Brandon came accross this Microsoft Press Release from April 19, 2000. That was the day Microsoft announced the immediate availability of the Pocket PC in New York’s Grand Central Station. I remember it well. Microsoft used the new Pocket PCs in demonstrations showcasing their wireless, enterprise and cutting-edge gaming and video capabilities.
“It’s an amazing time in mobile computing, and we’re just getting started,” Ballmer said. “Technology is innovating at a rapid pace, and the Pocket PC is a great example of how, today, we are bringing the productivity, performance and power of a PC in a pocket-sized device to enable true any-time, anywhere access to information.”
Now, where are we 4 years later?
Well, our Pocket PCs still have great wireless, enterprise, gaming and video capabilities. The only real difference between my iPAQ H3600 and today’s non-phone PDAs are more memory, smaller form factors, better battery life, and built in wireless technologies. While all of those things are great advances, the H3600 could still do most of what the PDAs today can do. The biggest difference is in the Pocket PC Phone Edition devices. Those types of PDAs do have some great advantages and plenty more potential. We do have the performance of a PC these days along with the anywhere-access to information that we were promised. Maybe that’s one reason the PDA market has purportedly stopped growing. But is a pocketable personal computer all we need?
We still don’t have any fully integrated location-based services. There are some, but they’re not great and they’re not cheap. The internet access in the US has become less expensive, but it’s still difficult to use. I have to type in my area code everytime I want to check the weather and leaving it on for constant email access drains the battery.
Integrated Voice Recognition software has become available, but it’s still in it’s infancy. The ability for PDA Phones to work with tiny wireless headsets has become available, but it’s still not quite perfect.
There is so much more potential for functionality in a pocket computer than the conventional desktop PCs can offer. What do you think we should look for in the future?
Originally published on Pocketnow on June 3, 2004. More Thought articles from the Pocketnow archive.