Handtops: a market Apple should investigate
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 15, 2004 at 12:05am
Apple has said that it’s not entering the PDA (personal digital assistant) market, and I believe them. The market for devices that’s been dominated by Palm is on the decline. There’s simply too much competition from products such as the new cell phones (which have PDA and, increasingly, digital camera features) and, yes, digital music devices such as the iPod (which is actually much more than a music player).
But if Apple decides to expand its repertoire of digital lifestyle devices, it might consider a “handtop” device as opposed to one that fits in your palm. Sony has an intriguing new piece of hardware: the Sony U750P, which features a five-inch SVGA TFT passive touch screen (800×600 resolution) and is powered by a 64MB Video RAM Intel 855GM graphical processing unit. It has a USB 2.0 port, as well as a CompactFlash and MemoryStick PRO slot. An optional dock/port replicator sports four USB 2.0 ports, DC in, VGA out, Ethernet (RJ-45) and a FireWire port.
The little PDA (Palm and Windows CE) machines are nice for small stuff. But it might be worth investigating to see if there’s a market for a “real” computer with enough power to really do something and enough screen to see it when it’s done.
The Newton was great for that. In fact, the late, lamented Newton was actually a handtop. Can you imagine a Newton/Sony U70P-type device running a hyped-up G3 with Altivec extensions on such a device? Tablet PCs certainly fulfill a purpose, but so does this much smaller format.
Let’s call such a gadget the Newton II and equip it with WiFi capabilities. It would be suitable for short-term word processing, e-mail and Web surfing. It would also be good for viewing photos (much better than the iPod Photo) and watching videos. Such a device wouldn’t replace a desktop or laptop Mac, but would, like the iPod, complement it.
I have no idea what such a device would cost since the Sony handtop is available only in Japan. But it’s worth considering, IMHO. After all, with the success of the iPod, Apple is certainly investigating the possibilities of other digital devices.
Comments? Write me at daseller@earthlink.net
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
