Happy Birthday Pocket PC!

[Jason Dunn]

April 19th marks the third birthday of the PDA we all know and love, our dear Pocket PC. It's amazing that it's been three years - it seems I've been at this a lot longer than that!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/happybirthday.jpg" /> <br /><br />I remember exactly where I was on the 19th. At the time, I was on a short-term contract for Microsoft helping them build and launch PocketPC.com. We couldn't push the Web site live until Steve Ballmer made the morning announcement at Grand Central Station in New York city. I was part of the team that was going to prop the site, although considering I was a content guy, I was just along for the ride. I stumbled into the mobile devices building at 5:30 AM, ready to see my "baby" (the site) go live. We had a few problems getting it to propagate across to all the servers, but shortly after 9 AM eastern time the site was live. Ah, what a day...<br /><br />Let's celebrate this birthday by telling stories about our fondest Pocket PC memories. What's the best memory you have about your Pocket PC? Was there ever one day when it was so useful to you that you were incredibly grateful you bought it? Or were you one of the people excitedly waiting for the launch of the Pocket PC? Tell us your story!

[jizmo]

I quit my day job and went on to study arts. Days were long and when I got home I was far too exhausted to do any graphic designing, which had paid my bills earlier. I was facing eventual need to take break from school and return to work.

I then invested all the money I had left to purchase a iPAQ 3630 and used it to do mobile graphics while sitting in auditorium, taking advantage of the "free" time I had while listening to lecture. Needless to say, PPC saved my life that winter. :wink:

/jizmo

[felixdd]

I hope you didn't actually buy a cake then took a picture of it Jason! ;)

Well...a short story of mine would be using my Jornada as speaker's notes in a talk I gave at a conference. Everyone else had POS devices (PalmOS that is ;) ) and they were dumbstruck at why they couldn't use their own devices like that -- I was holding mine in landscape mode with backlights on full, which blew the POS devices out of the water.

[welmoed]

I was teaching a "History of Technology" course to a bunch of 7th & 8th graders who considered themselves entirely too cool and hip and with it. One day I walked in and at the start of class told them I had a computer in my pocket. Yeah, sure, whatever. It's probably a calculator or something, they all said. Then I pulled out my Jornada 430se, turned it on and held it up to reveal the color screen. Ooooooooh!!! went the class. What fun that was!!

--Welmoed

[Steven Cedrone]

And for those that are interested/missed it: The launch (http://www.microsoft.com/winme/00apr/041900poc/041900poc.html)...

Steve

[Macguy59]

I remember 'launch' day clearly. I was doing my usual Slashdoting while having morning coffee when I got an email from MS telling me about the new PocketPC's that were available. After reading all the marketing stuff, I decided to toter off to Best Buy to see what the fuss was about. I was amazed by these little gadgets that could do most of the things my laptop could. At the time they only had the Jornada and the Casio. I opted for the less expensive but better looking Jornada. Loved it until. . .I made the mistake of playing with the Casio. The screen was gorgeous! Within a week I had already established a PDA buying trend that continues to this day. The Casio served my well until. . . I saw a picture of the Ipaq 3630. OMG I frantically searched around till I found one (at higher then normal retail mind you) and bought it. So within 3.5 weeks I had gone from not knowing what a PocketPC was to having purchased 3 different models. I haven't looked back.

[Janak Parekh]

Steve, great find. Brings back memories. I visited pocketpc.com that day and saw the iPaq on the page, and decided that I would try to get that. Outside viewing with a color display! 8O Who would think of such a thing?

The rest, of course, is history. :lol: That original 3650 is sitting in the closet gathering dust (I'm going to send it off to PPCTechs one of these days), but it was a great little unit, despite its dust.

--janak

[cdcooker]

Nothing compare to the launch of the first gen Ipaq in the summer of that year. The immediate shortage and the high price ($1K+) people were willing to pay at eBay was just amazing.

Right now things are getting stable, we need new excitement coming from the future Pocket PC platform, both software and hardware-wise. Ipaq H1910 is a good start, but HP just don't want it to compete directly to their flagship big brother Ipaq. It is a shame that HP don't beef up this would be killing PocketPC.

[ExtremeSIMS]

Pocket PC saved my life twice - in one day!

I was crawling through the jungles of the Amazon, on a secret mission to rescue the Ambassador's daughter from a ruthless gang of hooligans. They had demanded a ransom of $1B with which they were going to build an army of robots powered by grey-scale, small memory computers implanted in their chests. True, the robots would have limited capability, but there would be so many of them!

As I crawled through the jungle, we werre ambushed by a tribe of headhunters! Arrows flew everywhere, and we were all struck by their poison dipped barbs. Falling unconscious, we wer dragged to the tribe's camp.

We regained consciousness standing in a pot of water up to our knees, a fire licking the sides of the giant cauldron. Thinking quickly, I whipped out my Pocket PC, and the natives were amazed! Truly this LCD that was readable in the sunlight with such vivid colors was the sign of a technomage!

They quickly untied us, and agreed to help us find the hooligans. In fact, they knew exactly where they had their camp. With our new allies, we made our way to their camp.

With whoops and hollers, we besieged the hooligans camp. Poison arrows and bullets flew every which way through the air, but I was untouched as I made my way to the fancy tent in the middle of the camp. Suddenly, the leader of the hooligans jumped out and stabbed at me with his bowie knife! I saw the blade punch through my shirt, only to be stopped by the metal case of my Pocket PC! Stunned by this misfortune, the leader dropped his knife, and I was able to subdue him.

I then strode into the tent, compared the photo of the ambassador's daughter to the one on my Pocket PC, and saved the day.

[JoshB]

Pocket PC saved my life twice - in one day!

I was crawling through the jungles of the Amazon, on a secret mission to rescue the Ambassador's daughter from a ruthless gang of hooligans. They had demanded a ransom of $1B with which they were going to build an army of robots powered by grey-scale, small memory computers implanted in their chests. True, the robots would have limited capability, but there would be so many of them!

As I crawled through the jungle, we werre ambushed by a tribe of headhunters! Arrows flew everywhere, and we were all struck by their poison dipped barbs. Falling unconscious, we wer dragged to the tribe's camp.

We regained consciousness standing in a pot of water up to our knees, a fire licking the sides of the giant cauldron. Thinking quickly, I whipped out my Pocket PC, and the natives were amazed! Truly this LCD that was readable in the sunlight with such vivid colors was the sign of a technomage!

They quickly untied us, and agreed to help us find the hooligans. In fact, they knew exactly where they had their camp. With our new allies, we made our way to their camp.

With whoops and hollers, we besieged the hooligans camp. Poison arrows and bullets flew every which way through the air, but I was untouched as I made my way to the fancy tent in the middle of the camp. Suddenly, the leader of the hooligans jumped out and stabbed at me with his bowie knife! I saw the blade punch through my shirt, only to be stopped by the metal case of my Pocket PC! Stunned by this misfortune, the leader dropped his knife, and I was able to subdue him.

I then strode into the tent, compared the photo of the ambassador's daughter to the one on my Pocket PC, and saved the day.
WINNAR! :D

[yawanag]

I think the two times I enjoy the PDA the most is:

One Going to Church with it and seeing everybody walk in with their Bibles in leather-bound covers and me with four different versions in my PDA.

Two Not having to got to Mapquest anymore to find Door to Door Directions. I love it when somebody asks me how to get to such and such a place. I just tap the Mapopolis icon and give 'em what they asked for.

[Sheynk]

How about PPC2003 to celebrate?

[malcolmsharp]

I babysit two kids lots. Not a job, just a good friend of the family. After I got over my 'don't touch my IPaq!" stage, and while I was at an event with the family and tryin to keep the youngest busy as his sister did something he thought was boring, I showed him how to play one of the ball type games. He even figured out a good tactic to use to win on the thing! Then I showed him how to draw and record his voice... and he forgot where he was!
His Mom loooked over and said "Gee, guess I have a new baby sitter now!"

Oh, and the best time I had with the kids and my PPC was when we all were stuck in really bad traffic. I pulled out the PPC, and got us started making a radio show! It was a skit... we all had our parts. Then I plugged it into the car radio and we all heard the 'show' over the radio! The kids loved it, and actually wanted to stay in the car and keep doing it after we got home!

[Looxer]

I completed almost one year since I bought my first PPC, since then I never thought I could be so much attached to it like I am today. I used to have mobile devices such as laptops and HPC but nothing compared to having a PPC, it is amazing how it is addictive, not only that you want it to be attractive like an accessory you want to wear because people can see it in your hands. I became more efficient at work, and without going into too many details I just like to say: I love utilizing it for everything that comes to my mind.

:new-bday:

[ppcsurfr]

Ohhhhhhh... The Pocket PC...

I remember this so much. It was the time I stayed glued on the Internet just to hear what's new.

I knew I made the right choice to wait for the Pocket PC... it's good I had so much faith in the Pocket PC...

Those were trying times... imagine all the Palm people that would gang up on me because I use the a Win CE device... well... they can't gang up on me anymore... hehehe. I've got my Pocket PC posse now... and we're out to claim our territory... mwahahaha... Happy Birthday Pocket PC!!! :lol:

[bbarker]

Two stories:

PPC 2000 Launch: I bought a Compaq Aero 1530 (thin and light Palm-sized PC model) early in 2000. Two weeks later I left it sitting on top of the car in its case and drove away. I remembered 20 minutes later. The case would have protected it against the fall, but I feared someone would find it or it would get run over. When I got back it was gone.

I bought a Cassiopeia E-105 to replace it. I'd had one of those the previous year but it belonged to my employer at the time. After a couple of weeks with the Aero I found I loved its size, but not the monochrome screen or the slow processor. After I had the E-105 for a couple of weeks I saw MS's announcement about Pocket PC, which would come out a month or two later, in April 2000. I returned the E-105 and went back to using my old E-10.

In April I bought a Jornada 545 (the first model available). Two weeks later I returned it and bought a 548, which had been released by then.

At gunpoint: My most memorable experience with a Pocket PC was in a pizza place on Camino Real in Palo Alto, CA, in January 2001. I was there on business. I ordered my pizza, filled my Diet Coke and sat down at a table to wait. I pulled out my Jornada 548 with its Minstrel wireless modem sled.

I had just sent an email to one of my employees in Salt Lake City when two guys came in with hand guns and made everyone put their money on tables and lie face down on the floor while they robbed the place. I put $200 on the table. After they left I got back to my table and found my Jornada still sitting there with the lid open. They had taken my cash but left me the more valuable item. I went over and picked up my pizza (which was ready by then), sat back down and emailed my employee about the robbery while I waited for the police to arrive and interview everyone. (No, I was not feeling calm about the whole thing. I was terrified.)

In an unrelated incident, I lost my cell phone earlier that same day.

[Paragon]

Please, forgive me.....I bought a Handspring Visor right about then, not knowing a thing about Pocket PCs. I only had it for a few weeks when I picked up a magazine that had a picture of a 3600 Ipaq. It was shinny. It was expensive. It was an electronic gadget....and I had to have one. :)

Little did I know then, that not only would this shinny little thing be very useful in my personal, and professional life, but that they would garner somewhat of a cult following, and I would find myself posting several thousand posts in several forums learning, and helping others with their shinny gadgets as well.

My top three predictions in another three years:

1)The totally connected device. Be it cellular, WiFi, or Bluetooth and it's ability to hand of to whichever network works best at the moment.

2) Screen technology. Flexible screens will bring the overall size of devices way down.

3)Battery technology. Batteries that will last a 2-3 weeks without charging. Just like some of those old Palms. Remember when they were still on the market. :)

Dave

[ctmagnus]

I can't remember what I was doing around the release date, but when I saw the 3670 on sale at an online store around a year later, I remembered reading about iPaqs and how they would be upgradable. I immediately bought one.

Side note: the iPaq and a desktop I had recently ordered arrived the same day. Guess which one I use the most?

[Janak Parekh]

Please, forgive me.....I bought a Handspring Visor right about then, not knowing a thing about Pocket PCs. I only had it for a few weeks when I picked up a magazine that had a picture of a 3600 Ipaq. It was shinny. It was expensive. It was an electronic gadget....and I had to have one. :)
Don't feel too bad. I had an expensive Qualcomm pdQ for about 6-8 months at that point. Talk about taking plunges. But all for shiny thingies. ;)

--janak

[NeilE]

I'll share my fondest memory, although it's a "Palm PC" memory :)

I was an intern at MS back in the summer of 1996 working on Handheld PC 1.0. It was towards the end of my internship when we had a team meeting to talk about the end game of shipping HPC 1.0 and some re-org stuff that was taking place. I clearly recall Bob O'Hara getting up in front of everyone to tell us that the division would also be considering smaller-sized devices that didn't have a keyboard (!?). My time at MS was up shortly after that meeting, but it was about a year later that the first Palm PC came on the market. Two renames later (anyone remember Palm-Size PC?) our beloved PocketPC emerged.

[Mominator]

Oh, I am a bit of a latecomer to the PPC, but here's my $.02:

1. My first was a Handspring as well. I was admiring the one my boss had, and so had to have a shiny thing myself. It got returned almost immediately: "What? There's some with COLOR screens? Oooooh!" Found an E-125 on Ebay, had it for some time. Loved it. Then... fickle me... The Toshiba 740 with Wifi came out. Ooooooh! Sold the Casio, bought the Toshiba. It's been a hairy ride a few times, but very much worth it.

2. Attended WorldCon Science Fiction Convention in 2001, Philadelphia. Before we left WA state, I loaded a MapPoint map of downtown Philly in my Casio. Boy, did that come in handy looking for restaurants! Also, my hubby and I I-R transferred our panel schedules to each other so we could keep track of where the other would be.

One more really cool PPC moment came: I attended a panel by my favorite author, Lois McMaster Bujold. Forgot the book I wanted her to sign so... Whip out the PDA, turn on Notes. She smiled and signed the screen. (I, of course, immediately made about 3 backups of the file, still have it!)

To quote my Pocket MSN Messenger: "I love my Pocket PC!"

[Hyperluminal]

My best Pocket PC memory was-

After waiting months for the first iPaqs to come out, and often considering just getting a Jornada instead, I was passing a Staples and decided to go in. It was early August, so there was virtually no chance of them actually having an iPaq (at the time, only the luckiest, most determined people managed to get them, usually from online places). Still, I asked, and the guy said yes, they did have one. I figured he just thought I meant an iPaq MP3 player (remember those?), until he came back with an iPaq 3630 box. I was practically ecstatic that I actually found one, and it turned out to be remarkably bug-free. :)