{"id":233,"date":"2005-02-16T02:35:50","date_gmt":"2005-02-16T02:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/blog\/2005\/02\/16\/the-world-in-your-palm\/"},"modified":"2023-03-23T14:22:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T08:52:11","slug":"the-world-in-your-palm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/2005\/02\/the-world-in-your-palm\/","title":{"rendered":"The World in your Palm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCell phones are cameras, too. Music players are photo albums, too. PDAs browse the Internet, too\u2026\u201d ; So begins an article on HBS Working Knowledge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As makers of everything engage in an all-out features war to cram the most services, accessories, and functions into a single product, the real question for many is this: Does the consumer really want an all-in-one digital device?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A panel of industry players moderated by Harvard Business School professor Alan MacCormack took on the question of future \u201cform factors\u201d at the 2005 Cyberposium conference\u2026<\/p>\n

At the moment, the cell phone is the closest thing we have to a fully converged device, said panelists, who represented device makers, telecom service providers, and operating system developers. Many cell phones feature a camera, instant messaging, Internet browsing, address and date book, and wireless e-mail. Oh, and you can also make phone calls on them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That said, a single device is neither technically possible today nor desirable, several panelists ventured. The barriers include human physiology (typing is still difficult on a small keyboard), technology (battery life for a fully converged device might be in minutes, not hours), and human preference (would the iPod be as popular if it looked like a cell phone?).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The watch industry might be a good analogy as to how devices will evolve, he said. For next to nothing, you can get a watch from Timex that contains all kinds of features. For $2,000, you get a watch from a high-end watchmaker that will do just one thing\u2014tell time\u2014but do it in style.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While I think the answer is not \u2018one integrated device\u2019, I do believe that limited convergence is a good thing.\u00a0 For example, having my contact book and my phone in one device (a la <\/span>smart phone) allows me to dial out any of a 1000 numbers.\u00a0 That said, is there such a thing as the perfect phone?<\/p>\n

My friends and colleagues will vouch for the fact that I change my hand phone almost every 3-6 months.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s a specific feature in a newer model, and sometimes it\u2019s justified as a business need (more memory or a better contact manager or some such thing!).\u00a0 In fact, for the past several weeks, a friend has been trying to convince me to upgrade to an O2 XDA – a device that\u2019s supposed to do almost any <\/span>thing short of cooking you a meal!<\/p>\n

And I would have, if I\u2019d thought there was a chance that I\u2019d stick with it for a while.\u00a0\u00a0 But for some of us, the reality is that there is no such thing as the perfect phone – however converged the device may be.<\/p>\n

Quotes from \u201cThe World in your Palm?\u201d, HBS Conference Coverage,
\nHarvard Business School – Working Knowledge, February 2005.<\/p>\n

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Cell phones are cameras, too. Music players are photo albums, too. PDAs browse the Internet, too… A panel of industry players moderated by Harvard Business School professor Alan MacCormack took on the question of future “form factors” at the 2005 Cyberposium conference…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,20],"tags":[8,11],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-personal","tag-photography","tag-technology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4161,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/4161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}