I Still Love the Idea of a Computer in my Pocket

 


I've been a big (huge!) fan of smartphones ever since the days their dinosaur ancestors roamed the earth. Dinosaurs like the one pictured above - the Dell Axim X51V, which I think was the second generation of that device I owned. Back in a time that feels like a hundred years ago (and probably is in "tech years") I used to be fascinated with the idea of having a computer in my pocket.  And Pocket PCs like the X51V were my favorite type of gadget for a number of years.

I used them for taking notes at work in an office or at client sites, when studying for a technical certification exam, to keep up with RSS feeds for my favorite websites, for securely storing passwords, and more.

Axim devices, and similar ones running some form of Windows Mobile or Palm OS were the forerunners of smartphones. When the iPhone came along, that was pretty much the end for that class of device. I'm not mourning them at all - smartphones right from the start were far more versatile, powerful, and useful devices. And now they're Moore's Law plus dog years plus hundreds of millions of apps ahead of those Pocket PC dinosaurs. 

It may not be too long at all before smartphones are way outgunned by embedded technology and/or some version of smart glasses or even nanobot versions of Elon Musk taking over all the systems. For now, I'm still just as happy with the idea reality of a computer in my pocket.  

How about you all? You ready to ditch your phone for the next wave of smarter devices?


 

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