Apple was first to market the personal digital assistant, the Newton in 1993, and was somewhat ahead of its time. After Palm shipped one at the right size and price, the market for handheld general-purpose computers has done fairly well. And other devices, particularly phones, have become general-purpose computers. These general-purpose computers are often sold as special-purpose devices, but since they are general-purpose, their uses are limited only by the imagination.
Take the iPod for example. It’s a music player, right? But soon after its release, users were running Linux on it. And in the iPod’s second iteration, users could sync contact and calendar data with the device. It’s still a music player, but it has a great deal of the functionality of the typical personal digital assistant.
IDC reports that handheld sales are slipping, with only 2.1 million units shipped. Meanwhile, Apple shipped 2,016,000 iPods in the third quarter.
What’s the difference? The one is sold as a small computer; the other, to play my tunes.