PocketPCHow2 Log

Saturday, November 17, 2001

PCWorld.com - Comdex Fall 2001: Picks and Pans Here is a recommendation for an award at next year's Pocket PC Summit: Longest Running Repeat Device. Surely that would go to the PC-EPhone, which I think has made an appearance at just about every Comdex for the last twenty years. (Well, ok, only two, but it seems like twenty.) You can even find this thing at the Microsoft Museum in Redmond. But the real question is, can you find this thing in the hands of a real living, breathing person?
posted by Frank McPherson 10:32 AM | link

Battle of the mobile PCs "In January, a number of add-on expansion packs will emerge for the iPaq. A zoom-lens digital camera from Nexian, a voice and data GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile Communications/General Packet Radio Service) cell phone unit and a global positioning unit will all hit the market, Compaq product manager John Brandewie said, followed later by an optical character recognition scanner. The camera and the positioning unit will cost around $199 each."
posted by Frank McPherson 10:08 AM | link

Friday, November 16, 2001

PocketRocketFX.com has a Harry Potter theme.
posted by Frank McPherson 7:59 PM | link

Jeff Kirvin: "While there is some overlap, Pocket PCs are best suited to people who need to create information on the go, while Palms are best for people who primarily need to access data on the go, usually making only minor changes or additions." You know, when I think about it, I think this is one of the reasons why I prefer to use a Pocket PC. Unlike a lot of my counterparts, I do a lot of data entry on my Pocket PC. I like Transcriber, and it works for me. And I prefer to do my data entry in a manner that comes natural, which is my own handwriting or a QWERTY keyboard. That is why Graffiti is another reason why I avoided Palm.

So Jeff is recommending that Palm stick to their roots of being a simple organizer. There is one problem with that approach, as I see it. The problem is, there isn't enough margin in selling a sub-$300 organizer. And at the end of the day, corporate America is all about profits. If Palm isn't making enough profit, they will no longer exist. It is that simple, and that isn't Microsoft's fault, that's Wall Street's fault.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:42 PM | link

Wireless News -- IEEE Sets Next-generation 802.11 Standard "The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Task Group assigned to explore the next-generation standard for 802.11 has finally ended months of bickering and late Thursday agreed on terms for a new wireless standard called 802.11g." This standard provides the same 54 Mbps speed as .11a, but stays in the same 2.4 GHz frequency as .11b, so existing products can be upgraded to the new spec.

While all this obsession on speed is nice, it is not what wireless networking needs. What we need is for IEEE to get the security issues hammered in what is part of the 802.11e specifications. The single biggest issue with wireless network is not speed, it is security.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:56 AM | link

Pocket PC Thoughts has some pictures up today from Comdex. Included amongst the pictures is a CompactFlash digital camera for the iPAQ, and one of those "roll up" keyboards.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:42 AM | link

Pocket PC Thoughts is running the HP Pocket PC phone rumor today with code names, and adds a little spice to the mix by mentioning that Samsung may also be making a device. That makes some sense given that Microsoft and Samsung had announced some type of partnership earlier this year. (Or was it last year?)
posted by Frank McPherson 10:37 AM | link

Thursday, November 15, 2001

Planet PDA Magazine: Handheld Productivity Solutions For The Mobile Enterprise This is an online magazine that I did not know existed until today.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:17 PM | link

AT&T Wireless GSM(TM) / GPRS Network - Network A little more investigation on my part produced this page that mentions Pocket PCs, and has a link for downloading the software.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:58 PM | link

I received a nice email from Jay Wright of Single Tap, which I wrote about here yesterday. He says, "the idea is the Pocket PC is always update with a current catalog of available digital goods, so the user has a single place to go on their device fo find new 'stuff.'" He also goes on to say that SingleTap and a number of the handheld manufacturers see the difficulty in finding new stuff for handhelds a big barrier. Jay also pointed me to a November press release from AT&T Wireless where they mention the availability of Compaq iPAQ Pocket PCs with AT&T Wireless Mobile Connection as bundled for businesses and AT&T wireless' GPRS service in Florida. He tells me that AT&T Wireless will have a more detailed release about the Pocket PC offerring in 2-3 weeks.

So I think there are some interesting developments coming together for the future of Pocket PCs & wireless communication. Here are some things to watch:

• Current wireless ISPs Omnisky and GoAmerica are struggling. They will face even more pressure as GPRS services, with their 33.6 and 56K connections become widlely available. The 19.2 barrier of the CDPD service Omnisky and GoAmerica provide will become outdated in a year. Since GPRS is being promoted by the big mobile providers, I don't see how Omnisky or GoAmerica will survive.


• By the end of 2002 the preferred wireless data providers for Pocket PC users will probably be Voicestream, AT&T Wireless, and Cingular, all over their GPRS networks. However, the biggest barrier for these will be the current pricing schemes which will be unacceptable to the majority consumers in the United States. These mobile providers must learn the lessons of Compuserve, AOL, and Prodigy, who painfully learned that Americans want to pay a flat monthly rate for all the Internet access they can use.


• Earlier this week I reported a rumor about HP developing an integrated wireless device that they may bring to market early next year. The recent announcements from Voicestream and AT&T Wireless mean the infrastructure will be in place by early next year. I also see the iPAQ 3870 and it's built-in support for Bluetooth to be Compaq's early play in this space, not to mention their GSM/GPRS sleeve.

Club Pocket PC is becoming blog-ish. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday there are news updates.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:58 PM | link

allNetDevices: - Wireless ISPs Still Struggling Going, going, gone?
posted by Frank McPherson 11:58 AM | link

infoSync : L&H to let you talk to your iPAQ I thought L&H was dead.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:28 AM | link

Today I read at Pocket PC Passion about another biometric finger print scanner for the iPAQ from VeriTouch. At spring Comdex last April I reported about a similar scanner from Biometric Solutions. From what I can tell, that product hasn't made it to market. I don't think these PC Card-based solutions will fly. If biometric security is going to be part of handhelds they have to be built in to the device.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:26 AM | link

VoiceStream launches new phone network "VoiceStream's new GPRS service is available everywhere except California and Nevada, which will be launched in mid-2002, and North and South Carolina, where they are awaiting the resolution of a dispute over the spectrum."
posted by Frank McPherson 8:54 AM | link

Wednesday, November 14, 2001

Kingston Technology Company - Powerplay Promotion You can buy a 256 MB Kingston CompactFlash card for $119 after a $20 mail-in rebate.
posted by Frank McPherson 6:50 PM | link

Pocket Outliner 1.0 Wow, this program looks exactly like DeveloperOne's OutALine.
posted by Frank McPherson 6:34 PM | link

PCWorld.com - Linux Looks for a Home in iPaq Handheld "Tuxia, a German maker of embedded Linux operating systems for television set-top boxes and other computing devices, expects to announce here on Wednesday the availability of its open-source operating system for Compaq Computer's iPaq handheld computer." Blah, I hate when companies do these type or press releases and yet their web site has absolutely no information.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:10 PM | link

allNetDevices: - Casio, IBM in Pocket PC Deal IBM apparently is hedging their bets. Their service's division will be reselling Casio Pocket PCs to enterprises. I presume they already sell their Palm OS-based Workpads.
posted by Frank McPherson 2:04 PM | link

Pocket PC Thoughts reports on SingleTap, which appears to be a m-commerce solution that AT&T Wireless will use for their Wireless Moble Connection Download Center for Pocket PC devices. The thought is that they will be a store front for directly buying Pocket PC software on Pocket PCs. There are a lot of interesting things about this announcement. First is the idea that AT&T thinks there will be a big enough market of Pocket PC users that justify such an electronic store front. Second, will people even want to buy items in this way. And just what the heck is the AT&T Wireless Mobile Connection Download Center? AT&T Wireless' web site has no information that I can find, and their search engine is uselss.
posted by Frank McPherson 1:18 PM | link

We need better e-mail filtering on Pocket PCs. What I would like is for Inbox to only download email from my POP3 server for which the sender's e-mail address matches entries in Contacts.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:21 PM | link

Tuesday, November 13, 2001

PCWorld.com - Next-Generation Cell Phones Debut at Comdex "Novatel has begun shipping the Merlin C201 PC Card, a wireless GPRS modem. Plug it into a notebook or Pocket PC in an area where GPRS has been enabled, and you can access the Internet at real-world speeds of about 33 kbps to 56 kbps."
posted by Frank McPherson 4:02 PM | link

Pocket PC Expense This is a new expense tracking PowerToy released by Microsoft during Comdex. It has been pretty much panned over at Pocket PC Thoughts.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:33 PM | link

80211Planet - News: Linksys Shows Five Wi-Fi Products at COMDEX Linksys is selling a Compact Flash WLAN card (WCF11) for $129. (Actually, it looks like I could order it from CDW for $118.) The article I am linking to says "for use with the additional CF sleeve." Note to Linksys, not all Pocket PCs have a CF sleeve. This leads me to think that this will be a Type 2 card.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:44 AM | link

A new version of PocketSOAP has been released.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:11 AM | link

NEC Computers Inc. MobilePro P300 This appears to be the official web site for the new NEC MobilePro (formerly known as PocketGear). I also notice that there is a link on the page to order the device from CDW.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:49 AM | link

Arne Hess is reporting a rumor that HP will start selling a wireless Pocket PC at the beginning of next year that will support GSM, GPRS and Bluetooth. Interesting.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:34 AM | link

Monday, November 12, 2001

pocketnow.com - Review - Sprite Software's Sprite:Lite Sprite:Lite is a backup and restore program for Pocket PCs.
posted by Frank McPherson 4:28 PM | link

This may be an early heads up. Chris suggests that AvantGo custom channels may go away, and the AvantGo link at the bottom of this page creates a custom channel. So AvantGo access to this log may disappear in the future.
posted by Frank McPherson 4:10 PM | link

PocketExtra™ Series Featuring PocketExtra Contacts From what I can tell, it looks like PocketExtra enables one to add fields to a Pocket Outlook contact. The extra fields appear appear to be accessed from outside Contacts and are related in some way.
posted by Frank McPherson 4:02 PM | link

Pharos Debuts Handheld Pocket GPS Navigation Solution at COMDEX; Portable Version Gives Consumers Complete Flexibility Both In and Out of the Car Another CompactFlash GPS is now available.
posted by Frank McPherson 3:52 PM | link

Steps Planned by MobileStar and Intel on Net Access "The financially struggling MobileStar Network Corporation said on Friday that it had struck a deal to sell most of its assets to VoiceStream Wireless, which agreed to invest as much as $2.5 million to enable MobileStar's high-speed wireless Internet access network to resume operations until the deal is completed."
posted by Frank McPherson 3:34 PM | link

Gates trots out various Tablet PCs - Tech News - CNET.com CNET had this to say about some of the Tablet PCs shown at Comdex: "One of the devices resembled an Etch A Sketch, while another looked more like a notebook PC with a screen that could be rotated to sit on top of the keyboard. One was small enough to be considered a handheld."
posted by Frank McPherson 11:44 AM | link

NEC ready to roll with Pocket PC device - Tech News - CNET.com Interesting. I thought the name of the new NEC was PocketGear. This CNET article keeps referring to it as a MobilePro.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:25 AM | link

Commentary: Getting a grip on Palm - Tech News - CNET.com Here's some analysis from Gartner: "Started sooner, the alliance might have helped protect Palm from incursions by competitors such as Microsoft and Compaq Computer. However, by focusing solely on simplicity, Palm left the door wide open for those competitors to take over the most profitable segment of the PDA market."
posted by Frank McPherson 11:23 AM | link

JabberCE - Instant Messaging for Windows CE A beta version of JabberCE has been released for Pocket PC 2002.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:04 AM | link