
Security feature that can't be bypassed with factory tools
A longer stylus. Have two pieces that screw togethor and it would fit
A belt clip, I don't always have a coat to put it in
A vibrate feature for alarms and incoming calls
Color! It's not a grayscale world
Headphone jack for MP3's.
Re:Short List (Score:2)
Yes?
I forgot my password, and i need my important financial data now!
but sir it meets c3 guidelines for security as per your recomendation on
THAT WAS BEFORE I NEEDED TO BREAK IN
Always be careful of what you wish for, you may get it.
Re:Short List (Score:2)
my ideal PDA... (Score:2, Interesting)
2) dual athlon mp 2g or faster ideally. also, these should allow for future upgrades if need be.
3) a full sized ergonomic keyboard
4) full dolby 5.1 surround sound and subs
5) as a base I would want around 80gigs of storage, but again, it would be nice to have the ability to upgrade that or add on.
6) a bare minimum of a half gig of RAM, but ideall a gig or two. and again, this should allow upgrades or additions.
7) that LCD needs to have millions of colors and have something along the lines of a GeForce 4600 driving it. again, when there becomes a faster version, I want that, so I need to be able to swap them.
8) a very rounded case, that is so shiny I can see my face in it. think like the Nokia 8860.
9) it has to be very light. I don't want to notice that I have this thing with me
10) it should be bulletproof. I tend to keep them in my shirt pocket or inside picket of my jacket in the winter and I want this thing to be able to stop any shots taken at me.
11) in regards to #10, I would recommend Titanium
12) money is no object, but it should cost less than $200.
that would be my ideal PDA.
oh, and it should have some sort of integrated pointing device that is also shiny.
eventually, I want it to be able to translate langauges on the fly, download things off of a wireless connection, read my mind, and create a neural net of my life experiences and sayings as time passes and eventually allow me to use it as my brain.
ideally.
Re:my ideal PDA... (Score:3, Funny)
I'd shoot you in the foot or something to steal it
If you haven't tried today's cheesy products yet (Score:2)
Gave up on PDA. Stick with Cell phone (Score:2)
- PalmOS: forget it. I can not learn graffiti. the screen is too small, the system is obviously for geeks. No wireless, why do I need a cell phone + this thing.
- PocketPC: sweet screen, nice apps, but battery last for half a day and it's too heavy, too bulky. No wireless integrated. Too expensive.
- Sony picture book: almost great, but too big and keyboard is not practical. Almost all the cons of a PDA and a laptop together.
- My Cell phone (Nokia): it does the job. Appointment, phone directory, voice recognition (to call my friends), decent battery. wireless. Strongly build (fell many times, still works)
Why would I need a pda, when I get so much more out of a cell phone that cost only $29 a month. And if I need to play games, I still can get a GBA (but not carry it all the time.)
PPA, the girl next door.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Feature List (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Feature List (Score:2)
I believe the GameCube uses a proprietary 3" DVD format.
Earth Final Conflict... (Score:4, Insightful)
- UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) wireless
- Flexible/rollable display
- Video camera
- Realtime Full-motion video send/receive
- GPS
- Internet connectivity
- 640x480 (preferably 800x600) 16 bit color
- Soft function screen (keypad, display, video)
- Enough power to last all day (at least)
- Flat rate (unlimited) usage
To everyone who wants a mini computer (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason that palms have much less ram, weaker processors, weak color abilities is 1. to make them cheaper, and 2. to make the battery last a while.
The average battery life on a win device is around 8 hours. Palm devices go 2-3 weeks. Would you like to read a mini paper knowing that you will use up 1/3 of your batteries reading it? The reasons I like my palm are basicly a super duper paper notebook. The to do list is perfect for me. I bought a keyboard and use it to take notes in class (I can type twice as fast as writing, plus it can easily be stored on my comp). And creating my own progs for the palm is always a spiffy thing.
P.S. for everyone that is gonna go a similar route as I did. I bought the HAndspring Neo for $200. Just telling you, all those shades of grayscale are almost never used (maybe in complex games, but thats it), and cpu speed really doesn't make much of a difference. I would go out buy a old device that has the same capabilities as the new ones but is just worst (slower, less shades of gray), but DONT go below 8megs of ram.
Skip the PDA, I want a PT (Score:2)
To everyone who wants a minicomputer (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason that palms have much less ram, weaker processors, weak color abilities is 1. to make them cheaper, and 2. to make the battery last a while.
The average battery life on a win device is around 8 hours. Palm devices go 2-3 weeks. Would you like to read a mini paper knowing that you will use up 1/3 of your batteries reading it? The reasons I like my palm are basicly a super duper paper notebook. The to do list is perfect for me. I bought a keyboard and use it to take notes in class (I can type twice as fast as writing, plus it can easily be stored on my comp). And creating my own progs for the palm is always a spiffy thing.
P.S. for everyone that is gonna go a similar route as I did. I bought the HAndspring Neo for $200. Just telling you, all those shades of grayscale are almost never used (maybe in complex games, but thats it), and cpu speed really doesn't make much of a difference. I would go out buy a old device that has the same capabilities as the new ones but is just worst (slower, less shades of gray), but DONT go below 8megs of ram.
Note: I submitted this twice, once as an anonymous coward because slashdot cant read its own cookies.
Additional note: don't get any device with an OS older than 3.0 lots of progs wont run on it. (if possible get a 3.5, 99.99% of all progs will work on it).
Re:To everyone who wants a minicomputer (Score:2)
I was surprised at how much of what I wanted done it did and just it was okay that it wasn't a full blown computer. I think Palm hit it on the head, the only thing they really missed as communication. They should have inked deals and made it more possible to put PalmOS on cellphone and they should have been the first out of the gate with bluetooth devices.
Put palmos on my cell phone (hard to do with the size and form factors. Put an okay browser on it and enable it for bluetooth and I'd be really happy.. Put together some smart internet syncing software so that I could select things to be synced up once every couple hours over cell or via internet over bluetooth and it'd do just about everything I want for a computer that size to do.
Re:Minicomputer? (Score:2)
I want just ONE FEATURE (Score:5, Insightful)
Remind me to walk the dog every day at 6pm.
REMIND ME TO (intro keyword, start listening)
"walk the dog" recorded verbatim, played back when the timer goes off.
EVERY DAY AT 6PM (parsed into an alarm)
It should be able to handle many kinds of timers and alarms:
Remind me to go home you workaholic every weekday at 6pm.
Remind me to check for a new mozilla version next Tuesday.
Remind me to buy mom a birthday card on September 1st.
Remind me to call my brother every Easter.
Remind me to check the pizza in 10 minutes.
Remind me to check my heart rate every 5 minutes for one hour.
That's all I want. I could care less about every other feature on a stupid PDA... I do not use them. All I need is someting to remind me of things, quickly and easily. A small LCD screen to review reminders, or possibly an IR port (or bluetooth) instead and some PC software.
It would not need to parse quickly... it could take up to a minute to process the speech. It could confirm that it has successfully added by beeping or vibrating for a second... confused parsing or incorrect parsing would cause it to beep or vibrate several times to get your attention.
Power needs would be quite low... the thing could probably go weeks or months on a single charge. I have a Casio Voice-Recording watch that I have not had to change batteries for yet, and it's over a year and a half old. Only parsing a new recording would tax its batteries.
That is my killer feature. When something can do that for me, I will be on it in a hot second. And if someone patents it and sits on it, I'm gonna be suing for prior art, the b**ches.
'Remind me' with if-you-don't extension (Score:2)
I don't know whether she meant out loud or over the net. Either would be a mighty fine motivator.
Re:I want just ONE FEATURE (Score:2)
Why all in one? (Score:2)
What I want in a PDA is a more modular collection of pieces that can each connect with each other - perhaps physically, perhaps wirelessly.
So, rather than have a PDA that can play MP3's but has too smal a storage area (less than 5mb) to be really useful, a digital camera that sucks, and marginal phone built into a clumsy to operate hand unit - I'd like a storage device (700 GB plus please) I can keep in my pocket or piggyback on a real phone (perhaps something built into a battery pack) that services a range of devices I might have on me - A very lightweight PDA (half the width of the palm V) that is basically there to access and manage the storage and run programs stored there, a great 300 megapixel digital camera that also uses the storage device, and whatever other intresting things I can thing of talking to each other (like a shirt with a built in flexible display that mirrors the most recent picture taken ).
Oh, and each individual device had best have a battery life of a month or more, or forget about it.
Note that what I'm talking about sounds like the whole wearable concept, but I'm more about leaving devices in a form factor that suits us than trying to work out how to embed a camera in my forehead.
If you wanted some advice for what to get now, get a Palm V (or at least that form factor) if you are actually going to use it and some other sort of PDA if you'd rather get a toy you'll likley discard in under a year.
Go watch... (Score:2)
Usefully small, like the *Rex*!!! (Score:2)
zerg (Score:2)
They've already been "perfected." (Score:3, Insightful)
Same thing with a PDA. What things do I want that I don't have already? Boring things. Incremental things. Cheaper, clearer, better screen, yadda yadda yadda. My personal shtick is a good eBook reader... but what I'm saying is, PDA's are OK. They've figured it out. A Palm is great for addresses, phone numbers, etc. Just like a four-function calculator is great for adding up a few numbers.
Yes, I've seen calculators built into pens, into watches, calculators that graph equations, etc. but the classic four-function calculator is FINISHED--not in the sense of "dead," in the sense of COMPLETE.
And the PDA is "finished," too. It has a pretty high gloss on it already, in fact, although I'm sure they'll manage to polish it some more in the coming decades.
But the future is a $10 PDA that's about the same size, the same weight, and has about the same feature set as today's $100 Palm (or yesterday's $400 Palm)--or today's $30 cheapo PDA knockoff.
The $400 Palm that makes coffee, walks the dog, is woven into your handkerchief, and plays realtime multiplayer Internet games ain't gonna happen.
I'd like to use mine on an overhead projector (Score:2)
Re:I'd like to use mine on an overhead projector (Score:2)
Finally, a sensible approach to the projector request. I can't believe how many people said they want a built-in projector. I mean, come on! Now a branded projector that serves as a docking bay for the PDA.. I like that idea a LOT.
Remote control mouse, battery charger.. excellent!
Remote Storage (Score:3, Interesting)
I enter data, it gets synced (transparently) over the Internet-- first hop wireless-- to my server. Do it through my cellular carrier, I don't care. I read data, it gets cached locally unless it's updated. But there's no need to cache everything locally, so don't load my PDA up with expensive memory.
Do this, make it reliable, and make it cost less than $100, and I'll probably buy a couple and just leave them where I might need them-- one at work, one in the car, one at home.
A striking clock (Score:2)
Settings for chime. I am not a musician and pert-near musically retarded but this works for me:
1200 400
800 600
1000 700
600 800
But, I want more: I want it to do that Ding-dong, ding-dong... Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!
Re:A striking clock (Score:3, Funny)
I bought the rights to this technology and had it suppressed. Why? Because for 90% of its users, it would be "Hey, is it half-way through the movie already?"
The next phase of my plan is to make it so that the cellphone that makes noise costs $90 more than the vibrating cellphone. Then I will make it so that all car alarms immediately summon the police. Consumers will perceive this as a security feature and buy it in droves, but they will soon discover that the police, overworked and irritated, will summarily execute anybody who can't work their car alarm, which is apparently almost everybody.
What I want is the new Sharp Zaurus 5500 (Score:2)
- The ability to easily sync to Mac, Windows, or Linux (like Palms can).
- Much longer battery life, like 20 hours or so worth at full blast. Only low-end B&W Palms even come close to that.
- Easy-to-use media features (PocketPCs do media well).
- A speaker as good as the iPaq's or better.
- Grafitti strokes built-in to the recognizer (I retrained my Zaurus, but it's still not as good/easy as Grafitti).
- A nicer Address Book that has a better list view. I'm sure it's being worked on.
- Ditto something I noted in one of the reviews - the date book doesn't allow one-touch new appointments. Again, I expect it's being fixed in Zaurus.
- I'd like to see a PDA that could be a USB master, allowing me to use standard peripherals. I know it's a power drain, so having to use an extra battery pack or A/C would be OK for that.
- Finally, I'd lake the hardware to be sufficiently rugged that I can just throw it in a bag and not worry about it. All PDA's nowadays need somewhat delicate handling.
5 Simple easy features (Score:2)
Jon Acheson
MyTricorder (Score:2, Interesting)
Start with a modern cell phone, with calendar and contact list. To that add:
Voila!
One do all device (Score:2)
1. It must be a pda, keep appointments, phone numbers, etc.
2. Internet ready, must have wireless access to the net for e-mail web browsing, ssh, etc.
3. It must be able to play digital audio whehter the files are stored in the device or on the net (streaming).
4. It must have a full color LCD screen.
5. It must be no larger than a modern cellular phone (palm pilots are too wide).
6. It must be a digital camera.
7. It must play digital video.
8. I must be able to plug it into my desktop in some manner in order to trade information.
9. It must have a large amoutn of storage space, say a few gigs. IBM microdrive preferred.
10. It must run on one fully charged battery for at least 8 hours.
11. It must have an intutive alphanumeric input method.
12. It must not have DRM of any sort.
13. It must be a digital cellular phone and pager.
14. I must have a JRE (Java).
15. It must have a fast processor, fast enough to do all non-3D tasks. Maple or Mathematica (lite versions at least) should run on it.
16. It must have instant messenging, AIM, ICQ.
17. It should have a VNC client or X over SSS or equivalent, so I can use my desktop computer from the middle of the street far away.
18. The wireless net connection must be fast enough to stream mp3s.
That's all I can think of now. Any other features added are just bonuses.
PDA + GPS: Proximity Based Reminders (Score:2)
User Scenario: Driving back from work. PDA beeps or [voice message] to remind you to pick up some groceries/get an oil change/drop in on a friend/etc when you are near the store/Jiffy Lube/friend's house.
I seem to remember that they had a lot of code written but were hamstrung by the fact that the GPS unit they wanted to attach to the Palm had its release date delayed and the fact that the Palm would have to be "always on" to receive GPS signals was another issue.
The perfect PDA hasn't changed in a while (Score:2)
Here is my ideal PDA:
The demensions are similar to that of a legal pad full of paper when it comes to LxHxW. The height should be at most no thicker then todays iPaqs.
The screen should be easily readable, backlit, and full color. It needs to easily handle different fonts and display them nicely.
Bluetooth is at the heart of the connectivity process for this bad boy. Syncing with the PC should be done with bluetooth. Using it for your cellphone should be done via a bluetooth earpeice module. The phone portion should be modular enough to support major carriers in the US of A. Communication to accessory devices (such as a detatched keyboard) also needs to be handled by bluetooth.
Expandability is a key. USB and Firewire ports make the most sense but some kind of CF slot or PCMCIA makes sense for an accessory you always need. I just talked about bluetooth for syncing etc. because bluetooth is ideal for short-range. Making this PDA 802.11b accessable is necesary so it can be used house/office wide.
With the size being a full sheet of paper, long battery life should be easy to obtain. So should onboard docking for the cellphone accessory. Another possible accessory would be something like a mini screen. This would talk to the big mama via bluetooth and could quickly be used for getting information such as Datebook, Phone#s, etc and could also be used as the dialing aparatus for the bluetooth phone adapter.
The ability to securely network and actively work between others of these ideal PDAs is a MUST! Whiteboard, chat, etc. between two PDAs in a room shouldnt be too hard since they are going to be bluetooth / 802.11b enabled.
A good amount of storage is not crazy these days with the state of solid-state-memory. I think the ability to keep a DivX or a collection of mp3s or just a lot of pictures would be great.
Input would be customizable. I mentioned a keyboard for when you need to type something on the go. However, I think stylus input is perfect. Due to the size and memory, it could store everything as normal text input and wouldn't HAVE TO translate it to ASCII, but that would be prefered. Also a grafiti system would be available. Since it is expandable and should have a fair ammount of memory on it, voice record/voice recognition/voice2text should not be hard to implement, especially if you can use the cellphone adapter to interact with this mama.
Again with the docking. All accesories should be able to connect to the main PDA for recharging while the main PDA is being rechared / should use the same power input as the main so that you dont have to have different chargers for all the accessories.
... I wish
Wow. (Score:2)
A versatile, multichannel, wideband radio receiver. So I can listen to the radio, shortwave, cb, watch tv, talk on the phone, etc.
Killer DSPs to go along with aforementioned radio equipment.
A killer display. High defnition gas plasma.
Built in ultrabright microprojector.
Microphone array, so I can place it on the table and it can do noise cancellation as I talk.
An option roll-out semitransparent display like those funky things on Red Planet
Bucketloads of memory. A few gigs of ram, and about a terabyte of fixed storage.
A built in stun gun.
A pocket-warmer mode for cold days.
Voice recognition & comprehension.
My ideal PDA -- and you will hate it. (Score:2)
NO keyboard
Natural handwriting recognition
LARGE, half-VGA (320x480) color display
Overall size similar to a paperback book, maybe slightly taller
DECENT PDA operating system (NOT PocketPC or Palm)
PCMCIA slots!
Reasonably fast CPU, expandable memory
I do not care about: voice recognition, smaller and smaller sizes (if it's small enough to fit in a pocket, it's not big enough to read a book on, browse the Web on, do serious handwriting on, etc.), keyboards (if I want a keyboard I will get a laptop), graffiti (SLOOOOOOOOW), pocket Word/Excel (if I want office I will get a laptop), digital camera add-ons, etc... None of these things are worth anything to me.
Basically, my ideal PDA is the Newton 2100 but with a nicer color display and maybe a little bit thinner.
Why did I say "and you will hate it"? Because basically people get furious when I describe my perfect PDA, as if by making my ideal PDA, the market will necessarily make unavailable theirs (which is usually something the size of a credit card with a built-in keyboard with keys the size of sand grains that can run a Web server and Adobe Photoshop while using a digital camera attachment).
Make the commonplace core features trivial to use (Score:2)
Similarly, you can get clunky digital-camera add-ons for your PDA. And cell phone add-ons. And GPS add ons. And so on. These things which have the *potential* of lowering the "device count" that I like to carry around with me, but they don't do these features well enough for me to eliminate my other devices.
When they start doing these jobs as well as the indendant devices, that's when I'll start getting excited. And when they start eliminating the need to buy or carry these other devices, more and more people will buy them.
Oh yeah, and some kick-ass battery live to go along with it would be needed as well. Give me a nice little fuel cell, and better integration with cell/camera/voice-memo/etc., and I'll be in heaven.
Oh yeah, and it shouldn't be much bigger than a matchbook, using one of those retinal projection chip thingies to give me a big screen display.
-me
Ideal PDA features (Score:2)
From a Zaurus SL-5500 owner... (Score:2)
B) "Adjustable" CF slot. Spring-load the connector end of the slot with a catching gear to hold it in place until 'ejected'. My CF NIC has a 1/2" CF-sized portion that sticks up until it reaches the large block for the RJ-45 connector. It would be nice to push that portion deeper into the unit, making it easier to find a good case for it and leave an often-used CF peripheral inserted.
C) Two slots for stylii. You always lose one, so why not sacrifice an extra 1/4" hole to hold a second one.
D) Integrated *standard* ports. USB, DB-9 RS232 serial, an RJ-45 connector for lan, RJ-11 for modem (or integrate lan/modem, although that would be disadvantageous to me, personally). Think about it--we're not far off from being able to integrate these things cheaply. The circuitry needed is *very* small, and the connectors themselves wouldn't make a huje difference in PDA size (maybe 1/3 inch wider if all were put on one side, or 1/3 inch taller if all on bottom--quite possible).
E) Rubber-key keyboard. I love the Zaurus keyboard, but I'd rather have soft-rubber keys than the hard plastic (easier to grip with finger, nail, or stylus).
F) Higher-powered IR. I want my $500 TV remote =P
G) More integration: 802.11a, 802.11b, bluetooth. Why not? So long as power to the circuits is only enabled when in use, it won't make a huge difference in battery life. IANAEngineer, but certainly these have enough in common to share a good chunk of electronics.
H) DC power input with tolerence for a good range of voltages/amperages. You can always use another AC/DC adapter in a pinch, and save money on the high-priced name-brand adapters.
I'm sure I could come up with more, but...
Form factor, size, and price are key (Score:2)
Cheaply manufacturable flexible screens
More efficient batteries that can be manufactured in significantly smaller sizes
(Optional) Voice recoginition (mentioned in several places elsewhere)
The first two points are the most important. If the battery can be made small enough and the screen flexible, then, conceivably, one could almost construct a device with the functionality of existing PDA/cell phone devices in the form factor of a wristwatch! If the above changes could then be produced cheaply enough--say within the $200 range, then the MIT's so-called "pervasive computing" suddenly becomes a far more realistic proposition.
SSH (Score:2)
Yup, that would just about do it for me...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
battery life (Score:2)
Kyocera Smartphone (Score:2)
You remember that a company called Qualcomm made a palm/phone combination. A few years ago they went bankrupt, and their great idea of a PDA mixed with phone was sold to Kyocera, a Japanese company. What's nice about the newer models is that they upgraded the PalmOS to take advantage of the marriage, and fixed some physical issues with the 1.0 release of the phone.
Let me first elaborate on the design. It is a rather wide flip-phone. It's got a numeric keypad that flips open to reveal a full palm screen. There's an extendable antenna, and a nice jog dial on the side to scroll down large pages. It comes with a docking cradle/charger. There is a nice manual showing all the features, as well as a Palm Desktop CD (Windows only?)
First off, it's a black and white screen. Eh, no big deal, except that its competitor, the Handspring Treo has a color screen. The Treo also has about 3 good calls in it before it needs a recharge, I hear, while the Smartphone so far is great. Plus, the Smartphone is way cheaper.
The phone works as a phone when the flip is closed. Only the top half of the Palm screen is used, the time is displayed, and you can use the jog dial to navigate your address book, take a voice memo, or check e-mail, send an SMS text, etc. When you open it, the full screen comes into use, and the palm can run. Interetingly enough, you can run the palm, with the phone part set to On or Off. That's nice, as you can therefore use the Palm apps on a plane, unless the stewardess on board accuses you of lying/sabotage and confiscates it.
It's digital, can run palm apps, including Palm Clipping apps that connect to the 'Net. There's WAP support, though the WAP browser is really bad. It feels slow, and clumsy interface IMO.
A nice feature is that it can plug into a laptop and become a wireless fax/modem, both with a serial cable or IR port. You can download a Palm remote control app, meaning you can change the channel with your phone.
There is no bluetooth support yet, but the salesman told me that in a few months there will be an add-on to the phone's cradle port allowing it. Meanwhile, you have a headset jack, a speakerphone that lets you hear the conversation (but makes you yell to be heard on the other end), IR, and the wireless web.
The Wireless Web differs from carrier to carrier, but with Verizon I was able to send e-mails without dialing up (using a digital network) and use the pager service (for Verizon's network at least).
Kyocera's site is over at www.Kyocera-wireless.com Check it out to see the newest Smartphones, the latest model as of Summer 2002 is the QCP-6035. 8MB of RAM
Re:Pefect device (Score:2)
Re:uh ... why a PDA? (Score:5, Insightful)
A pad of paper doesn't beep an alarm before the event you forgot about happens.
Worse, once you fill up the pad of paper, you either leave it at home, where you no longer have access to the information it contains, or carry around two pads of paper. Either way you wind up with scads of paper notepads lying around. I know: that's what I used to do before I bought a Palm. You will never fill up a current-model Palm with your notes and addresses and schedule. I never came close to filling up my original 1 MB Pilot, and current machines start at 8 MB. Plus, when the time comes to copy those notes into some other app, they're already there on your computer.
Jon Acheson
Re:Try backing it up daily, or doing searches... (Score:2)
Umm, I think someone's lost track of the request:
I agree with the grandparent of this post. The problem he described was not that he doesn't have a PDA. It's that he isn't carrying a note-taking device - either the PDA (it doesn't help at home!) or the pad of paper. A notepad is faster to write on (no matter what the Palm people say), more reliable, and more indestructible than a PDA can dream of.
On the other hand, the fact that he asked for a PDA suggests to me that the memory problems are really just an excuse to play with a cool toy. *shrug* And if that's the case, original poster - sucks to be you. When you don't say what you want, it's hard to recommend something.
Re:Try backing it up daily, or doing searches... (Score:2)
Well said. Let me recommend the Zebra Pocket Pencil [zebrapen.com]. It's a small, sleek, durable 4" mechanical pencil that fits perfectly into a wallet.
I've been carrying this pencil and some paper in my wallet for about six years now, and it has come in handy more times than I can count.
(I tried carrying a PDA, but they're all too bulky. I don't carry my cell phone around either.)
Re:Interface to my cameras! (Score:2)
So, I take pictures, put them on the CF memory card (microdrive too, if I want to burn the batteries for it). When I'm done, I slap that CF into the ipaq, and I can view, edit, and transfer. If I want to copy them straight to the network, I put on the two-slot sleeve, and do that.
And it runs windows. And works great. I suppose Linux could do it if you wanted to program it all.
Re:PDA features (Score:2)
Oh? It seems to work fine for me [buy.com].
Re:Is that a server in your pocket? (Score:2)
FUD.
You can easily synch with multiple "base stations" (I suppose that would make them the clients, and the PDA the server) in CE. Contacts, email, appointments, files, etc, all updated on the big computer from the version on the PDA. Just activesync with another PC, it will ask if you want to make this the only PC it syncs with, or add it to the list. Choose the latter, and it works just how you describe.
Bingo. (Score:2)
That would be the perfect combo. The cell-tel thing I could live without. A little PDA with some decent gaming abilities. That would be cool. Maybe add a TV tuner and RCA jacks for connecting a game box. A dongle cable for that purpose would probably be necessary like those made for the old All-In-Wonder video cards, but that wouldn't be bad. And maybe the ability to use a CF modem and/or a CF 802.11b card and/or a CF wired Ethernet card.
Something like that would be swell for travel. If I could get onto chat, play games, keep my schedule and address book and whatnot together, and get my email that would rock.
Probably the Zaurus would be a good model for this, but a Zaurus with a bigger screen. Same OS...Linux would be ideal. Get all those cool emulators running.
Yes, I'm talking about a laptop replacement, pretty much. But smaller and lighter. Laptops are a PITA to take around at this point once you are used to a PDA.
Re: (Score:2)