Comments on: Opinion: Mike Cane's 2003 Palm OS Predictions

LOL. Real funny. I think you mean "WiFi (battery sapping) hungry Americans". You made me laugh. Thanx. Mike Cane?

Stupid Bluetooth? Why not say "stupid wifi"?. What's the use of the word "stupid" here? Bluetooth and WiFi are DIFFERENT TECHNOLOGIES which serve DIFFERENT NEEDS/USES. Why not add both? I use both and i love them both....

If Bluetooth is STUPID then WHY are companies around the world like Microsoft, Nokia, IBM, Intel, Dell, Toshiba, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP/Compaq, Palm, Qualcomm etc. etc. backing this technology???? Because it's stupid???? YEAH RIGHT.

That all the important Operating Systems like Palm, Microsoft, Symbian, Linux and Apple have Bluetooth Stacks is because Bluetooth is stupid?????
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=PALM&read=43149

That Intels upcoming Banias platform includes WiFi-Bluetooth Coexistence Solution is stupid?: Intel Wireless Coexistence System: Silicon Wave has collaborated with Intel to develop a Bluetooth + Wi-Fi wireless coexistence solution for Intel's Banias mobile PC platform. The Intel Wireless Coexistence System is based on Silicon Wave's SiW1701™ and SiW1750™ Bluetooth chipset and enables simultaneous operation of both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless technologies.
http://www.siliconwave.com/coexistence.html#intel
http://www.siliconwave.com/applications.html

That various handheld makers like Intermec, HP/Compaq and next year Dell have or will have both WiFi and Bluetooth built into there PDA's is stupid?????

Palm Tungsten T Bluetooth review
http://www.pencomputing.com/palm/Pen47/tungstent.html

BLUETOOTH ROUNDUP: Palm, Products, Reviews, Compatibility, Setups, Software (56 total) e.g Games, Calendaring/Scheduling solution, SMS, Print Software etc....
http://discussion.brighthand.com/palmhandhelds/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18749

"There are 2 kind of people my friend....those with wires and those without"

2 long. And Dude?

"and out of 10 key items, I was correct with 2.5 of them...."

That's great Mike.

"There are 2 kind of people my friend....those with wires and those without"

>>2 long. And Dude?

... waaay too long.

"There are 2 kind of people my friend....those with wires and those without"

As if i would "hurt" you? What kind of nonsense is that? Am just astound that somebody who supposed to be an expert is using words like this. Tells me who you are.

My Predictions for the Palm OS in 2002
by Mike Cane: "The advantage is to use the side slot for data storage and the top slot for a camera, GPS, Bluetooth or even conventional Memory Stick storage."
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2754

What's the advantage of using Bluetooth with the slot if Bluetooth is "stupid" Mike?

I also wonder on which grounds a message will be deleted and if calling somebody names is included?

"There are 2 kind of people my friend....those with wires and those without"

Who started to call Bluetooth "stupid"?
Who started to call somebody names like "nitwit"?

Did i?

I just replied to you misquoted statements.

"There are 2 kind of people my friend....those with wires and those without"

And Mike, don't stoop to anyone's level if they berate you...keep up the good work.

There are two kinds of people in the world; those who classify people into two groups, and those who do not.

The original quote is (The good=Clint Eastwood to the ugly=Eli Wallach : "There are 2 kind of people my friend, those with loaded guns and those who dig....now you dig"

You dig that?

"There are 2 kind of people my friend....those with wires and those without"

Sony could come up with a Popsickle stick format and build it into all of it's products and it would become a quasi-standard.

Take a picture with a Sony camera, view it on the Clie.
Catch a movie on your Sony video camera, watch it on your Clie.
Take pictures or movies with your Clie and pop the MS in any Sony laptop and view them.

I think the way Sony has integrated MS into there products wil improve even more in 2003 and certainly we won't see the end of the MS. Maybe they will do a SD/MMC and MS on a Clie, but that might still be unlikely.

elo

It doesn't need to, it's fine where it is. I have yet to see an alternative that matches MD in terms of pocketability, versatility and media price.

2) The minidisc will be (has been) killed, at least in the United States, by HD-MP3 players.

Sony is introducing the smaller MemoryStick Duo this year, it'll be debuting in the Sony Eircsson P800 smartphone. This is further evidence that MS is not going away any time soon.

Minidisc is hugely popular in Japan, many parts of Asia and Europe. Just the Japanese market alone can sustain Minidisc for another 10 years.

While the U.S. audience has been rather negative about Minidisc, the US Minidisc market is still growing steadily and remains profitable. Even places like Target has been carrying Minidisc recorders and media for well over 3 years.

Past PDAs: Palm V, Palm m505, Palm m515, Sony Clie N770C/U, Sony Clie T625C, Sony Clie NR70V

Mark this prediction down. I'm sure it will come back to haunt him.

2. Handspring will cease as independent company or become a small niche outfit like Handera, providing consulting service to phone makers.

3. Tungstan W fails. TT gets 3-5% of the market. The bulk of Palm SG sales are still 4.1, specially the sub $150 units.

4. M555 delayed, trying to fix m550 too much, becomes unstable. Ended up with 'just do it' release, another minor upgrade to m550 but 175mhz, 32MB, same everything else.

5. OS 6.0 will not be ready before Q3, leaving OS5.0 as high end OS of Palm SG pretty much the whole year, leading to complete erosion on their high end market. Sony will have them for lunch on $400 plus market.

6.MS smartphones is only a negligable player. It cannot compete yet against Nokia and friends. 2004 will be the year instead.

7.Dell plus one or two unknown Taiwanese OEM will rule the $300 market. HP tattering along with miniscule share in this market. Toshiba is out from there. Sony kills Palm inthis category, TT will be $250 by Q3.

8. grafitti will stay put in 2003 in all Palm SG models. Sony improved the VG with various tweak, releasing standard T form with Xscale.

9. integrated WiFi will have VoiP as killer app. Low quality video cam-chat will start to catch on. Sony will include complete wireless software with their NX, and at least one PPC model will have integrated camera model.

10. all above $400 PDA will have some sort of built in wireless, specially WiFi.

"Updated"? Shame on you Mike, I never cheat! :-)

Just look at the "last updated" date at the bottom of that article. I only updated a few minutes after I posted to correct all the spelling errors, and to add that last bit about cell phones. That's all. Haven't touched it since.

Mikecane "You hit some things right on the head -- but you were also picking on PPC too."

Yeah, I just love twisting the knife. But I was right. Sony really clobbered the PPC makers (Sony is now in the number two spot) and Casio did leave the PPC market.

"it's better to be a pirate than join the navy." - Steve Jobs

Don't worry. If I'm wrong, there are several hundred people who will be more than happy to laugh in my face.

"it's better to be a pirate than join the navy." - Steve Jobs

Either case is possible. They may slash the SJ30 to fill that space, or they might design a new line to better control costs.

"it's better to be a pirate than join the navy." - Steve Jobs

But... they still haven't fixed the spacing of their English-language fonts, either...

I agree, Mike. The stylus is horrible. It must have been designed for a toddler's hands. Tungsten has a wonderful stylus. Chromed metal..nice and thick. A manly stylus! :-)

"it's better to be a pirate than join the navy." - Steve Jobs

You don't have kids, do you Foo? Toddlers don't have the full dexterity of adult hands yet, so a smaller stylus would actually be harder for them to use. Kindergarteners maybe. ;)

"Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance." - Sam Brown

Mike, you watch too much porn! ;-)

Great job on the predictions. This year's going to be a better year for you, guaranteed. The only one you're dead wrong in is the Memory Stick. Sony encourages buying only Sony products and the more proprietary standards they make between their own models, the better. Remember the chart they laid out? They had the 256, 512, and 1 GB MS's out by January '03, as well as the first Duos making their appearance. The thing that bothers me is that the Duos are the size of SD's, yet they can barely fit 16 MB into it so far. SD's are up to 512 MB now, and the MS's are more than double the size of it and theyre four times smaller in space!

I don't know, only time will tell.

---
This signature is witty. You like it.

He's in this thread btw:
http://forums.pdabuzz.net/showthread.php?s=4dfaa6267dcf2f3fb810bc48863b3d62&threadid=30223&highlight=PDA+predictions

I mean atleast something like MS explorer. I owned a IPAQ before but i sold it after 2 month since the battery time was REALY bad. Now i have a TT and i'm both pleased and dissapointed, mainly beacouse of the 2 issues above and also no mp3 program.
And also some very basic functions are missing. For example if i want to save a contact "Mr X" then palm save this as "X,Mr" that is "Lastname,FirstName" . You should be able to choose something as basic as this. but like i said thera are ALOT of things like that which i think works much better in IPAQ but then again the battery time and weight factor convinced me to buy PALM TT.
finally i must say it is a awsome product :) Just hope i can upgrade to OS 6. I hate it when companies release new hardware with new software. We poor people can't efford to change Hardware every 5-month damed ;)

-- obviously, you did not read all of the links or even investigate them. Do so.

1. Windows powered handhelds will continue to do about 15%-20% of handheld retail sales, just as they have for as long as they've been on the market.

2. I hope you and Mike are right on this one... SOMEONE needs to produce a "Color Handera".

3. I don't know about "mopping the floor". Sony (and Handspring, before they self-destructed) each managed to match the PPC in market share, and I expect Sony to keep doing that, while Palm retains the largest market share.

4. Christmas 2001 I predicted that Handspring would be eaten by the cellphone companies, so I have no argument there.

5. If OS6 comes out this year, it'll either be effectively Beta quality or it'll be too close to OS5 in capability to do what I think it needs to do. I would much rather they made sure it was right than try and meet an unrealistic deadline... and I don't think they *need* OS6, if they can improve the network support in OS5 just a little.

6. You have a much more exciting vision of OS6 than I do. :)

7. Especially if the lawsuit (see The Register) gets nasty.

8. Agreed.

9. What are you smoking?

Even though I've called 11 a prediction, it is a *negative* -- something that I forsee NOT being done. I also said 10 "key" items. Now, if you want to count 11, then I had 3.5 correct.

But then, if I had just done a list of 10 things that would NOT happen (ie, "Apple will NOT license PalmOS"), then I would have had more correct.

2. To get rid of styluses ALTOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't emphasize this enough. Do you have your own pen? is it a skinny BIC?
I bet you have an ergonmic writing tool like everyone else. PDA tips built into pens will eventually
be standard on pens. (go check wal-mart right now)If your like the average PDA user, when you need to input,
who cares what blunt object you use? Once the pda/pens are all around, you won't even remember needing one.
(are you designers listening???)bottom line, all styluses are uncomfortable and stupid. You're neigbors' arthritic mother wouldn't consider compsoing
e-mail with one. And that is your market.
3. As far as second-guessing SONY, You are kidding right? I happen to love my 128MS's. They will probably come out with the larger ones when we have bought all the mass produced existing ones.
Unlike all these other tech companies, Sony does nothing without first securing a profit, evne if they must under-produce to avoid overruns. Try studying SONY and your predictions will be more likley
4. oh, getting back to what it takes to make PDA's commonplace: see #1 and suggest federal subsidation of institutions willing to convert all text in the public domain into Palm or E-book format. Now that's a
platform i'd vote for.

G4

-- over my dead body will you take away my stylus!!

You think voice commands will work on a busy NYC street (horns honking, boom boxes blazing, sirens wailing, me cursing at the damned tourists to walk faster or to go stroll in the street!)? You think I *want* people to overhear what I'm telling my PDA?

You have gone overboard. This is like a typewriter fanatic saying we must get rid of pencils and pens altogether.

-- oh, and I have. Have you read the books out there? How do you think I know the name of Ibuka when most people have only heard of Morita?

Right now, no one bundles a really good stylus with an organizer -- the last one I had that I really LIKED was on my old Newt120. I don't expect to see that type of stylus returning. Instead, I expect to see the cost of pen/stylus combos to continue to drop, and PDA developers to eventually drop the whole stylus/silo/storage area as non-value-added to their business.

Steve

You can also get BT 'boxes' as you put it. Check out www.expansys.com or www.blueunplugged.com. They're a bit pricey at the moment, but prices should drop significantly in a couple of months.

As for the DSL, yeah it's a bitch here. It's probably more widespread than you think; but we have our own Qualcomm here -- BT (that's British Telecom, not Bluetooth) who seem unwilling (for monopoly purposes) to let other companies offer DSL easily. Still, prices are coming down quite a bit now, so hopefully there will be more take up.

WiFi just has no place in a small, go anywhere, handheld device.

FBN

Matt

ps - Sony will still provide memstick for clie's - but they may add SD in addition. There are just too many other memsticks to not keep it in their pda's.

Oh, it would be either battery powered or recharagable :)

--
Ben Combee, CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com

Why is it so hard for people in the US to understand that bluetooth is immensely useful in countries with widespread (and cheap) wireless internet access through GSM/GPRS networks? Is there anyone who would say no to always- on wireless access through a PDA or laptop no matter where they are? With bluetooth and a GPRS phone you don't have to be in your office to access the net. You can do it while relaxing on a beach somewhere in the Aegean, or you can check your email just before boarding a plane at Heathrow.

If Wi-Fi was as widespread (i.e. would allow wireless internet access throughout a whole country or continent) and cheap it would be equally good. As it stands, it only exists in corporate LANs, and that's useful too (though not for everyone).

In Greece you can get GPRS internet access for as low as $12-$15 a month, and that is with NO LIMIT on usage (this is the best deal I know, there are a range of others). For months, I struggled with the IR port on the m505 to connect to my Ericsson T39 GPRS phone. The bluetooth SD card has changed EVERYTHING. Now the Tungsten T has taken it to a different level, allowing you to keep your SD memory card in the slot while connecting to the net.

Are people aware that GSM/GPRS is available in the US? T-Mobile and AT&T provide services, though I haven't checked prices. Unfortunately, 2G and 2.5G networks were slow to pick up in the US, and that may explain why a lot of people don't understand the beauty of connecting a cellphone to a PDA or laptop.

There should be NO debate on whether or not to add BT or Wi-Fi to a PDA. We would like to have both, so that we can have wireless internet nationwide or in the office, but until that happens, I want bluetooth first. It is available NOW and it lets me surf the net CHEAPLY anywhere I want.

Don't talk to me about Starbucks, even if I frequented it do I want to use my PDA only when I'm there? I think people against BT are people who never tried it, but have already invested into WiFi. I was there too, but didn't think twice about adding BT to my arsenal. Now that Palm and HP started adding it to their devices you will just see more BT in PDAs, since the initial integration costs have now been surpassed. This is one prediction you can count on in 2003.

I agree that there are people that don't need BT, but compare the number of people that do want BT to the number of people that want WiFi and you'll see my point.

I have WiFi but I have zero desire to hook up my PDA to it, my laptop is way better for it. Now, even if the end user has a WiFi network at home most of them would rather use the computer to surf the net (after the novelty of surfing with the PDA wears off).

BT on the PDA actually solves a very important and FINANCIALLY LUCRATIVE problem: connectivity on the go. Do you think people spending hundreds of dollars on Blackberry don't have cell phones? For me, BT on my PDA directly saved me money (and heaps of it), I was able to ditch the crappy B&W Blackberry for a cheaper and BETTER solution. If you think BT is a Europe-only fad then the next year will prove you wrong (consider that my prediction).

I personally believe that the Bluetooth and the WiFI are not in competition. I really like the 11MBit WiFI connection that my university provide but in the same time I the fact that you can travel around all the europe with a full GPRS connection. It works and it's everywhere. Why it's so wrong ? I understand that the mobile phone situation in the USA maybe is more confusing and that's pushing the in WiFI in every corner but for me it's strange that a tech-savy people like a PIC user at the end of 2002 don't like a mobile phone.
Maybe all the european like me are "cellphone-hungry" like you said ;-) But this has a simply explanation: it's since 1993 that GSM is here and after 9 year the network is nearly perfect, even in mine country where the geographical situation is not very nice for wireless, read 3500 meters mountains...

WiFI, Bluetooth, GSM, GPRS are all very nice technologies and I can't really understand why the WiFI, that's perfect for your needs, is so smart and the BT is so stupid. I will never say that WiFI is stupid... Period.

Check out our Bluetooth forum here--- I want one that I can toss in my backpack so I can use my T|T to check my eMail, etc. on my campus's WiFi.

-JWH

WiFi is neat for laptops and Tablet PCs, but I can't see browsing with a PDA when a PC is nearby. IMHO.

I sync, therefore I am.

Can someone point me to a WiFi headset?

No comments needed.

Zuber

http://www.infosync.no/show.php?id=2248

All these BT fanatics! Geez, I never said there should NEVER be ANY BT (though the amount of time it's taken to get out there, you had to wonder if it ever *was* going to come out...) -- I just want Equal Time for WiFi!

When the WiFied TT comes out, all of you can go bellyache about that.

Ben. Here's a link for a BT to WiFi gateway. A bit pricey at the moment, but I suspect (hope) that's because it's new.

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=PX20

FBN

I don't know what to make of that... (and, yes, I realize my anti-cellphone stance is in the wee majority. So be it.)

FBN

Have you ever heard of CELLULAR TECHNOLOGY? If a cell is a few miles wide in a populated area, 802.11b type technology will be so bogged down that it will be USELESS. Imagine how many people would be latching on to it in a densely populated area? And when they all transmit/receive data, be bandwidth will be sucked dry so quick that you'd be better off running POTS. Even 802.11a wouldn't be able to handle it. This is one reason cell technology is invented, to better reuse the limited spectrum of frequencies. Lower the power and you will limit the amount of people you need to serve per point, and easing up on the bandwidth useage per station.

Definitely the Nokia 6310i--available, like the T68i, from AT&T, but it should be unlocked, and thus compatible with Cingular or T-Mobile. None from Verizon or Sprint (the major CDMA providers) yet AFAIK, or from Nextel, who has its own system that (I think) is transitioning to CDMA.

IMO, CNet, InfoSync or some site out there should maintain a list of all the BT-equipped cell phones out there and what carriers offer them.

Looking for houses just driving through prospective neighborhoods, I put the pin number on a Shorewest sign into their website on my TT's browser and brought up the specs. My wife looked at me in amazement when I said "it's got a pool in the back yard honey, but they want 275,000 for it!"

Driving back from Madison WI, my TT's datebook alarm went off: only 5 minutes left until my eBay item auction ended. On my TT, I logged in and placed the winning bid. I now have a 128 meg Panasonic SD card thanks to bluetooth.

At Comdex Fall, I used the PicoBlue access points at the palm pavilion to get email and surf the web to verify the (sometimes incredible) claims of the various salespersons there. Access speed was T1 (760KB/s or so) and I was linking to the access points over 200 feet away. There was no additional battery drain on my TT when I set the backlight off (didn't need it with the bright lighting on the show floor). My wife sent me an email "Check the website for new pics of your little girl". I brought up the (Fotki based) site on WebPro.

The most I heard at the WiFi access points was "I was trying to pull emails, but my batteries died"...

Like I said Mike, the world is changing....

Consider:

Type II (100 meter range, 50 meter realistic) bluetooth USB dongle costs about $60. On the forums posted here, are the instructions for making it work with windows networking on your PC. Got broadband at home? Start surfing with your bluetooth enabled TT too. T-Mobile data service costs $11/mo for 10 megs. I use the heck out of my service and I do about 7-10 megs per month thanks to Palm's proxy based browser.

The world is changing folks. Do you know what I want?

I want my phone to do WiFi. That way it becomes my network access point and my PDA isn't subject to WiFi based battery drain.

Matt

Hey, Symbian has its merits but as far as modernity is concerned I have some doubts. Ever tried to create a String? Also, the HelloWorld thing is quite frightening.

OK I'm not a Symbian developer, and hope never to become one. As far as I'm concerned his real strong point is support of Java. Everything else looks like mid 90 stuff, all in C++ and hence not very rapid to develop. AFAIK no garbage collector. Etc etc.

I strongly hope OS6 will be something else, more Java style.
Palmato

------------------------
Tired of PPC? Get a TT!

Have no idea whether it's complete or not.
Palmato

PS: Bluetooth rules!!!

------------------------
Tired of PPC? Get a TT!

I have been dying to actual get some hands-on time with a Symbian device - my euro friends love the OS. But is there any significant Symbian presence in North America? Any devices at all (i haven't really searched but nothing has crossed my path anywhere).

As for the comments above about nokia and ericisson, remember: nokia and ericisson are massive but they have made there share of mistakes. They were the biggest boosters of WAP, which is widely regarded as one of the biggest blunders in modern tech industry. telcos and handset makers - especially ericisson - lost huge amounts of money on this. Not sure about Nokia, but ericsson is not doing so well these days.

>>Have no idea whether it's complete or not.

-------

What? That's ALL?! We've been seeing the Symbian OS touted for at least two years with that new skin for portrait screens -- and yet, who has adopted it? What PDAs have it?

Is the list somewhat skimpy? You bet. Nokia however should use symbian more intensively in the next few months but, and here's the catch, only in higher end devices.
Also the arrival of the Godot... P800 should make the OS more appealing to other manufacturers.

We'll see.
Palmato

I'm a little bit disappointed : It's always the same thing : North Americ is far from being the only tech place in the world. "If it is not in the US it means that it doesn't even exists nor can sell anywhere else"...boring.
I'm european , and worse than that ... french :-). And here symbian phone are selling like hotcake especailly the one 7600 with camera (the big 9200 with keyboard was a major hit too).
Also orange has presented and annouced the windows smartphone they'll sold. And the i-mode has begun this month.
Pda is a little market ... but phone is a huge one, and we see few treo there ...but so many 9200 and 7600.

Thomas

infosync haven't reviewed the p800 yet, but all the preview reviews say it's hot.

FBN

How time has changed. Palm is the low ender, while Sony becomes a major players. Handera and HS are no more.

Palm and Sony have been a little short on devices lately. The Tungsten, though I applaud the new design, comes a little short. What was the driving factor for the collabsible design? The device, even when extended to it's full length fit's into my pocket. If they wanted to innovate, the screen would have had a virtual grafitti area. Also, there has to be some rule that says when you release a new product, make sure it has the same capabilites plus new ones than the similar product from the competition. I think it's insane that you cannot play MP3's out of the box n a Tungsten. Everyone seems to say, ah the Ipod is better or this or that is better; Guess what folks, you have to buy that hardware it better be better but it also means you have to drag that other piece of hardware behind you. Kudos on their voice capability, that's long overdue and it also appears to be a very good implementation. Double kudos on the built in Bluetooth. I keep hearing the WiFi naysayers, but unless I'm missing something I'm missing all these WiFi watering holes people keep referring to. I do however have a Blueetooth enable phone and what a great idea to dial my cell phone from my Palm pilot, or use my Palm interface to retrieve information from the web, or to have my phone pass my pop e-mail directly to my Palm without ever talking my phone off my waist. With WiFi, I'd have all these capablities also, but oh yeah, I'd have to locate these mystical WiFi hibs first.

Sony's new NX series device is clearly targeted, not at the serious Palm user but at the leading edge Technofile. Camera, video, voice, keyboard, compact flash, the only thing missing is a toe nail clipper. Also, try getting that thing into a shirt pocket. I guess I'm just simple but Grafitti works for me, it always has, it's intuitive and easy to learn and I'd much rather use that than thumb my way through data entry.

So that brings me my ultimate device, and this is where I hope some visionary at Palm or Sony happens to have a few hours of time to browse my tirade.

1. Increased screen size due to use of virtual grafitti area.
2. Built in voice recorder
3. Built in Bluetooth
4. Memory Stick or SD card slot
5. Play's MP3s (OUT OF THE BOX)
6. Fits comfortably into a shirt pocket
7. A stylus that actually stays in place when you slide it into the device
8. Decent battery life, what I mean by decent is you're required to charge it no less than every 3 days after "normal use"
9. Hi Resolution screen

I realize both Palm and Sony already have a lot of these features, but neither of them have them in a single unit, let's see who brings it to market first.

-- some of us (like, me!) live in NYC. Lotsa WiFi here. Free too (and, no, I'm not talking about cracking into corp networks). San Francisco, I think, has a lot of free WiFi. As does Hawaii.

What does Bluetooth do for me? Enable me to tell the TT to trust Microsoft's BT-enabled mouse? Feh.

Oh, and also to have to get a cellphone (which I don't want) so I can complain about the lousy voice quality and faint at the bill at the end of each month...

Oh, and also to have to get a cellphone (which I don't want) so I can complain about the lousy voice quality and faint at the bill at the end of each month..."

BT and WiFi merits aside, this kind of an ostrich mentality will never produce a well balanced set of predictions. You sir are heavily biased.

Duh. You could tell?

Hiding ignorance behind sarcasm. What an innovative concept.

Fact remains that your "predictions" are nothing more than personal preferences. Every member of this board could compile a wish list and call it predictions.

As regards your comments about blue tooth and such. Many of us also don't see the use, but that is no reason to knock someone else's predictions.

Personally, I find these prediction threads about the most interesting thing about PDAs. There is still a newness and unpredictability about PDAs that is just not there with desktops, cars, homes, and most other goods.

If you don't see the use for BT, then you're just not informed enough. However, it's quite understandable that the applications for BT are not useful to you personally, but that's completely different from putting the concept down alltogether.

Naming absurd examples (coupling a PDA with a mouse? oh please...) to make a technology seem useless while thousands have embraced it is immature, short sighted and no better than what the PPC afficionados do when trolling these forums. Also, when you don't need a cell phone, just say that you don't need one, not that having a BT device means that you "have to" get one and that they have lousy voice quality. I suppose the man hasn't had his hands on a cell phone in the past 5 years if that's his universal truth.

Sure, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but that includes me. And I say that nonsense arguments don't explain to me why this man's predictions need to be promoted to the headlines while others have shown to be equally, if not more accurate.

Oh, please! You should work for the gov't promoting the war against Iraq! (Do you?)

Some people do *not* have a use for BT. Live with it.

You sure have trouble dealing with criticism for someone posting an article like this. What did you expect? For us to all drop down at your feet and say amen and hallelujah?

And no, my current job suits me just fine, thank you. I have no interest in working for your government.

> Some people do *not* have a use for BT. Live with it.

I've got no problem with that, certainly not to "live with it".

The point is (which you still don't seem to grasp) that ridiculing the technology as a whole is completely different from not seeing a use for it personally. Instead of contributing a balanced set of pros and cons, you come up with nonsensical examples to make BT look useless for *everyone* not just *yourself*.

I attend a lot of conferences and the apparently simple task of checking my mail while sitting on one of those typical cramped ad hoc conference hall chairs has always been a balancing act for me; trying to put both my cell phone and PDA on my leg, keeping their IR ports facing eachother and hoping one of them won't drop to the floor when someone pokes me in the back while taking the seat behind me. With BT, I can keep my cell phone in my pocket and my Palm in my hand.

I also send and receive a lot of SMS's. Doing this on a cell phone is much more cumbersome than using a PDA, especially when combined with a PPK or Stowaway. Try doing that with IR, it's even more of an acrobatic performance than emailing from your knee. With BT, my phone is in my pocket or briefcase and I'm comfortably typing away on my PPK while sitting at the dinner table or my office desk.

You may have no use for these applications, but if you're suggesting that BT is no good for anything but connecting your Palm to a mouse, then you have trouble separating facts from fiction. That's *my* opinion.

On rereading your original comments, I see I misread it the first time. I thought you were saying that Mike should not be allowed his own opinion. Perhaps I was mixing your comments up with others in this LONG thread. Your final comments make it more clear that you were not so much saying that the predictions were so lame that Mike should just shut up and go away. You really were just disagreeing his own view of the use of BT.

My apologies for attacking you.

Your final comments on your personal use of BT show it's value well.

Timothy: I would never want to silence anyone (with ska being an exception to that rule although I can even see the merits of his arguments from time to time), nor could I even if I wanted to. I just feel that a one sided view promoted as an absolute truth is not a good thing. BTW, I didn't take your first comment as an attack so no apology is necessary.