Monday, July 15, 2002		Feature

Bye! diary, Hi! PDA
Roopinder Singh

Dear Diary,
You were either handed down or were a sweet gift given by a friend. I jotted down all my private thoughts on your pages, scrawled the addresses of my friends was well as a lot of other information.

You served me for a number of years and when it was difficult to find any more space, your sister took over. This cosy arrangement continued for a number of years till your stepsister PDA came into the picture. I no longer experienced the tactile inputs of hand-made paper in which each page had a different feel. The pleasure of permanent black or royal blue ink, flowing across the paper was gone too. Life would never be the same again.

However, the PDA is here and will stay. PDAs are something relatively new, even in computing. A PDA (personal digital assistant) is a small hand-held computer used to write notes and track appointments. It was Apple Computer CEO John Sculley who first used the term "Personal Digital Assistant" in a speech at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in January 1992.

Popular PDAs, however, were a 90s phenomenon and the names that come to mind are HP 90 (1991), US Robotics Palm Pilot, HP 100 and Apple Newton (1993), Amstrad PenPad (1993).

Newton gave the users the provision of writing to input data though it was wisely supplemented with a displayed keyboard. Only 80,000 units of the Newton were sold in 1993. By March 1998, Apple Computer ceased producing or even supporting Newtons.

Trying to understand the variations in human writing has been a difficult task for computers, though handwriting recognition is a holy grail of computing. However, an alternative approach has worked. It requires users to scribble using predefined "Graffiti" and has been successfully used by Palm.

What is it that makes PDA tick? Common applications used for PDAs (which are most familiar as digital diaries) are similar —address books, appointment schedulers, expense account organisers, alarms, memos, to-do lists and calculators, though there are literally thousands of specialised applications for all kinds of use—educational, entertainment, information and so on.

Increasingly, PDAs have become literally pocket computers — they all have compatibility features that enable them to work in conjunction with multiple platform computers. Thus, a Palm owner can sync his handheld with an IBM machine in the office and a Mac at home without a problem.

Even though Palm VII, the first PDA with wireless access to the Internet, was released in May 1999, the jury is still out on its efficacy. Another innovation has been incorporating the PDA into mobile phones and that is, may be, where the future is, though right now the instruments are bulky.

What does a typical PDA user do? The address book is one of the most primary features that draw users to PDAs. Most of us have many address books and a typical upwardly mobile executive would have at least a hundred phone numbers, addresses and other information. All this can be input and accessed very well in PDAs.

Actually, while portability is one of the greatest assets of a PDA, it has never been easy to input data, primarily because of the very size that makes it so alluring. Most of the power users use the functions of their computers and use a synchronising function to transfer the data into the PDAs and make only necessary changes while on the move.

A lot of people use schedulers or appointment books in their computers to keep track of their meetings and other engagements. Most PDAs provide seamless integration with Outlook.

"E-mail on the move" is another killer app for the PDAs. You can download mail on the PDA and read or answer it. When you get back to your computer, the mail is synchronised and whatever you have done is replicated.

Of course, there are many games, but an innovative use is of loading bilingual dictionaries for tourists. A German-English dictionary can be loaded the next time you visit Frankfurt. Also available are maps, tips, including restaurant ratings and what to order where — even what wine goes with which kind of a meal. Many PDA have infrared and Bluetooth communication facilities that enable them to communicate with other devices without any cables. This often results in the kind of beaming of messages and other stuff that we see in naughty advertisements!

For photographers, there are programs that work with their cameras. Children view and beam cartoons. No wonders, PDAs are so popular, despite the cost that ranges from Rs 6,000 to Rs 30,000 apiece. As a cynic would point out that a PDA provides all functionality of a cheap pad of paper at hundreds of times the cost with far less storage capacity. And on top of that they want you to adapt to their mode of communication, not the other way around.

Is a PDA an ultimate replacement for the paper pad that you carried in your pocket? This is a trick question, and if it provides any answer, I carry my PDA as well as a pen in my pocket at all times!