Writing On Your Palm

00/08/28 - It's Wireless, Baby

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I'm a computer programmer, by trade. I work on a compressed work week, meaning that I work nine hour work days instead of eight, but I get every other Monday off. But my flex days aren't true days off, per se. The mission comes first, and if something needs to be done on my "day off", I'm expected to get it done anyway, by whatever means are necessary.

This was how I found myself working today while standing in the pet supplies aisle of my local grocery store, thanks to my cell phone and my Visor. I had to make a conference call with a coworker and our telecom guy, and I ended up conducting the entire meeting while pacing back and forth between the cat litter and dog food. I had all the notes for the things I needed to cover on my Visor, and was able to annotate and expand those notes as we talked. Although I had it with me, I didn't even need to break out my Stowaway keyboard. We covered everything we needed, I got the answers to my questions, and I hung up and made my way to the checkout counter before my milk went sour.

And it hit me on the way home: why do I need an office at all? As I mentioned, I'm a programmer. I write code, most of which I have in peditPro on my Visor anyway for reference. Why can't I write my code remotely, uploading the new code from wherever I happen to be? Well, because currently my Visor is like most PDA's not capable of such wireless access.

But a lot of that is about to change.

The summit I'm going to next month in Microsoft Land is called PocketPC Wireless and Beyond. While I'm going primarily because I'm a Palm pundit and they want to show me how cool the PocketPC is, the focus of the summit is on using the PocketPC and wireless access.

Wireless is the future. Not only does Microsoft get this (I think; we'll know for sure next month), but Handspring and Palm grok it too. Jeff Hawkins has put a ton of emphasis on the coming wireless expansion options for the Visor, and Palm has announced that all future Palm models will include wireless communications, and that all legacy Palm models can be upgraded to include wireless for about $50.

Think about this. Palm and PocketPCs already have the same subjective speed as desktop PCs (based on user responsiveness). What are they missing, that separates them from "more powerful" laptops and desktops? Display size, storage space and web access.

Display size there's no real answer for. I'll fess up to that one right up front. For things like design work, desktop publishing, etc., the PC, with a large monitor, still has no easily portable equal. But let's face it. For email, word processing, simple spreadsheets, databases, most of the everyday things we use computers for, the smaller screens of the pocket sized devices work fine.

Storage space has always been a problem for handhelds. Until recently, most Palm devices were limited to only a few megabytes, and even now, the couple hundred meg available to PocketPCs and the TRGpro via Compact Flash cards is paltry compared to the dozen gigabytes or more common to modern PC hard drives. But what if a handheld computer didn't need that much storage space? What if it were more like a terminal, where all the long term storage were on a server somewhere, downloaded wirelessly to the handheld only as needed for access? For example, I wouldn't have to carry my entire library with me if I had instantaneous access to whatever I wanted the moment I wanted it. I could keep on the handheld only what I was working on at the moment, knowing everything else is easily accessible. Wireless access will allow this. The key is to have the device online all the time. While wireless Palm modems like the Minstrel allow this already, and programs like SmartDoc allow for FTP uploading of large texts, the access is expensive and the devices are bulky and suck batteries. There will be a Minstrel Springboard for the Visor soon, which should mitigate the bulk. Prices and battery life are still issues to be addressed.

And needless to say, the same wireless internet access that will make the storage question moot will provide the web browsing that is so essential to today's business environment. While it's a little cramped on the Palm's 160 pixel square screen, AvantGo does a pretty good job of scaling the web down to Palm size. Pocket Internet Explorer on the PocketPC does even better, since it has more pixels and more colors to use in rendering the web. For well-designed websites that don't rely on a lot of Flash, this generally works well enough.

With those caveats, today opened my eyes to a wireless world. With a cell phone and a wireless PDA, I can make my office a cafe, a park, anywhere I happen to be.

And so can you.

Jeff Kirvin
jkirvin@yahoo.com