chloeveltman.com > features

PDA-mad America gets itself into some odd positions
29 January 2001

Sex is the most popular search term on the World Wide Web, so it is no surprise that Palmasutra, a compressed, illustrated version of the Kamasutra (featuring 25 sexual positions), has become one of the most prized downloads to the Palm PDA in America since its release in September. Forget schedules, addresses, e-mail and Wap „ business people, technologists and teenagers alike are acquiring handheld devices simply to download FreewareÍs Palmasutra.

Europe may be ahead of North America in terms of the penetration of wireless communications, but the PDA has become the must-have toy for the American consumer market. According to Jupiter MMXI, an internet research company, there were 3.2 million PDA users in America last year and the company predicts that the number will surge to 5.4 million this year. The lust for portable playthings now extends well beyond the core groups of business people and technologists, the 3Com Palm, Handspring Visor and Microsoft PocketPC all featuring prominently on the Christmas wishlists of teenagers, the retired and ladies-who-lunch last year.

At a recent meeting of the Churchill Club, Silicon ValleyÍs premiere business and technology forum, Jim Carol, co-founder of PacketVideo, a firm that develops wireless video, was inspired to start creating PDAoriented products when his wife said she wanted one.

ñWhen my wife asked for a PDA for Christmas, I knew PDAs had made it to the mass market,î he says.

Improvements in battery power, plus the advent of Bluetooth technology which enables mobile phones, laptops and handhelds to share information at high speeds without connecting cables, have contributed to the sudden spurt in PDA development.

As business for handheld devices steps up, 3Com, Handspring, Microsoft and other competitors are engaging in a relentless game of one-upmanship in whatÍs becoming a crowded niche. Adding more devices to their products, from portable MP3 players to mobile phones, wireless web and games, the possibilities seem exhausting, not to mention expensive and occasionally bizarre.

The Cross Morph PDA Pen bills itself as ñfusing fashion with an ergonomically polymeric-tip PDA stylusî. OK, right.

Then there is PalmÍs campaign to attract a young female audience with the Claudia Schiffer Edition Palm Pilot, a PDA in a shiny blue case. And earlier this month, a Palm executive predicted that by next year Palms will be able to ñbeam throughî shopping check-outs like electronic wallets.

You may not be able to check your shares or call your mother-in-law from first-generation PDAs, but the Palm V, with its cool steel interface and everyday functionality, is the de rigueur device for the digerati of Silicon Valley.

Sneering at the souped-up, web-enabled gimmickry of the more recently launched Palm VII, the geeks out West have been carrying these babies around since they first came on to the market in February 1999.

ñPalm V has been around for ages and itÍs standard,î a technologist friend tells me. What makes this model particularly attractive to the technoids is the fact that you can programme it, using a Java Virtual Machine, for example.

ñWho needs Palm or Handspring to provide you with accessories when you can build your own? ñPalm VII is inferior because youÍre stuck with the systemÍs built-in wireless capability,î says my friend. That must be a terrible nuisance. If he felt like accessing the web from his PDA, he tells me with a bored yawn, he would simply attach an OmniSky modem.

I nod wisely and turn to my laptop, a wafer-thin Actius notebook that suddenly feels like a 10-ton typewriter.