IDC: Handheld Sales Dropped By 28.5% In 2006

There's no question the market is pretty-well saturated, and phones with PDA functionality are replacing stand-alone PDA's (Kyo 6035 replaced my PIII years ago), but we are a long way from "over".

- 787B
Pilot 1000 -> Palm III -> Kyocera 6035 -> Treo 650 -> Treo 680

When people hear "PDA" they think "organizer" and that category is certainly being cannibalized by the smartphone segment. But there are plenty of new devices that are PDA-like but are not focused on personal information management and are gaining, not losing prominence in the market. PDAs don't seem to be going away so much as being reinvented in numerous different ways. IDS, Garnet, Canalys don't seem to be able to figure out a way to capture this splintering of the categories, instead trying to apply device categories from five years ago. Studies that don't come to grips with the new market segmentation will increasingly obscure what's happening instead of revealing it.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Obfuscation is not a virtue, Beersie.

1. PDAs are dead.
2. Smartphones are the future.

Obfuscation is not a virtue

Exactly the point I was trying to make! ;-) But sorry if you didn't get it.

Smartphones are the future, not disconnected PDAs, as you say. So are media players, ebook readers, Internet tablets/messaging devices, GPS receivers, tablet-style phones and all the other categories that PDA's have evolved into. When the Model T came out it was in a category of its own: "horseless carriage". Sure people don't buy horseless carriages any more. Instead they buy compact sedans, sports cars, SUV's, pickup trucks, and RVs. Cars have broken up into special-purpose categories, and mobile devices are doing the same.

PDAs are horseless carriages. That they are going away is hardly a concern. The problem that is a concern to folks on this site is that Palm has so far only evolved the horseless carriage in one direction (we'll call the Treo a "sedan"). Some would like a "sports car" or an "SUV" or a "motorcycle". (Map those as you please to one of the new device categories I listed above.)

A lot of the interesting device categories that Palm could go into happen to bear a closer physical resemblance to a PDA than a mobile phone: hand-holdable tablet form factor dominated by a large screen. In fact just about everything I can think of this is not a phone (and even some devices that are, like the iPhone) is a handheld tablet of some kind. What I get from the comments here on PIC (and the suggestive fact that the GPS-focused Mio is growing when horseless carriage PDAs are declining) is that Palm is missing an opportunity to move into one of the growing handheld tablet categories.

Some folks don't want to drive their Camry off-road or take it out cruising on the strip. Now do you get the point people have been making here?

Probably not. *sigh*

I tried.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...
Hey!! I made associate writer at PDA247. Come see my nattering over there!!
www.clieuk.co.uk/wm.shtml

The concept of 'extelligence' (the sum of all human knowledge, history, cultural experiences, traditions etc) has been a lot easier to grasp since Google made it so easy to sift through the net. I'm very much looking forward to the next bright idea on how to hook into it. Numenta seems promising, even at this early stage, and a 3G/wifi handheld/tablet/whatever that connects to a bank of HTMs could be very, very cool.

(Even if they say the first commerical devices are still 18 months away. A man can dream...)

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

(pout) Can't we call it a Batmobile instead?

My biggest hope is that a large screen, "connected PDA" is moments from being released by Palm. If not, then I hope that the iPhone will be a huge success and that if Palm has not finally woken up and put out a "PDA with voice", Apple's success will finally remove their blinders and force them to respond. But once again, for Palm, that may be too late. They need to quit responding and start leading again.


Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

freakout - they are working on a Bluetooth adapter for your brain where your thoughtwaves will wirelessly beam data and commands to your smartphone and vice-versa. you will be able to dial numbers and access entire databases simply by thought.

freakout - they are working on a Bluetooth adapter for your brain where your thoughtwaves will wirelessly beam data and commands to your smartphone and vice-versa. you will be able to dial numbers and access entire databases simply by thought.

Yeah, but you have to think in Russian. Or at least that's how it worked in the movie Firefox. Plus I don't like the idea of having to wear a black flight suit and helmet just to communicate with my phone.

-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
The iPhone Blog, www.theiphoneblog.com

-- http://usability.typepad.com/confusability/2004/05/aluminum_foil_d.html

[note - the original afdb site appears dead, at least this morning: http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html ]

> ...Yeah, but you have to think in Russian....

== "...Oh, and the two new other phrases? ``Out of sight, out
== of mind.'' has a venerable history in machine translation.
== It is said that an early attempt to translate this phrase
== to Russian and back returned ``Invisible idiot..."

-- http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~copeland/work/babel.html

-- http://www.tashian.com/multibabel/

== "...It takes text and translates it through about eight languages
== before depositing it back into English..."

Speaking from a user's perspective, PDA and a separate cheap Bluetooth mobile phone make more sense to me and many other people I reckon. I make about 3 phone calls a day and accept about 3 phone calls a day, mostly from people I already know. So the benefit of contacts shared between PDA and phone is negligible. Time savings are negligible.

Is it possible to beam a contact from a cell phone into Palm TX?

Advantages of a PDA with a separate cell phone:

- A small phone that slips into any pocket makes more sense than a bulky smartphone with a small screen.
- How can anyone navigate a website on a small phone screen?
- How much text of an email can you read on the small screen?
- How can you organize your emails into tens of folders on a small screen?
- If I break or lose my phone I still have the PDA. With integrated solution, if I break or lose it I am disconnected for at least a week.
- With a smartphone/PDA separate, battery life must be much shorter, because a single battery must support all activities.

The problem of smaller screen when comparing PDA and phone is insurmountable no matter how much features you cram into the phone (GPS, EDGE, WIFI...).

As a user I feel really stupid for wanting a PDA when everyone screams "smartphone". Is the "smartphone forever " crowd really just developers and high-tech toy fans? Or is it really normal BFU users who crave the smartphones for good, valid and sane reasons?

I don't understand why Palm can't update their bluetooth funcitonality to work with most bluetooth enabled cell phones. Mine has EVDO, rather than GSM. Does anybody know how to make this work? That would make 2 devices worthwhile.

I don't understand why Palm can't update their bluetooth funcitonality to work with most bluetooth enabled cell phones. Mine has EVDO, rather than GSM. Does anybody know how to make this work? That would make 2 devices worthwhile.

I've been a Verizon customer for nearly a decade so I cannot speak for Sprint & Alltel other than what I've read about online (in short, Alltel users have had some luck but Sprint & VZW handsets are nigh useless for Palm OS compatibility)

First, some history:

Verizon's first BT handset was the Motorola V710, introduced in mid 2004. I had two of these and they were pretty solid handsets, albeit rather flimsily built. I used the V710 for *FLAWLESS* BT DUN with my T3, T5, and Zodiac 2.

Upon "upgrading" to the LifeDrive in 2005, BT DUN ceased to function. The phone hadn't changed but something in FrankenGarnet had changed. This also goes for the Palm TX. So, in essence, the E2, T5, T3, T2, Zire 72 etc. from Palm all work fine for BT DUN on CDMA phones that have the proper DUN profile support. Now, for a while after the V710 Verizon WAS crippling their handsets by disabling the DUN profile but they've been much better having mostly full BT profiles on their new handsets released in the pat 6-12 months. Verizon USED to be at fault but NOW the blame falls squarely on Palm's shoulders.

*Palm ONLY wants to sell Treos and will use EVERY trick in the book to sell as MANY Treos as possible in the current quarter*. Everything else--ROM updates, R&D, maintaining customers' loyalty--is secondary to moving Treos.

Since the V710 I've had a Verizon V3c, V3m and now a KRZR K1m. None of them work with my TX for BT DUN. They've worked fine with both of my laptops for BT DUN. I can still send photos & contacts FROM my K1m to my TX (but not vice versa-I have no idea why). Using the +Mode=2 string I can dial contact on the phone from the TX via BT.

In fact, the packaging of the TX specifically states that a GSM phone + data plan are required for DUN usage. Nowhere does Palm mention CDMA connectivity.

In short, Palm intentionally disabled CDMA BT connectivity on their last two PDAs (LifeDrive & TX) to try and force their remaining loyal POS users to purchase Treos. It worked for me...but I'm sure as he11 not happy about it, especially given the 700p's pitiful voice performance and plethora of of bugs & quirks.

I think the CDMA crippling has something to do with the authentication process during the handshaking. Now, Alltel users have reported some minor success with their phones (different firmwares than VZW comparable handsets) but the connection still drops after ~1 minute unless you run a PTunes stream in the background to keep the connection alive. I think it might have to do with the fact that Palm OS doesn't support CHAP authentication (or, perhaps, Garnet DID and Palm removed it on the LD & TX) which is required to establish the DUN connection.

If you need further proof of this little conspiract theory, just check palm.com's support site to see the last time Palm updated their lame GSM PhoneLink Update software
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/phonelink.html
June '05!! HOW many cool new GSM handsets have been released worldwide since then? This thing hasn't even been updated in the lifetime of the TX! If that's not proof tht Palm is he11-bent on abandoning traditional PDAs I don't know what is.

Palm is INTENTIONALLY trying to dumb down conventional PDAs to try to enhance the appeal of the Treo's "internet anywhere". With many, many dumbphones approaching the Treo in built-in funcitonality (and wildly surpassing it in voice quality, camera quality, BT performance and build quality), Palm would be wise to embrace the new generation of powerful handsets from Samsung/Moto/LG/Nokia/Sony Ericsson and market their traditional PDAs such as the TX as "mobile phone companions/PMPs/Mobile Managers".

For the record, my grievances listed above rank #2 on the Palm misstep list right behind their abandonment of the far superior Graffiti 1 alphabet.

If anyone has any further light to shed on the issue and/or can offer verifiable evidence to the contrary, by all means please post it here!

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Out with the old, in with the new. Stop living in the past. Let it go and move on. Stop being so silly.

Out with the old, in with the new.

What, leaving so soon, Gekko? Your winning personality will be missed be one and all. I'm quite sure of it.

As others have mentioned, I don't think it would take a lot of R&D or design expenditure to get a modest refresh of the PDA line-up out there. Even without any recent releases PDAs still manage to be about a third of Palm's business, and they remain the market leader. They might figure they could keep those still-substantial revenues from sliding steeply without diverting many resources from more cutting edge products.

But here's another thought for you. Suppose that Palm has been working on their own new OS for the last couple of years as seems to many of us to be the case. Where would it be easiest to integrate that first? Devices that don't have telephony or cellular data radios or the pervasive issues of interruptibility that mobile phones create. PDA's (or some tablet-like successor to the PDA) would be the logical first target for a next-generation "Palm OS" to replace "Garnet OS". Also consider: non-phone devices wouldn't suffer from 12-18 months of carrier and FCC testing, another reason that we might see Palm's early OS innovations show up there first.

I'm not necessarily talking "PDAs" mind you. But probably something with a tablet form factor that would still run the old Palm OS applications. Maybe the first STB devices.

Just thinking.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

I think everyone other than Creative has pretty much thrown in the towel for $200+ Mp3 players and retreated to either the crummy 1/2/4gb flash based players or gone to unwieldy PMPs.

I mean, Apple has an exclusive on the 80gb mp3 1.8" HD players and there aren't many players other than Cowon and Creative (both with aging players with a fair share of flaws) in the 60gb segment. Now, when we have 32gb+ solid state drives (SSD) in a year or two it'll be a different story. But to find a high-end, high capacity, non0iPod mp3 player right NOW is about as hard as finding a high-end, large screened PDA to purchase.

I basically see the PDA market going in the same direction as the mp3 players/DAPs I mention above. The "tradition" high-end large screneed PDA (many Sony Clies, the T3/T5/TX/LD) is regressing to small screened, lower spec'd smartphones (arguably less useful) on one end and costly/fragile subnotebooks (again, arguably less useful) or tablet PCs on the other.

Again, it didn't HAVE to be this way. Palm would still be wise to inject a few $ into annual refreshes off 2 or 3 $250 or below legacy PDA models to sell at retail (where they enjoy a near monopoly) and to keep the Palm name & branding in the eyes of consumers who don't spend time in cell phone shops.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Palm should makes it own built in WordLogic software. Things like these are basic critical things that make the difference between a user embracing their Palm or very rarely using it (which in turn results in low future sales).

I love these delusional "all Palm needs to succeed is go back to the past" spouts. It's over my friend. I have a T|X, HP iPaq rx1955, and Zodiac 2 - all are collecting dust, and all are going on eBay next week. I suggest everyone clean out their closet and dump Palm as well.

-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
The iPhone Blog, www.theiphoneblog.com

Hell, for $350 or less (with coupons) you can buy a Dell Axim X51v, which sports a full VGA display. Install Opera Mobile and you've got a pretty damn good internet device. Much better than the T|X.

-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
The iPhone Blog, www.theiphoneblog.com