Jason Dunn
06-03-2002, 08:15 PM
I was unable to make it for the beginning of her presentation, but Cindy Box did a great overview of Pocket PCs in HP's business. Two quick facts that I found interesting:<br /><br />• HP now owns 70% of the Pocket PC OS market (between the iPAQ and the Jornada)<br />• Overall PDA market: 15% worldwide, 13% in the US, 31% in Western Europe<br /><br />The presentation moved into a segment covering wireless integration. I haven't thought of it in this way before, but there have been three phases of wireless integration: the first phase was external products like PCMCIA and CF cards that added wireless. The second phase was sleeve technology that was more tightly coupled with the iPAQ. The third phase, and the stated goal of HP, is to include "dominant higher-speed wireless technologies" into their Pocket PCs. Now there's a tasty goal if I've ever heard one!<br /><br />They had a chart indicating that the sleeve compatibility would be maintained into 2003 and beyond, and they also indicated some of the design goals they have for their next device.<br /><br />• Intel XScale processor<br />• Improved display (OLED? Transflective? Some new type?)<br />• Improved battery life<br />• Expanded iPAQ file store - increased ROM size<br />• Improved data preservations tools - backup and restore<br />• Secure digital input output (SDIO)<br />• Improved security (perhaps something based on biometrics?)<br />• Integrated wireless technologies (remember the "dominant wireless technologies" element, and that it's plural)<br />• Existing expansion pack and accessory compatibility<br /><br />The next presentation that I attended was by Richard Zainfeld from the Smart handheld division. He was definitely an engineer and not a marketing person - gobs of information, but not a very engaging presentation. I definitely learned a few new things from it though.<br /><br />If you want to develop a sleeve, you can buy the "holder" which is a type of bare sleeve. Then you need to add the "turtle shell" on the back which will contain your electronics. I also learned more about why and when a sleeve will trickle charge the main battery: if the voltage of the expansion pack battery is greater than iPAQ battery then the trickle charge will occur. With the PCMCIA sleeve, whenever a card is inserted, the sleeve assumes that up to a full amp may be drawn, and won't trickle charge your iPAQ battery. The includes a CompactFlash card in a PCMCIA adaptor. If you want the trickle charge to occur, push the eject button on the PCMCIA sleeve. 200 milliamps is the maximum trickle charge.<br /><br />The following figures are how much power the iPAQ consumes:<br /><br />• 300 milliamps on full brightness<br />• 500+ milliamps with audio and full brightness<br />• 1000 milliamps to run a PCMCIA card<br /><br />Expansion packs also support Flash memory which, when docked with an iPAQ, can automatically install drivers. Cool! I wonder why more vendors don't do that - I imagine it's a cost issue. They can also support software installs - imagine having a VGA output sleeve that would host the presentation software! Another feature that I haven't seen used is the ability to un-install drivers when the sleeve is removed. You can do the same thing with CompactFlash cards - imagine having an 8 meg CF card with a cool game on it that, when inserted, would install itself into the registry, create a shortcut, etc. <br /><br />When you're done playing the game, you remove the card and it removes the registry entries, shortcuts, etc. Functionally, it's like a Gameboy - applications are placed on CF cards like a console cartridge system. The Pocket PC has had this functionality since April 2000, but I've yet to see anyone really use this (I think the Microsoft Fun Pack did part of what I'm describing). Developers, take note: this may be a "hook" to consider in the future.<br /><br />All in all, some useful presentations - I love learning new things!