Re: Universal Handheld Bus?

["Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>    I look at all the handheld clutter. But at the same time I can't
> see one size fitting all. Some folks have big hands, others small
> one. Some want keyboards, others stylus, others voice recognition.
> What we need is a universal handheld bus. The outside that keeps all
> the gadgets together can vary, the inside stuff, PDA, cellular,
> remote, calculator, mp3, radio, camera, can all fit the user's
> needs. But ther's no way one manufacturer can combine everything the
> way one person wants them. C'mon someone's got to have designed
> something like this by now? no? I know, we have a hard enough time
> getting power adaptors that match. That's the "Japanese way of doing
> business" we adopted in the mid80s when we abandoned the old USA
> backwards compatible requirements.

Look at the realities of a handheld device.  There's a HUGE number of
compromises that have to be made in order to get it working AT ALL.  Price,
power, durability, heat, etc.  Couple that with the simple fact that
underlying standards basically didn't exist.

Fast-forward to now and we see things like a Blackberry having only ONE
connector, mini USB, for both sync and power.  A number of other devices
also do this.  Tie that in with the host PC providing enough wattage and it
really helps most users.  That's a pretty good sign of progress.  Now, this
doesn't work for everyone, especially if you want something a desk cradle,
but it would appear most users don't.

It's not perfect but it's getting a lot "less worse" than a decade ago.

-Bill Kearney