Reposted from me writing this in response to someone saying they'd buy the iPhone the day it came out:

It's funny, there's nothing that the iPhone does that a PDA or SmartPhone doesn't already do.

Jobs was mistaken in saying it has the best screen, my PDA does: 192 pixels per inch in a full VGA screen (640x480). The iPhone is only 160 pixels per inch in a 320x480 resolution.

Plays music. But only has 4 or 6 GB of storage, with no SD or CD card slot. Plus a large portion of that storage will be used for the OS and apps.

Full OS X? Microsoft in windows ce 1.0 back in the 1990s made the mistake of taking the desktop Windows paradigm and translating to a PDA small screen. It totally tanked. What's good on a big screen isn't necessarily good on a small screen. Plus memory management and power management are different for battery devices that you want nearly instant on.

No buttons. This is the complete opposite trend being taken from MS's smartphones and pocket pcs. That's certainly not a problem by itself, but why MS has changed is because people want to be able to use a device one handed. Think about how you use/dial a cell phone. Probably hold it in your hand and dial with that hand's thumb. Not going to work on the iphone. Plus you're going to miss the tactile sensation of dialing the appropriate numbers.

No dedicated keyboard. Just try to take a blackberry from a user. They'd beat you up just to keep the thumbboard at the bottom. No matter the form factor, data entry is the #1 problem in small form factor devices. The software keypad seems mediocre, and there is hardly any predictive input support that guesses words so you don't have to type them.

Yahoo 2 Go. Download for the pocketpc since August.

Google Maps. Download to any Java enable cell phone for months. There's even a version of Microsoft's Virtual Earth. Plus GPS solutions.

Movie playing. With 6 GB of storage? enjoy spending hours transcoding your favorite movies to play at an odd resolution so that they don't take up all your space. Besides, with a graphics accelerated pocket pc (the dell axims use a similar GPU as the Sega Dreamcast did) power usage and FPS is optimized.

Music playing. Yay it supports AAC. But not WMA. Vice versa for pocket pcs.

Wifi, Bluetooth. Meh, welcome to 2001.

Cingular. Meh. GSM for international use, but neglects the largest and best quality voice and data networks in the US: Verizon's CDMA and 1xRTT.

Is it all negative? No, Safari looks great. However again it is not true its the first desktop browser to be made for cell phones. Mozilla (firefox) has a Minimo version that is the full mozilla renderer. Opera also has a version of its browser for everything from cell phones to the Nintendo DS and Wii.

But wow it looks pretty. So pretty I almost want it.

But let's look at the math.

Axim x51v PDA (VGA screen, 620mhz processor) ~$350
2 GB SD Card ~$60
Motorolla RAZR ~$80 with contract
iPod Shuffle 1GB ~$80
=================
Total $570

and you'd have a lot better, dedicated devices.

Just my opinion though. I'd really wait to get one until some of the PDA sites get their hands on it. Apple does some good things, but they're not usually the best for price/performance.

Jon

I'm sometimes asked why I don't sell my software. The number one reason is lack of time to do proper support. My schooling and teaching come first.

A second reason is software registration. The reality for software developer is that if you release a shareware program, it will be cracked. Warez is even making tremendous inroads into mobile applications. Coming up with a way to prevent it is impossible, and the harder you try, the less user-friendly it becomes.

I purchased a game last night from Handango, and the registration process left quite a bit to be desired. It ended up with an email to their support. The reply was prompt and courteous, but the whole experience left me with a bitter taste. Somewhat like DRM, software registration makes me feel like a criminal.

So for now, you guys want free software, you've got it.

Jon

Two observations about coding examples and information on the web:

1.) Never trust it
2.) Even (especially?) if it's from Microsoft.

Jon

I've got an ongoing rant over on PocketPCThoughts talking about the latest Where is My RAM? blog post from the WM Team.

Go check it out at:

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/ ... hp?t=44678

Jon