The PDA is Dead... Long Live the PDA!
The Palm has changed a lot in six years. When I bought mine in 1997 (or was it early 1998?) it was called a "Pilot."The PDA is Dead... Long Live the PDA!Literacy Weblog)
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My Palm Pilot looks _just like that_. Cracked screen and everything.
I'm currently in the market for a new PDA.
My new model is a Palm Tungsten T3, which has the extra gee-whiz factor of an expanding screen (there's about another inch of screen hidden under the control buttons). The reviews I read all said the only major problem is the battery -- I'm beginning to wonder whether I'll need to buy another charger for work, since I feel stupid lugging the charger back and forth to the office and home. (Actually, I can get through a full day without running the battery down, unless I deliberately choose to read a novel on the Palm until 2am.) So I bring the charger home over the weekend. Other than that, the only minor problem was that the MP3 player doesn't work until you buy a memory expansion card... and of course, because I use the thing all the time, and have already sketched out syllabi, a draft of a letter of recommendation, and so forth, the screen is already a little scratched from the stylus due to all the writing. Otherwise I've been perfectly happy.
Congrats on your new PDA - it looks so sleek and nifty. Has Peter given it a name yet? I remember when you were first considering buying the Pilot you told me that the stores gave out cardboard versions the exact size of the device as a selling gimick and you carried one around in your shirt pocket until you decided to buy it a short time later.
Lovely PDA! I do admire the PalmOS...it's very stable and all the software you can get for it (whether homespun programs or cheap shareware versions) really makes it economical. I'm also an e-book reader, (and writer), and really believe in PDAs as THE way to read them. Congrats on the new purchase. That Tungsten looks sharp (Is it just me, or is your blog getting more and more image-laden?).
It wasn't just a cardboard mockup -- it was a little booklet, that unfolded like an accordian to show you different screens. That was a great selling tool. Apparently the creator of the Pilot walked around with a chunk of wood in his pocket and mimed using it in daily situations, just to figure out how to improve it.
No name for this PDA yet. I used to call the old one "implant", but that wasn't catchy. For a while, Leigh called it "Pontius" (get it? Pontius Pilate?).
Mike, I'm definitely going to start getting into eBooks now -- Dorothy has just killed the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wizard of Oz came with my PDA). It's only the second non-picture book that I've read to Peter -- the first was The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe.