Book People Archive

iPod Nano and Cellphone iPod


As I have mentioned over the years, the convergence of technologies
will continue to outperform the dedicated technologies when applied
to consumer technology.

When I laughed at the dedicated word processors that cost times and
times as much as a personal computer that could do the same jobs, I
was laughed at myself by those who figured that billion dollar jobs
spent designing such products could not be wrong.  And yet where is
the IBM dedicated or the Wang word processor today, much less where
is wasn't even a year after its introduction?  Parts, that's where!
I bought the IBM Selectric printer from one for a song back then as
a standalone typewrite, or possibly to interface with an IBM PC-XT,
and this was so successful that I bought another.

Today we see similar convergences in the world of ultra-miniatures,
the "iPod nano" and the new Cingular cellphones, which are becoming
closer and closer together, confirming these predictions.

While I personally do not believe Apple will enter the cell biz, it
would certainly be worthwhile looking into, even if only to start a
new cellphone OEM business to provide cellphones companies with the
iPod brand name recognition, and to later decide if competition for
the real cellphone market would be worthwhile.

However, it is all that much more obvious that the cellphone makers
would continue to lean more and more towards including PC features,
not just iPod-ish features.

Simply looking at the iPod nano, and comparing it to a cellphone, a
growing similarity is difficult to ignore.  Those who predicted the
iPod nano would go the way of the iPod shuffle to be screenless are
obviously now put in their places, and presuming the "nano" screens
are compatible with the iPod screens, this means that eBooks should
also be readable on the new iPod nano:  yet even more convergence.

More and more people are reading eBooks on cellphones as cellphones
integrate more and more technologies into the same form factor, the
same approximate size as the nee iPod nano.  Better screens, color,
and other features, along with more RAM, featuring better download,
as well as upload technologies, all point to cellphones becoming an
all-purpose gizmo of the future, even to the point of telling me in
a second where I am if I get lost.  Try buying a dedicated GPS, the
price is a much or more than your cellphone, and eventually all GPS
features will be available on the cellphone, and all but the larger
map-sized GPS units will vanish from the marketplace.  However, the
cellphone will be able to download in a moment the larger maps, and
then the only advantage will be screen size.

Screen size and resolution are really the only features that hold a
dedicated eBook reader or a dedicated map reader in today's market,
but add-on monitors for cellphones will put an end to that.

Add-on cellphone monitors???

Sure!

Why not!

Fold up full sized keyboards have been available for years for PDAs
and PPCs, so why not an add-on monitor???

Even if this monitor doesn't fold open, and has the same bulk as an
ordinary fold up keyboard, it will still have about a resolution of
a dedicated eBook reader, and then the argument is over.

Of course, new arguments will take the place of these, which is why
I expect to continue writing essays such as this in the future.


Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg