Why are PDAs suddenly that weird uncle you never talk about and only see at birthdays?
Because they ultimately failed in the market. There was a reason that the Blackberry and Treo type devices became popular. They worked better than the early touchscreen devices.
Those early deficiencies left manufacturers gunshy about creating more touchscreen devices. It was combination of hardware issues (resistive, single touch) and also software (graffiti, interface).
It was not obvious in 2007 that such a device (full touchscreen, no physical keyboard) would succeed. The early iPhone reviews specifically addressed the keyboard issue, since this was a Blackberry world. Practically all Blackberry fans at the time were saying that the device would fail because you need a physical keyboard.
The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.
>> It was not obvious in 2007 that such a device (full touchscreen, no physical keyboard) would succeed.
Yes. All my Blackberry toting friends were pooh-poohing the notion of a virtual keyboard, and now, the loudest critics among my peers have totally jumped ship, singing a different tune.
Regarding PDAs being that "weird uncle"...
I've had just about every PDA form-factor going back to the clamshell Sharp Wizards (which had these weird touch panels) in the late 80s to the Newton Messagepad to Windows CE, Palm and eventually Windows Mobile. The iPhone is the first "PDA" that I actually consistently use. The way you used the core features of the phone (contacts and calendar) were vastly better than anything I used prior.
Of course, I would have no problem using any "post-iOS" phone OS, which would include Windows Phone, Android and Web OS, but there really is something about the first iPhone UI that made it special. Is it as special today? Not really, but in 2007, yeah, it was pretty revolutionary.
>> Why are PDAs suddenly that weird uncle you never talk about and only see at birthdays?
> Because they ultimately failed in the market.
I have always seen the iPhone as a hybrid product. To call it a phone with PDA functionality, or a PDA with phone capabilities is just semantics in my opinion.
Because they ultimately failed in the market. There was a reason that the Blackberry and Treo type devices became popular. They worked better than the early touchscreen devices.
Those early deficiencies left manufacturers gunshy about creating more touchscreen devices. It was combination of hardware issues (resistive, single touch) and also software (graffiti, interface).
It was not obvious in 2007 that such a device (full touchscreen, no physical keyboard) would succeed. The early iPhone reviews specifically addressed the keyboard issue, since this was a Blackberry world. Practically all Blackberry fans at the time were saying that the device would fail because you need a physical keyboard.
(2007) http://allthingsd.com/20070626/the-iphone-is-breakthrough-ha...
The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.