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TechNewsWorld: Apple gave up PDA market

updated 07:10 am EST, Tue December 9, 2003

Apple gave up PDA market

Arguing for , a TechNewsWorld columnist writes: "The impression that Apple is out to lunch is enhanced by Steve Jobs publicly saying that the Tablet PC is a niche product. This is sadly ironic, given that Apple gave up the PDA market to Palm and Microsoft as a result of one of his decisions. Like a lot of CEOs, Jobs seems to think it is more important not to admit he was wrong than to correct a mistake."

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12/09, 07:24am | report spam | close Reply |
iSync

Surely they've heard of that! Apple never gave it up, they decided instead to focus on the software end of PDAs.

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12/09, 07:37am | report spam | close Reply |
business focus

so the real question is, did it make sense to give up on the PDA market? if its so lucrative, why has palm, the market leader, been having such financial troubles? why has handspring gone away (or been absorbed)? what are the real financial figures for the PocketPC divisions of HP, Dell, and others who've made this an important part of their product lineups? i don't have any figures, but it would be interesting to see how other more profitable biz groups are supporting development of handhelds.

as we all know, apple sells well when they innovate. the iPod was a risk, but it sells well because (up until now), there just hasn't been any competition. but to have continued the newton would have made it difficult to bring the company back to profitability. its easy to understate how bad apple's financial health was when they let that go. and now to jump back into it would make little sense.

lastly, if i can sync all my phone numbers to my cell phone and other contact info to my iPod, do i really need to carry around a PDA as well?!? the utility of the digital hub is really the genius of OS X.

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12/09, 07:37am | report spam | close Reply |
Mistake

TechNewsWorld writer seems to think it is more important not to admit he was wrong than to correct a mistake. I'm sick of tech news people trying to pass off their own opinions as news and facts. Especially when many of these opinions are based on bad information and bad reasoning.

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12/09, 07:39am | report spam | close Reply |
financial sense

so the real question is, did it make sense to give up on the PDA market? if its so lucrative, why has palm, the market leader, been having such financial troubles? why has handspring gone away (or been absorbed)? what are the real financial figures for the PocketPC divisions of HP, Dell, and others who've made this an important part of their product lineups? i don't have any figures, but it would be interesting to see how other more profitable biz groups are supporting development of handhelds.

as we all know, apple sells well when they innovate. the iPod was a risk, but it sells well because (up until now), there just hasn't been any competition. but to have continued the newton would have made it difficult to bring the company back to profitability. its easy to understate how bad apple's financial health was when they let that go. and now to jump back into it would make little sense.

lastly, if i can sync all my phone numbers to my cell phone and other contact info to my iPod, do i really need to carry around a PDA as well?!? the utility of the digital hub is really the genius of OS X.

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12/09, 07:39am | report spam | close Reply |
Newton as first wave...

This is hardly an Apple problem - the firsts of everything fail after the second wave improves and removes unintended consequences... banks went thru this - the first bankers were replaced by what are now in fact more like real estate holding companies.

Who had the first laptop? Tandy/Kyocera. They were passed by Apple.

Who had the first cell phone? Motorola, eclipsed by Nokia.

And would you like to talk game consoles?

It's not an Apple thing, it's that the early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

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12/09, 07:40am | report spam | close Reply |
Integration...

...would seem to offer opportunities, having read reviews of the Handspring TREO phones that integrate Palm with wireless - fully 1/3 of customers are unhappy (cNet) especially with hardware design & support - areas where Apple tends to succeed...

iSync & iPod might offer in inroad...

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12/09, 07:49am | report spam | close Reply |
cd-rw

Jobs honestly admitted Apple was wrong with not including cd-rw drives, and moved to correct that.

Just one case to prove the TechNewsWorld columnist implications are wrong.

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12/09, 07:50am | report spam | close Reply |
Jobs is wise

Jobs seems happy to support Palm and let them cope with the shrinking PDA market as smartphones and other devices gradually swallow up this market in the name of integration. Plenty of companies have fallen by the wayside or been swallowed up, Psion, Handspring for example.

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12/09, 08:13am | report spam | close Reply |
RE: Jobs is Wise

Very well said. The market for PDA's is extremely volatile and PC Tablets are a niche market. Who doesn't know that? Oh yeah, this writer.

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12/09, 08:25am | report spam | close Reply |
Writer is a dumbass

Apple is not Microsoft. They don't have some deep-seated need to be the dominant supplier in every friggin market.

As long as Apple products interoperate well with other companies' products, then Apple doesn't need to make their own PDA. I wouldn't buy one anyway, I'd rather just carry my T68i, which syncs with Entourage just fine. I don't even use the Contacts or Calendar features in my iPod.

The current crop of tablet PCs run Windows, and I don't think they've sold 200,000 of *those*. Why should Apple flush money down the toilet to develop a product for such a tiny market? So the suckers who bought Windows tablets can denigrate the Apple offering and feel better about the hunk of junk they bought?

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12/09, 08:41am | report spam | close Reply |
What could an Apple PDA

offer, that Palm, Sony, etc. doesn't? I enjoy using PDAs (I'm currently still using my 1999-era Casio E-100). But as mentioned above, the newer cell phones have color screens, PDA functions, and Bluetooth. Why carry ANOTHER device, if you already have a cell phone and an iBook/Powerbook?

I've always had PDAs, and in the past advocated them. But in my experience, PDAs have been notoriously unreliable. My E-100 has awful battery life, so half the time I need it it's warning me of imminent shutdown. My Visor Edge kept spitting its screws out, and is falling apart. My Palm IIIxe couldn't keep the time (a few hours without syncing, and it's usually 24 hours off, even with a time sync app). My wife's Visor Deluxe has serious stylus issues, no matter how often you try to calibrate it. My father and brother have both sent several Visors and Treos back for repair/replacement. What's the point of a PDA that can't be there when you need it?

The only thing PDAs offer that cell phones don't is a larger screen for e-books, games or video. But is that worth $599 for a high-end PDA?

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12/09, 08:44am | report spam | close Reply |
Idiots...

Those writing these articles... Are they idiots?

I mean PDAs are nice, if you are a business man, but even then, they probably use a pen and paper. Or a simple business card... PDA is not that big a deal. It isn't like the iPod or MP3 players. Something that YOU HAVE TO HAVE! PDAs are too limited for me to want one, and it simply isn't that cool a thing yet.

Call me when it can do what a TriCorder can do from Star Trek. Then we can talk business...

But to do and see what my Mac does already... Humm.... $1000+ for such a gizmo is not worth my time or money...

So I think Apple did right by leaving it alone and invest in such items as better computers, MP3 players... The list goes on...

And why whine, when Apple has been the front runner for so many advances in the computer business?

We are still a bit a way before we can use Tablet PCs and PDAs as a simple home appliance... Make it CHEAP, and perhaps, perhaps it may start a fad...

Use a laptop from sony or Apple... They are small enough or buy a Nokia phone which has just about the same features in it as a Palm pilot...

Sorry PDA guys and gals... I too had a Palm Pilot... I threw mine against the wall, shattered into a million pieces... It was that annoying...

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12/09, 09:18am | report spam | close Reply |
Jobs is right

Tablet pc's are a niche market, and personally
I see them as pretty useless to a computer user.
There is one thing I can say and that is if Gates thinks the tablet will supercede desktop/laptops, he's obviously dillusioned about what users want.

I hope I'm right.

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12/09, 09:38am | report spam | close Reply |
PDA Dust collectors

Very few of the PDA enthusiasts I know from just a few years ago even use their PDA's today. My opinion is these gadgets are just a stepping stone to more useful gadgets of the future. As for Tablets, PDA redux.

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12/09, 10:32am | report spam | close Reply |
Newton was murdered

Apple (read: Steve Jobs) has made many, many business mistakes. (Sound of swords being unsheathed.) No, really folks, it's true. The greatest proof is Apple's marketshare. With products described as "devastatingly superior", you have to WORK at having only ~3% market-share. Can we be honest? Apple innovated almost everything in the personal computer (first to market); their products are consistantly years ahead of the competition; and their products are COOL. Yet... ~3% market-share. Yes, my rabid friends, mistakes (business-wise) have been made.

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12/09, 10:40am | report spam | close Reply |
Standalone PDAs are dying

The cellphone manufacturers are adding more and more PDA like functionality into their products. These are often available, due to service provider discounts, at far lower prices than standalone PDAs.

Why carry two devices around, with attendent chargers and connecting cables, when one will do the job.

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12/09, 10:49am | report spam | close Reply |
to focus.

To retain high quality, one needs to focus.

I see nothing wrong in giving up areas of distraction while focusing on your key strenghts. Steve Jobs did a good thing. The Newton shouldn't have been released when it was, and he knew it. And he knew why.

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12/09, 10:53am | report spam | close Reply |
PDAs ARE useful

I have been using Palms (now using a Tungsten T2) for a few years and as they get better, their usefulness increases. But I think Apple is right to focus on the digital hub aspect rather than on the devices. iSync adds value to my Palm.

DD

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12/09, 11:21am | report spam | close Reply |
I love my T3

My T3 is the best palm I have had. I had a sony S300, Handspring Visor, vTech Helio but this T3 does everything I want done when I am even away from my PowerBook.

One feature that is great is finaces with Pocket Quicken. I don't have time when I am at my computer to organize my spending and deposits but when I am on the go, organize it, sync it and there. and iSync does everything else.

If apple got in the PDA market it would fail unless it ran OS X because there would be no software for it.

Unless they bought palm.

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12/09, 11:38am | report spam | close Reply |
Automobile Market for Mac

Anyone want to form a "Think Tank" for Mac OS Automobiles before MicroShaft screws that up too?

I have a lot of experience, and some great ideas to boot!

Contact me at http://www.automorrow.com

editor@automorrow.com

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12/09, 11:55am | report spam | close Reply |
Newton died on its own

I worked at General Magic for 5 years, Apple's predecessor to Newton that got spun own into its own company. Both Magic and Newton tried the consumer market, failed, then tried verticals, and failed there, too. Both products were excellent eventually, if not in their first versions, but there was just no market there in any case. Was Jobs wrong in killing Newton? No way.

Apple's success in portable devices (laptops and iPods) is great. They've got solid products in solid markets. PDAs are hardly a solid market (as others have noted here) and the tablet market is just a joke. Remember, this is about the 3rd round of tablets being the "next big thing," and like all previous rounds, it never panned out.

I, for one, appreciate that Apple is focusing on markets that exist instead of beating dead horses. I'd much rather have a better PowerBook than a more fancy PDA that I won't use.

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12/09, 12:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
s**** PDAs!

Forget the PDA c***. I'd be more concerned about real devices... Check this out:

Automated teller machines at two banks running Microsoft's popular Windows software were infected by a computer virus in August, the maker of the machines said Monday.
The ATM infections, first reported by SecurityFocus.com, are believed to be the first of a computer virus wiggling directly onto cash machines.
Computer security experts predicted more problems to come as Windows migrates to critical systems consumers rely on.
An unknown number of ATMs running Windows XP Embedded were shut down during the spread of the so-called Nachi worm, said executives at Diebold, which made the ATMs and refused to name the customers affected.

Nothing more scary then having our money in the control of buggy MS software!

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12/09, 12:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
Share blame for mistakes

"Apple (read: Steve Jobs) has made many, many business mistakes. (Sound of swords being unsheathed.) No, really folks, it's true. The greatest proof is Apple's marketshare. With products described as "devastatingly superior", you have to WORK at having only ~3% market-share. Can we be honest? Apple innovated almost everything in the personal computer (first to market); their products are consistantly years ahead of the competition; and their products are COOL. Yet... ~3% market-share. Yes, my rabid friends, mistakes (business-wise) have been made. "

That is the dumbest reasoning ever. Apple( read: every iCEO between Jobs) has made stupid mistakes that have been to the detriment of Apple's quality and marketshare. All the points you list as reasons why Apple should maintain a larger portion of the computer market, are half truths. Advanced technologies? Until recently we were far behind the technolgies on the PC's hardware, software we were and still are several years ahead. Matter of fact, at best we are a couple months ahead of PC manufacturers on hardware. COOL, always will be.

Lastly, though I hate the car analogy your reasons make it the perfect example to use. There is no question of which car is better between a Porchse 911 and a Ford Taurus, but guess which one you';; see more of on the road? I have my eye on a Ford GT 40, but again guess which one I'll probably end up buying.

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12/09, 12:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Newton was murdered

" With products described as "devastatingly superior", you have to WORK at having only ~3% market-share. Can we be honest? "

Being the best doesn't mean being the most popular. I wish people could grasp that simple concept.

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12/09, 12:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
car analogies

Car analogies are flawed. I live in Memphis, I see more SUVs (Ford Expeditions) than I see anything else. In Portland, while I lived there it was Jettas or Subarus (very close call) in Cali it seems it's Hondas and Acuras. This Ford Taurus vs Porsche thing.. I see more Porsches on a day to day basis than Ford Taurses. Time to update people... Ford Focus, I see many Foci (mom's got one) ... the Taurus is a dead horse. Porsche vs Focus, both german designed ... only one german made.

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12/09, 12:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
face it

face it, apple was in trouble back then, they needed to amputate and stick to what will keep them alive, Now they are back on there feet and are a more cautious company (yet still the most innovative) IMO. They have money to re enter the market if they wanted, but jobs says its not a good idea YET. I hardly think its a mistake. The thing is, everytime apple releases a product that does not work well or the Rev A is not good (the newton) (I know it worked awesome, but not the first one). Apple gets slammed by people.

SO if they release something, its gotta be good and it works. Look at all version 1.0 MS products.

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12/09, 12:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Wrong?

I wouldn't say he was wrong. I think it's a matter of opinion... The truth about the Newton line is that they were ahead of there time. There is no disputing this... Apple set it aside because they wern't popular at the time. Palm & Microsoft jumped in the boat later, at a time when the popularity was begining... There's also no arguing that the Palm & Pocket PC owe a lot to the Newton. Heck, the Pocket PC has a handwriting recognition program built on the handwriting recognition of the Newton...

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12/09, 01:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
Tablet PCs?

Hum. Since when are tablet PCs were not a niche product? Is he confusing them with notebooks?

Of course it's not surprising that a tech writer would publish an oped piece riddled with inaccuracies and lies. That's how they make their money. They print inflammatory bits of fluff like this and then watch as their hit count rises higher and higher as angry Mac zealots come to read. And they serve ad after ad after ad...

The best-the VERY best-thing to do with people like this is to IGNORE THEM. Don't go rushing off to their site to read the article, don't up their hit count, don't up their ad serve rate-in short, DON'T HELP THEM SLAP US DOWN!

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12/09, 01:49pm | report spam | close Reply |
Newton was murdered

Over the past 20 years, if Microsoft, with inferior, copy-cat products, can gain ~95% marketshare (that's a lot, folks. Some of you seem to miss that point. Name another major industry where one company dominates so completely. Heck, name any industry.), then how is it that Apple, with innovative products, has ~3% marketshare (that's very, very little). The answer must lie somewhere other than in the products.

My point is that chimpanzees could sell Apple products. The products have never been the problem - the products are not the reason for ~3% marketshare. Twenty years of great, and/or insanely great products. Sometimes I dream that chimpanzees had been in charge of marketing Apple products. Funny, but more importantly... quality wins, and, therefore, everyone wins.

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12/09, 02:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
The real reason.

It amazes me how people love to trot out that old line about how SJ killed the Newton. The fact is, the real reason the Newton was killed is because Apple at the time was faced with a huge dilemma...the core product (the Mac) was dying (if not already dead), and the only other possible savior of the company (the Newton) was Not Ready for Prime Time. Many factors played a part in the decision.

Look, SJ may be an enigmatic person (and I'm being nice here), but he's no dummy. Although he doesn't always clue in the rest of the public, like most Pretty Smart Guys, he knows a good thing when he sees it--and he usually sees it well before most other tech leaders.

By the time the Newton MessagePad 2100 was released, the Newton platform was at a crossroads, as was Apple. Apple was faced with a dying core product and dwindling market relevancy. The choices were: 1. Revive the Mac. 2. Abandon the Mac and dump massive amounts of money into the Newton to make it the success it deserved to be. Obviously, the Newton lost--which is terrible as this was probably the greatest advance in personal computing since the original idea, but to lose the Mac would have been even worse for Apple (and arguably, the world). Gambling on the Newton would have been a *giant* risk, gambling on reviving the Mac quite a bit less so.

What is truly a shame is that I have heard it told that even Apple has lost much of the code that made up the Newton OS, so a revival at this point would require reinventing the wheel as well as recapturing a lot of pissed off customers. I do hope that Apple eventually revives the Newton, as even now, six (or so) years later, the interface concepts developed for the Newton are still far beyond anything that Palm, Microsoft, or anyone else have come up with.

But let's face it, Apple's true core competency is innovation, not execution in the marketplace. Apple will survive on 1-5% marketshare indefinitely, but they won't break out of that box without changing fundamentally the way they do business. I could see Apple *maybe* getting up to 10-20% if they would just recognize that there are still places in the enterprise where they can make money, but I doubt they will go significantly higher than they are right now without spending a lot more on QA and customer service, and a lot less on R&D. Of course, then it wouldn't be the same Apple, would it?

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12/09, 02:33pm | report spam | close Reply |
If you ask me.....

One of the main problems with apple is their reliability, don't read that wrong though. Thier great reliability has bitten them in the a**... but this is my experience:

Almost every public school I went to used apple computers, from early elementary school I remember using old black and green screen apples to high school were we had iMacs. The problem here is, the schools don't have the money to update anything. Therefor even newer ibooks that schools use, are running OS9- with the minimal amount of ram, and are completely bogged down with spyware for the schools to watch the students, a ton of programs to try to teach the students, plus all the other things on the computers to fill up the computer to the point where it has nearly 0 HD space available... So its good for the school, because they can use imacs that came out in 1998 and they still WORK good, but when it comes down to the students using the machines, they learn to HATE macs. The thing these kids don't understand is that the macs are great products, the newer ones running OS10. I still hate OS9, and if you would have asked me 3yrs ago about a mac, I hated them. Why? because all I had used were ones at school, which were outdated, slow, and crashed constantly. That and OS9 was a pain to just sit down and use, especially the way the school had them set up (applications you had to search for on the HD....). Please don't argue as these are 'user impressions' from almost every student I talked to in school. Sit me down on OS9 now and I can do anything with it and its a good OS, but 10 is so much more advanced and easier to use.

The problem arises in this day and age where the kids know more about computers than the parents, and the kids choose what type of machine they want and tell the computers what machines are good, even if they have no clue what they are talking about. I'm making this too long... but last week I was talking to a friend of mine, and his nephew walked up. I was telling my friend about how great macs are, which he is a reasonable man and said he had never used one so had no opinion on them. His nephew, probably about 11yrs old, started talking about how much he HATED macs, and would never use one. Why? because the ones at his school suck (in 11yr old terms). He said its a pain in the a** for him even to get on the internet (keep in mind most schools don't allow downloads, even of new drivers and such, so I'm sure it is a pain, and they all use IE 5 in os9..). Had the kid even seen OS10 or played with it? of course not....

So for all the comparisons of how apple makes a better product but has only a 3% market share... and I'm not getting into the porche vs taurus dispute (I hate ford and porche.... I'd take my WRX over any car... only because every ford and porche I've driven feel like s*** compared to my daily driving of my WRX..) Anyway, with the stupidity of the nation, of course its easy for a good product to h

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12/09, 02:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: The real reason

That post ("The real reason" 133500)is as fine a post as I have seen on this or any other board. Sensible, factual, organized. A+. It suggests (more accurately and eloquently) the point I have attempted to make, namely: Apple's role and position in the market are intentional.

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12/09, 02:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
previous post continued -

...you cannot have the products and vision that Apple has had, and have such a small marketshare without intending to play a certain role... and/or without making serious business mistakes.

All my knowledge of Steve Jobs is third-hand or worse, so I don't know how well the quote from the article fits him:

"Like a lot of CEOs, Jobs seems to think it is more important not to admit he was wrong than to correct a mistake."

However, I do know many CEO's and other human beings who fit the quote.

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12/09, 03:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
Palm vs. Newton

Palms were crude, cheap and small. Newtons were elegant, expensive, and bulky. It came down to price and size versus usability.

A Newton in a Palm form factor would have *killed* Palm dead, even today. I still get asked questions, and admiring looks about my Newton 130 today when I pull it out; switching between that and the Palm M500 I've recently picked up is difficult, mostly because the Palm OS is still a crude imitation of the Newton.

Why, for example do you have to burrow into a todo item simply to remove it from the list? (and get bugged by an additional notification as to whether I want to delete it on the archived version too...)

WHy can't I just get something like the checklist stationery on the Newt? Look I got this item, scribble it off.

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12/09, 05:06pm | report spam | close Reply |
Unfortunate, but wise

As others have said, the PDA space just is NOT a friendly place to be doing business now--it's been a long time since I've heard anything positive financially out of a PDA company. Apple (Jobs, really) probably should've just let the spin-off Newton division do their thing for a while longer, but the decision to kill it is looking a lot less like a mistake now than it did at the time. (Besides, for all we know Apple had other reasons based on internal data that the public never knew about.)

As for tablets, it really is amusing. They've found a happy niche market in stockrooms and a few places like that, but when was the last time you saw someone sitting in an airport or taking notes in a class on a tablet PC? Hm? Where are these massive sales that Apple's so lax in not pursuing?

Apple's obviously got absolutely everything necessary for a tablet PC running OSX--they've got the handwriting recognition (inkwell), they've got a highly grapichal OS, and they design everything so it can be done with a ONE BUTTON MOUSE. Yes, folks, that one button mouse interface everyone hates makes OSX PERFECT for a tablet OS, since you only need one kind of tap to do everything.

All the parts are there, so when will an Apple tablet happen? When there's a market for it! If and when tablet PCs ever actually start selling, Apple's ready to go there. Why waste time and money before the public cares, though?

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12/09, 07:48pm | report spam | close Reply |
The only difference...

... between a PowerBook and a Tablet PC would be including a stylus & touch-screen with with every shipped machine. If Apple wanted to get into the Tablet PC business, they could do it in a heartbeat - but there really is no market, not right now, and until that Killer App comes along, probably not ever.

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12/09, 07:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
$$$

Apple will never be popular as long as:

1. there is a need for P.O.S (point of sales, that is) systems doing one thing and one thing only.

2. people continue to buy computers without even test driving it.

3. people consider the "mother window" which plaster the monitor and blocks everything in sight (including the desktop) a way to hide the "clutter" rather than reducing usability and visibility.

4. people are blind-sided by the colorful and silly icons and not see the lack of display quality (not the same as resolution) offered by WindowsXP.

5. hurd mentality/insecurity (look to the left and look to the right. if everyone is using brand x**, then x** must be the best).

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12/10, 10:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
test

test

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12/10, 11:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
I just bought a pda....

I once thought that for my business,( real estate) that a 12 inch I-book would be practical, but to be honest, it is just to big to work with when you are as mobile as I am.

I bought a Pocket PC, (toshiba) and although I don't create any content on it, I can carry an amazing amount of info on it when I use I-Sync to get scheduling, contacts etc from the I-book.
And Acrobat works great.

It doesnt do everything, but it does exactly what I need it to do in the situation. A laptop is just too frustrating to use in a car, or a restaurant, or while showing a home.

Having said that, it wouldn't be nearly as functional without the I-book to create the info that goes to the PocketPC.

By the way, it is easier to get info to it by using I-Sync from the Mac side of the computer than it is to get info to it using Virtual PC on the same I-book. I-Sync just works better!

My real frustration over this is that Apple could do a PDA so much better. I think that Steve Jobs just has a bad attitude toward business people. WE WANT TO USE HIS STUFF, HE JUST DOESN'T SEEM TO CARE ABOUT US!

Kudo's to the I-Pod for what it does. But that is entertainment.
It is very hard to see those resources going into a product that is so often used by slack-jawed vacant eyed louts whose entire life is consumed by their compulsive need to be entertained every waking moment. (to the degree that I have seen one so "entertained" that he walked head-on into a concrete post at the mall.) He is more valuable to society than me, who produces a needed service? I doubt it.

End of rant.

However, I just believe there is actually a market for millions of hand held Mac computers in whatever form they take.

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TechNewsWorld: Apple gave up PDA market

updated 07:10 am EST, Tue December 9, 2003

Apple gave up PDA market

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