iPhone/iPod: the new PDA?

As an early (and entirely awesome) Christmas present Heather got me a brand new iPod Touch with 16 gigs of space. To liberally quote her, "they're worth the investment every time," and this device is no slouch in that department. After I trimmed my library of unnecessary songs that I had never listened too I was able to cram all my music and some podcasts on the bad boy. It's proudly charging besides my laptop at this very moment. There is however a reason I said it was the new PDA. When Steve Jobs stood proudly on stage to announce the iPhone he said he was announcing three devices; an iPod, a phone, and an internet device. He didn't mention that what he did was making the Newton sexy again.

For a device that heralded in the entire PDA market, languished and subsequently pried from cold-handed geeks everywhere, you'd think the Newton would be left buried next to the Roswell UFO. After all, "everyone" knows the PDA market is stagnant and dying. Why would I say Apple is heading back headlong into the market? Because the modern PDA is actually a smart phone.

Smart phones subsumed the PDA market by adding the critical feature all PDAs lacked, the phone. In order to avoid the same fate, the phone manufacturers realized they must keep adding features. And however poorly they innovated, people bought them. With the latest phones you could surf the internet, sort of. You could listen to music, if you added added storage. They could play video, if you encoded it in just a way. People didn't enjoy using their phones for these things -- it was kludgy and there was concern about battery life.

Which is why when Steve Jobs let lose the dogs of technology there were enthused and snobbish comments from their competition.

"We've known for a while that Apple was going to enter the phone market," said Chris White, Motorola's senior director of multimedia experiences. [Because the originating article is behind a pay wall, I used a 2nd hand link - ed]

Whereas Nokia was slightly more alarmed, realizing the true threat the iPhone is, announcing an increase in R&D to combat this new menace. Palms' comment was even more telling.

"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone," he said. "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.'"

The big secret is actually the guys in the smart phone market are scared that Apple is going to rip them an apple shaped hole. They have every reason to be concerned. With the number of iPods around 100 million, not including the Christmas purchases that are coming, there's a lot of people who love their iPods more than their phones. If you're going to buy a new phone and you're one of those people, you'd give a serious look into the iPhone. Non iPod users will too, given how much mind share Apple has with handheld devices "that just work."

The worst has yet to come. Apple's deal with AT&T in addition to their apparent money-grab keeps the iPhone out of the market for a great many individuals, myself included. So what are we going to do, we who want the tasty goodness of the iPhone? Why get an iPod Touch of course! Big deal you may say, you still have to have a phone, and the big cell phone guys will make their money, smoke Cuban cigars lit with thousand dollar bills and reap the souls of the middle class. Yup they will. Only not instead of yearning for a Blackberry or Palm cellphone to take on my travels, I'll continue to use my rather lackluster Raz(e)r for phone calls but do everything else on the iPod. And when, eventually, Apple opens up the 3rd Gen iPhone to any carrier I'll buy one. The pains with my Razr a bitter memory, washed down by technological ambrosia.