JLV wrote:
> Let’s
> remember that it is very early in the evolution of the smartphone and
> there is enormous opportunity for us to innovate.
I have to contest that statement, though. The first smartphone I
remember seeing was a fairly clunky Kyocera, sometime in the mid-1990s,
I think. As I recall, it ran PalmOS, worked as a telephone, and had the
geeks among us bedazzled. For this user, it was a little pricey, I'm not
a geek (no insult intended, but I'm more a user than a tinkerer), and I
thought I'd wait for the technology to progress some.
I came to my current locale in 1998, and shortly after I arrived I
discovered the Siemens smartphone. It was a little on the large side,
and sported Windows Mobile, clear of which I tried diligently, at that
time, to stay. I'd been using Palm since the early Pilots, and chose to
carry two devices rather than switch to WinMob. Eventually, came the
Treo 600, and I was hooked.
The smartphone has evolved sufficiently that Cingular/AT&T has
decided virtually all phone EXCEPT Treos and Blackberries are
smartphones; the latter two are business devices and, if one is not
careful how one talks around the sales people, can cost an extra $20 a
month for the same data plan allowed to smartphones for a merely
affordable tariff.
I would agree that there is opportunity to innovate. I also would
argue that the ubiquitous smartphone has advanced past the strictly geek
stage to a level where much of the innovation should be in user-friendly
apps, built-in.
Which leads back to why I suspect we can see looming on the horizon
the demise of what we Palm-lovers love about PalmOS. The more I
associate with BB users, the more the notion is driven home that they
like the things because they do what they says they do, and many models
actually look good doing it. Innovation will come in that arena to
anyone who can do it AND make some possibility for freelance wizards to
try out new idea.
--
/“Thirty-five million deaths leave an empty place at only one family
table.” /
(News commentator Eric Severied in a radio essay on the 25th
anniversary of the start of World War Two. 8/31/64)
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