Friday, August 16, 2002
What PDA/phone can pass the test?
Posted by Jason Dunn in "ARTICLE" @ 12:30 PM
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2877510,00.html
David Berlind is sure an opinionated guy, and he shares opinions on how he feels the current crop of PDA/phone hybrids are lacking. Not surprisingly, the T-Mobile takes the bulk of the his slams. I agree with some of his points, but he's looking at it from the perspective of a heavy cell phone user - not as someone whose needs are data first and voice second. Rather than refute his points one by one on this site, I've E-mailed him and asked if he'd be interested in a head to head debate of his current list of requirements. Odds are he won't even respond, but we'll see. What do you think of his list?
"Before getting to the list, I'd like to say something about convergence and what the T-Mobile device taught me. The T-Mobile device is powered by the Phone Edition of Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 operating system. The group at Microsoft that is responsible for Pocket PC 2002 officially lives by the ethos that "software matters." When it comes to converged devices, I couldn't agree more. Software is the glue needed to marry a phone to a PDA in a way that produces a rich user experience that not only rivals the best phones and PDAs, but far exceeds them. After all, isn't the whole supposed to be greater than the sum of its parts?
That said, I expected Microsoft's appreciation of software would help turn the T-Mobile device as well as other devices based on the Pocket PC OS into must haves. But I've lived with the device and the operating system long enough to say that its designers clearly lacked the inspiration needed to produce an exhilarating marriage.
Even officials from VoiceStream admitted to me that their goal wasn't to produce the best phone. In separate conversations with Microsoft, I got the distinct feeling that they didn't think this device should be considered as a replacement for my existing phone. Excuse me? If adding Pocket PC-like PDA functionality to a telephone isn't an opportunity to produce the best phone money can buy, then I don't know what is." Source: Various
David Berlind is sure an opinionated guy, and he shares opinions on how he feels the current crop of PDA/phone hybrids are lacking. Not surprisingly, the T-Mobile takes the bulk of the his slams. I agree with some of his points, but he's looking at it from the perspective of a heavy cell phone user - not as someone whose needs are data first and voice second. Rather than refute his points one by one on this site, I've E-mailed him and asked if he'd be interested in a head to head debate of his current list of requirements. Odds are he won't even respond, but we'll see. What do you think of his list?
"Before getting to the list, I'd like to say something about convergence and what the T-Mobile device taught me. The T-Mobile device is powered by the Phone Edition of Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002 operating system. The group at Microsoft that is responsible for Pocket PC 2002 officially lives by the ethos that "software matters." When it comes to converged devices, I couldn't agree more. Software is the glue needed to marry a phone to a PDA in a way that produces a rich user experience that not only rivals the best phones and PDAs, but far exceeds them. After all, isn't the whole supposed to be greater than the sum of its parts?
That said, I expected Microsoft's appreciation of software would help turn the T-Mobile device as well as other devices based on the Pocket PC OS into must haves. But I've lived with the device and the operating system long enough to say that its designers clearly lacked the inspiration needed to produce an exhilarating marriage.
Even officials from VoiceStream admitted to me that their goal wasn't to produce the best phone. In separate conversations with Microsoft, I got the distinct feeling that they didn't think this device should be considered as a replacement for my existing phone. Excuse me? If adding Pocket PC-like PDA functionality to a telephone isn't an opportunity to produce the best phone money can buy, then I don't know what is." Source: Various
