What Will PDAs Be Good For?
Turning vision into market opportunity
In his keynote speech, John Sculley showed a nearly market-ready Newton and put it through some of its paces: handwriting recognition, automatic reformatting of documents for printing and faxing, lookup of fax numbers and so on. IBM’s Bob Carberry took up the theme, describing a PDA with built-in notepad, calendar, voice and fax telephony.
Sounds great. But what does it do for you that you can’t already do with a laptop PC and a cellular phone? In fact, the PDAs we’ve been pitched have seemed to be little more than Game Boys on steroids. What, exactly, are PDAs really going to be good for?
Anything but ASCII.>> Plenty, according to Donna Dubinsky, president of Palm Computing. As PDAs mature, they will combine the best of pocket organizers, Daytimer books, rolodexes, beepers and so on. And, yes, they will be great game machines. What they won’t be good at is entering lots of ASCII data; for that, there’s still no substitute for a full-size keyboard.
This is an opportunity, not a restriction, because it means that compatibility with today’s top application programs is not a requirement. That in turn frees developers to tune hardware and operating systems for different needs: low power consumption, handwriting recognition, “digital ink” data storage and system services that will enable novel third-party applications. It also means that there are no existing brand loyalties for upstarts to contend with.
“Information-centric” devices.>> To Dubinsky, the defining characteristic is that they will be “information-centric.” Regardless of hardware, user interface, application software or other competitive factors of the PC market, PDAs will operate on a common fund of the facts that have meaning to their owners.
Apple’s Nazila Alasti, product line manager for the Newton group, sees the PDA as a group of technologies that eases the tensions in our complex lives. Instead of adding to an endless array of dedicated black boxes — pager, cellular phone, calculator, pocket organizer, fax et al. — Apple wants the Newton to help its owner work with the snippets of information that accumulate during the day.
Dealing with data soup.>> Unlike the calculator (which anyone can use, but which can’t do much) and the PC (whose power can only be used by acquiring a forbidding list of skills), the PDA that Apple envisions will be both powerful and accessible, because it will adapt itself to you. You don’t need to type; its recognizer will gradually learn your handwriting style. You don’t need to manage a database; the Newton deals with data as “information soup.”
Apple is also conscious that it won’t get everything right the first time out. Alasti stressed that the Newton is a family of technologies, some of which may be licensed to other companies and some of which have yet to be invented. (In fact, Apple announced later in the conference that its interactive TV technology would be based on the Newton — see p. 39.) The Newton is also a family of products; the first member of the family, which will hit the stands this summer, will hardly be the definitive implementation of Apple’s vision.
EVERY PDA NEEDS A PERSONAL NETWORK ASSISTANT
Another part of the answer came from William Warner, president of Wildfire Communications. He suggested that the ideal PDA would do two things well. First, it would help you recall snippets of information; it would have enough storage and computing power to manage the information you use and acquire over the course of one business trip. Second, it would help you communicate; although tiny enough to be carried with you everywhere, it would have wireless access to cellular phone services and office computer networks.
Most important, it would live in symbiosis with a much more powerful computer in your office, which Warner calls a Personal Network Assistant. The PNA would be attached to many networks: the phone system, the office intercom, the corporate LAN, the Internet and so forth. It would serve as an E-mail and voice-mail dropbox; unlike a PDA (which might be out of range — or out of battery) the PNA would always be available.
Sounds like General Magic.>> The PNA would also know how to talk with your PDA. Anywhere in the world, if you were within a phone cell or under a satellite or at an office with infrared links, the PNA and PDA could establish a link. In fact, the PNA would know where to find you, so that if you had authorized it, the machine could forward your important phone calls at once. (This sounds very much like the concept behind General Magic’s Telescript language; see Vol. 2, No. 10/11, p. 5.)
The two machines would then swap information: you would receive your messages, and whatever snippets of data you had accumulated recently would be uploaded to the main database. The PNA would, of course, have voice recognition and would accept your oral instructions to search data banks, to file the replies to your messages for later transmission, to queue tedious computation jobs for deferred execution and so on.
EXTRA COST FOR TELECOM WON’T FLY IN THE MARKET
Rob Mechaley, of McCaw Cellular, also supports this view of seamless, wireless access to services. With roughly 16 million laptop computers sold, and about 12 million cellular phone subscribers, it is clear that people value the ability to send and receive information while on-the-go. However, most of the first-generation PDA products will have communication as an extra-cost option if they have it at all. This isn’t going to be good enough.
Gussied up Daytimers.>> In Mechaley’s view, when all of today’s announced products reach the market, the consumer will essentially see a gussied-up Daytimer (or Sharp Wizard or Casio Boss) priced between $500 and $1,000. Far more useful, he thinks, would be a gussied-up Daytimer cum cellular phone cum pager, which although costing about $1,500 would offer much more utility. As it happens, this is exactly what McCaw is preparing to offer via what’s known as CDPD.
Last year (see Vol. 2, No. 12, p. 22), a group of nine cellular carriers formulated a specification for using the ordinary cellular voice network as a way to transmit data, called Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD). The spec provides data transport at the same speed as a fast modem (19,200 bps), along with security protocols for data encryption and message authentication.
So far, three of the carriers have announced deployment plans: Ameritech, Bell Atlantic and McCaw. This fall, McCaw will conduct the pilot integration project in Las Vegas. By next summer, said Mechaley, CDPD will be functioning as a wide-area network throughout the McCaw system.
GUIDEBOOK, PATHFINDER AND KEEPER OF THE AIRLINE SCHEDULE
Barry Glick, president of Geosystems an R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., thinks PDAs can make travel easier and more enjoyable by combining the features of an AAA Trip-Tik, an airline computer terminal and a guidebook, all in one high-tech package. To that end, Geosystems is building software for the Newton and other PDAs that will provide suggestions and directions to travelers at the touch of a button. Glick expects that PDAs will become “the platform of choice for travelers’ information assistance,” as indispensable as a toothbrush or credit card.
A few technical problems.>> For that to happen, several things must be combined: map databases, spatial search software, route selection algorithms and a global positioning capability so the system can know where you are even when you don’t. There are some technical problems to be solved: storing the sheer amount of detail a useful device would have, keeping it up to date and displaying it at sufficiently high resolution on a device that fits in a pocket. There’s also a marketing problem, because Americans (unlike the Japanese or Europeans) have proven unwilling to spend more than $15 for a travel guidebook.
(It seems to us that travelers, whether on business or vacationing, should be an especially attractive market. Not only do they comprise a high proportion of early adopters, but they expect to be overcharged for everything. They’re probably just glad they won’t have to tip the PDA.)
Fodor’s on a card.>> Geosystems’ first product, Fodor’s Guide to Business Travel, will be a PCMCIA card that plugs into the Newton. It bears a strong resemblance to the printed edition. The second-generation product, a true travel assistant with multiple information sources, will probably debut in another nine months or so.
In time, says Glick, it will be possible to download information to the device on the fly, removing the limitation imposed by the PCMCIA card’s storage capacity, and to upload such information as reservation bookings. Add the capability to read the existing Global Positioning System satellite broadcasts, along with a database of your personal preferences for restaurants, theaters and frequent-flyer programs, and you get a true personal travel assistant.
Peter Dyson