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Apple, Dell Both After PDA Biz?


Reader Greg Grusby sends us an item from weekly trade paper RCR News suggesting Apple and Dell might both wind up in the wireless / PDA arena. The article reports Dell has confirmed it plans to enter the PDA market by declines to provide details. As you would easily guess, the article speculates Dell is likely to go for a Pocket PC device, and a cheap device would give Palm a run for its money.

”The article goes on to say that while Dell’s move into the PDA’s is relatively assured, Apple’s situation is a bit more murky,” writes Greg, and quotes the recent New York Times article (which I covered recently for the PowerPage. The article points to forthcoming iSync – BlueTooth support, and Apple’s recent partnerships with Cingular and Sony Ericsson. But “making a phone would be suicidal for [Apple],” says Gartner’s Dulaney, since Apple has no experience in the market or technology.

I have to concur again with the more realistic scenario put forth by Dulaney at Gartner: iPhone is unlikely to become a reality, but a BlueTooth iPod II enabling wireless headphones, for example, and adding the ability to sync contacts via iSync wirelessly, with FireWire reserved for audio transfers, is both likely and enticing. And this is the exciting thing about Apple’s iSync vision: rather than fight the ongoing proliferation of digital gadgets we carry, Apple gives us the chance to ensure that wherever our data winds up — on a Palm, on an iPod, on our phone — it’ll be synced with our Mac. As we’ve commented on the PowerPage before, the Ultimate Digital Device seems to be elusive. With everything bound together by BlueTooth and iSync, the idea of the one eternal device in our lives, the Mac, as a hub starts to make real sense. This seems to be Apple’s plan more than its own iPhone. And I look forward to being able to leave my T68 and Palm in the locker at the gym and check my calendar for the day on my iPod while I’m sweating to the sounds of the B52s.

By Jason O'Grady

Founded the PowerPage in 1995.