The death of the Pocket PC announced today

[Carlos]

Well, it won't die, but it did become completely obsolete.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/the-apple-iphone/

It's been fun working with the PPC for so many years, and especially the PPC phone from the very beginning, but time to move on.

[mv]

Obsolete? Not at all. Where is acrobat reader for iPhone? Pocket Informant? can i install other apps? Can i tipe as fast as on my ppc using the stylus? And $600? I don´t think so. I´m still buying a qtek 9100 and a big SD. If i want music, i have my shuffle.

[Darius Wey]

Let's consolidate discussion here (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=53355). It'd be nice to have everyone's opinion in the one thread. :)

[vinsect]

About the only real advantage of the i-phone is the ability to play i-tunes format files (without converting). I saw this i-phone coming a while back when I started wondering why apple never released an i-tunes app for PocketPC and why they had problems with third party players that supported that format.
PocketPCs have played MP3, Wave Files, Windows Media, and many other formats for a long time. Even i-tunes files can be converted to other formats that a PocketPC will play.
Before upgrading to a Cingular 8125, I've used an old HP Jornada 547 for several years and have always been able to use them as portable MP3 jukeboxes without needing a separate device such as an i-pod.
I'm sticking with PocketPCs for the forseeable future.

[Menneisyys]

About the only real advantage of the i-phone is the ability to play i-tunes format files (without converting). I saw this i-phone coming a while back when I started wondering why apple never released an i-tunes app for PocketPC and why they had problems with third party players that supported that format.
PocketPCs have played MP3, Wave Files, Windows Media, and many other formats for a long time. Even i-tunes files can be converted to other formats that a PocketPC will play.
Before upgrading to a Cingular 8125, I've used an old HP Jornada 547 for several years and have always been able to use them as portable MP3 jukeboxes without needing a separate device such as an i-pod.
I'm sticking with PocketPCs for the forseeable future.

As I've explained in some of my articles / posts (see for example http://www.pocketpcmag.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19618 , linked from example from http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=49885 - yeah, it's really worth following my articles ;) ), it IS possible to play iTunes (AAC) files on the Pocket PC with TCPMP.

[Mark Larson]

The iPhone will not "kill" the Pocket PC. No way, no how.

[Spudley112]

The iPhone will not "kill" the Pocket PC. No way, no how.

I would agree. I think the iPhone will do some good for the PPC market. It is a step in the direction (in some of its functionality) that many of us would like to see. Perhaps it will force some of the major players in the PPC market to start thinking of innovation instead of resting on past successes.

I have hear a lot of people talking about the death of PPCs and WinMobile, but I recall several "Death of the PC" (Mac) or "Death of the laptop" (tablet PC) type inventions in the past. Most of those were well intentioned, but did not kill the machines they targeted.

On another note, maybe some of our technically educated can answer a question for me. Considering the small size of my wife's 30 gb Ipod, why have they not sought to put the same memory in a PPC? I thought it was flash memory in both devices. I also wonder why they limited the iPhone to 8 gb? I may be asking some stupid questions, and I am sorry if I am, but I am curious.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

On another note, maybe some of our technically educated can answer a question for me. Considering the small size of my wife's 30 gb Ipod, why have they not sought to put the same memory in a PPC? I thought it was flash memory in both devices. I also wonder why they limited the iPhone to 8 gb? I may be asking some stupid questions, and I am sorry if I am, but I am curious.

The 30GB iPods use a 1.8in HDD (Toshiba MK****GAL series) - these are actual hard drives, not flash memory. You can actually get these separately for about $200, and therein lies part of your answer - it substantially increases the price of a device. The iPod is fairly simple in terms of hardware and software - essentially a battery, HDD, LCD, and a small PCB; with the HDD taking up the lion's share of the space. You can fit 1" drives into PDAs for a small space increase - that's essentially a CF card size (look up Sharp Zaurus, Palm Lifedrive) - but a 1.8" drive is something else entirely.

[Carlos]

It will continue on, of course, but unless the manufacturers do something interesting, it will be just like Palm. There but irrelevant, something that the uninformed buy because of the name.

When I got my first PPC-phone it was a stunning piece of technology. Today, the improvements over that first one have been incremental and really, kind of small.

Now that Vista has shown itself to be a complete farce, what can we expect Microsoft to do with the PPC OS? When their primary product is still years behind the others, what could they possibly give us in a handheld OS?

[Spudley112]

Thanks for the answer. That explains it. I checked my wifes 30g and noticed a slight drive vibration to it (maybe it is my imagination though) when it is playing. Perhaps we will see such a drive in a future PPC.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Thanks for the answer. That explains it. I checked my wifes 30g and noticed a slight drive vibration to it (maybe it is my imagination though) when it is playing. Perhaps we will see such a drive in a future PPC.

I doubt it - with the way things are going now, we're more likely to see a flash-based version than a physical hard drive. There're too many strikes against using a full HDD in a mobile multi-use device (requires too much power, generates a lot of heat, and slow access times - none of these are an issue in an iPod due to the way the drive is accessed). But the more important thing is to get that much storage on a PPC, right? ;)