3 ms·

> It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? Mobile phones weren't very far along at all. PDA's (personal digital

by flukus 9y ago

> It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? Mobile phones weren't very far along at all. PDA's (personal digital assistants) on the other hand were slow, clunky, had hard to read screens and were expensive, but if we transported a 20 year old back in time they'd definitely recognize it as a primitive mobile phone. They gained actual phone functionality 5-10 years later. One of apples big innovations was to call them phones instead of PDA's, but when you include PDA's (including the apple newton) the evolutionary history is much more obvious.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
After same Palms and a 1st gent Newton I loved - but was much too heavy - my first Smartphone was a Sony P800 around 2002 - where you could see the direction this is moving (although OS/UI/Pen was very bad). So I'd say 10 years after the article.
tudorw 9y ago
I don't agree that PDA's were really slow, or clunky, that's hindsight, when I bought mine, they were expensive, fast, lightweight and awesome. By the time the Psion 5 came out around 1997 I was receiving email and sending faxes from a Psion 5 > PCMICA Adaptor > PCMCIA Modem (Goldcard) > Data Cable > Nokia 8110 and it certainly felt like the future :)
- flukus 9y ago
  I may be confusing them with the later windows mobile and cheaper Casio ones (which I was rocking as a super sophisticated primary school kid at the time), but I remember noticeable input lag and frame rates of approximately 1fps. As amazing as they were at the time I still found them slow and clunky, was the Psion noticeably better?
  - dagw 9y ago
    Both Psion and Palm where really great. I used a Psion 5 (and later 5mx) as my main 'laptop' for a while. Working with text and spreadsheets was amazingly smooth, and it had a battery life that most smartphones today would envy. Oh and the keyboard design on the Psion 5 was one of the greatest pieces of industrial design the computer world has ever seen.
    - tudorw 9y ago
      It's really difficult to talk about speed, it's clear we all experience it quite differently depending on our path, so for me I'm here, it was smooth, copy and paste just worked across apps, integration between calendar, todo and email(i think?) just worked, the device form factor, widescreen clamshell with the butterfly keyboard deserves a comeback, imagine the spec you could cram in, for reading and writing a wider screen for me is preferable to a taller one.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  Psion + Cable + Phone was definitely clunky. I thought the Psion was a magnificent piece of design, but the keyboard wasn't good enough for anything except notes, and there were mechanical issues - the stylus holder on mine broke fairly quickly, and the paint finish started peeling. I changed to a Communicator, and the keyboard on that was even less suitable for anything longer than a brief email. Browsing before 3G wasn't a pleasant experience. Popular pages (e.g. BBC News) literally took minutes to download and render on the Communicator. But... you could see the potential was there. The Macbook I'm typing this on is what the Psion was trying to be. It's three times heavier than the Psion and it's not pocket sized, but that turns out to be less important than having a very usable keyboard and a small but fully functional colour screen. WiFi and Bluetooth phone connectivity mean that tethering - as it used to be called - isn't clunky any more. I remember reading about portable consumer touch screen interfaces back in the 70s, but the technology wasn't there to make a viable calculator, never mind a phone/PDA.

by flukus 9y ago

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

After same Palms and a 1st gent Newton I loved - but was much too heavy - my first Smartphone was a Sony P800 around 2002 - where you could see the direction this is moving (although OS/UI/Pen was very bad). So I'd say 10 years after the article.

tudorw 9y ago

I don't agree that PDA's were really slow, or clunky, that's hindsight, when I bought mine, they were expensive, fast, lightweight and awesome. By the time the Psion 5 came out around 1997 I was receiving email and sending faxes from a Psion 5 > PCMICA Adaptor > PCMCIA Modem (Goldcard) > Data Cable > Nokia 8110 and it certainly felt like the future :)

flukus 9y ago
I may be confusing them with the later windows mobile and cheaper Casio ones (which I was rocking as a super sophisticated primary school kid at the time), but I remember noticeable input lag and frame rates of approximately 1fps. As amazing as they were at the time I still found them slow and clunky, was the Psion noticeably better?
- dagw 9y ago
  Both Psion and Palm where really great. I used a Psion 5 (and later 5mx) as my main 'laptop' for a while. Working with text and spreadsheets was amazingly smooth, and it had a battery life that most smartphones today would envy. Oh and the keyboard design on the Psion 5 was one of the greatest pieces of industrial design the computer world has ever seen.
  - tudorw 9y ago
    It's really difficult to talk about speed, it's clear we all experience it quite differently depending on our path, so for me I'm here, it was smooth, copy and paste just worked across apps, integration between calendar, todo and email(i think?) just worked, the device form factor, widescreen clamshell with the butterfly keyboard deserves a comeback, imagine the spec you could cram in, for reading and writing a wider screen for me is preferable to a taller one.
TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
Psion + Cable + Phone was definitely clunky. I thought the Psion was a magnificent piece of design, but the keyboard wasn't good enough for anything except notes, and there were mechanical issues - the stylus holder on mine broke fairly quickly, and the paint finish started peeling. I changed to a Communicator, and the keyboard on that was even less suitable for anything longer than a brief email. Browsing before 3G wasn't a pleasant experience. Popular pages (e.g. BBC News) literally took minutes to download and render on the Communicator. But... you could see the potential was there. The Macbook I'm typing this on is what the Psion was trying to be. It's three times heavier than the Psion and it's not pocket sized, but that turns out to be less important than having a very usable keyboard and a small but fully functional colour screen. WiFi and Bluetooth phone connectivity mean that tethering - as it used to be called - isn't clunky any more. I remember reading about portable consumer touch screen interfaces back in the 70s, but the technology wasn't there to make a viable calculator, never mind a phone/PDA.