BBC: 2005 Looking Good for Gadgets 149
wiggles writes "The BBC says, 'The relentless pace of development in the hi-tech world and rampant competition in many of its sectors, particularly among mobile phone firms, all suggests that 2005 is going to be a very good year.' They talk about that (overused?) buzzword 'convergence' and the implications for gadgets in 2005 as we further approach the 'convergence' asymptote. So what 2005 gadgets are Slashdotters looking forward to?" I'm forecasting that 2006 and 2007 are ALSO looking good for gadgets. You heard it here first...
iPhone (Score:3, Insightful)
time warp (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty good news but (Score:1, Insightful)
The Perfect Phone (Score:5, Insightful)
I dropped it once and it stopped working. When I went looking for a new phone, I discovered that Nokia had discontinued the 8600 and the only options for new phones were these large monstrosities with cameras, video games, color screens and picture messaging. Absolutely horrible.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to the days of wearable computers, but when it comes to a cellphone, all I want is a phone that is small and has good voice quality. The 8200 was the perfect phone. I have no idea why it was discontinued, but all the cell phone makers are playing the same game -- gadgets, gadgets, gadgets. I don't want crazy features, I want something that does its job well, not 15 jobs poorly.
Here's to hoping that in 2005 cell phone makers will go back to producing good cell phones, and not try to include a camera and an atari emulator on every model!
Re:useless gagets. (Score:2, Insightful)
I know the quality of the camera/video isn't comparable to what I would get out of a "real" digicam, but hell, it will get better over time. They may be "useless gadgets" for some of us who don't use a camera or voice recorder on a daily basis, but there is *always* a market for the latest and greatest. Even if there isn't a market for a new toy like this when they conceive it, the clever folks in marketing will *create* a market for it before it's released.
If it has flashy lights, uses a battery, and can be used as a tool for productivity -or- a distraction from the real world, you'd better believe it will get made and it will sell.
Re:useless gagets. (Score:4, Insightful)
$500 "iMac mini" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:useless gagets. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't need a cellphone that takes pictures and plays MP3s, but I'm looking for one; and I don't need an iPod that can store 40Gb of music, but it sure is nice not to have to worry about what to transfer over to the iPod and just put _everything_ there so I can access it.
It's natural, when what we actually _need_ is taken care of, to start looking at the next step -- the things we'd really, really like.
The truth is (well, the truth filtered through my liberal biases) that people need to feel secure in their person, that they need to have a way to make sure they'll have food on their table tomorrow, and a way to exercise a certain sense of autonomy. A roof over their head would be nice too.
While in much of the world the above can't be taken for granted, most of us who read Slashdot already have this. We're probably not going to get shot in the street; we probably don't have to worry about being able to afford a loaf of bread tomorrow. So we start looking at the next, more optional stuff. That's OK -- there's nothing wrong with wanting more out of life than the bare necessities -- as long as we don't confuse "Man, I'd really like to be able to play 'Baby One More Time' as my ringtone" with a need
Relentless pace of development (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a real need for non-camera phones (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's to hoping that in 2005 cell phone makers will go back to producing good cell phones, and not try to include a camera and an atari emulator on every model!
I travel quite a bit to customer sites, and many of them - particularly organizations with very valuable intellectual property (e.g. trade secrets) - explicitly prohibit cameras of any kind. It is my hope that the major mobile phone vendors recognize the need for nicely-featured phones without cameras for use by consultants and other people working in these facilities.
A phone for business not games (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like better more commonsense PDA functions in the phone such as Palm conduits to Lotus notes and the ability to sync to a web based public calendar. I'd also like a better phone book, one that allows better integration of email addresses.
And as a long time T9 user - back when it was used on Palmpilots as well, I have to say, that dog won't hunt anymore. It's too tedious to use effectively for text messaging and email. I think that Samsung and company are just going to have to bite the bullet on this one and provide a fold up keyboard tht connects to the obscure and seemingly useless data port on on VI660 phone in order for me to effectively use PCS vision services.
And I probably won't get a camera phone unless and until it's a better cheaper and more efficient replacement for a REAL digital camera. And at that, it has to plug directly into a photo printer and unload and print just like the cameras of today.
In five years I want to get rid of my laptop, PDA, phone, MP3 and CD player and use a single device that doesn't cost as much as a car, runs 2 full days on battery power and is 100% backup-able to some storage device on my homeLAN like a network NAS box.
Re:The Perfect Phone (Score:3, Insightful)
If only Apple would make a Tablet it could be.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of it as an extension to the iPod line --- the iPod lets one carry all of one's music (as a backup too) and modify the order it plays in --- the iPod Photo adds all of one's images to that --- how about a further upscale unit to allow one to carry all of one's documents?
Even if it did nothing but display a
If it's set up to be a Macintosh computer as well, being able to run Mac applications is a huge benison is just icing on the cake, but just basic use (calendaring / scheduling, note-taking, document annotation) in situations where a laptop is inappropriate / inconvenient (meetings, interviews, while walking about), and having the (portable!) equivalent to a Wacom Cintiq whet it's attached to one's Macintosh (look at the program Maxivista for an example of how this could work) is certainly worthwhile.
And of course, it'd be nice to replace my Newton which I still use for contact management (synch w/ iCal and AddressBook.app), note-taking (port the Newton user interface and Notepad) and of course, reading some ebooks (incl.
William
(whose Stylistic has music, hundreds of ebooks, a complete graphic design portfolio _and_ all the tools necessary to update and work on said portfolio --- see http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio.html --- including a copy of TeX, LyX &c.)
Open platforms (Score:3, Insightful)
If it isn't an open platform you can count me out. By open I don't mean it has to run Linux, but if I can't get a devel kit at little (use the pricing and availibility for the official Palm devkit as an example) or no cost it isn't open. If I can't download apps from sourceforge and install them without the vendor's blessing it isn't open. Notice that even WinCE is open by this definition.
Yes I understand that some parts of a cellphone's firmware must be unchangable for reasons that are obvious to anyone with an understanding of how things work, but the rest should be as open as possible, and standardized across multiple product lines and vendors is a big plus.