Rumors of the Pocket PC's Death Are Premature

[Editor's note: The author uses the term "smartphone" to refer to a handheld device that includes both phone and PDA capabilities. In that sense, both Pocket PC Phone Edition devices and Windows Mobile Smartphones are examples of generic "smartphones."]

Some say that the Pocket PC is dead. Sales of traditional PDAs are tanking, the market is shrinking, and smartphones are the wave of the future.

If you follow the news of the mobile computing world at all, you've heard this prediction before. Trumpeting the approaching world domination of all things smartphone has been a popular pastime for pundits, professional and amateur alike. If I had to put a date on it, I would place it towards the end of 2003, when the Treo 600 made its debut, accompanied by a massive PR campaign by then-merging manufacturers Handspring and Palm. Ever since that time, it's been almost impossible to go long without hearing someone saying that Pocket PCs are dead, smartphones are the future, and that soon we'll all be picking at tiny keyboards, or inputting text via a numeric keypad in between doses of arthritis medication and finger de-gnarling appointments.

There's no question that the number of connected devices is on the rise. As mobile computing matures, connectivity is becoming more and more important. But what I'd like to know is where this idea that smartphones are the be-all and end-all of technology originated. I disagree.

Smartphones aren't automatically better

Let's start with the basics. There are some great smartphones on the market. There are also some real turkeys. That's the nature of the market. In a healthy market, the great—or at least acceptable—devices outnumber the turkeys. This is not the case in the smartphone market. Vast numbers of converged devices have ended up top-heavy, woefully deficient in phone functionality, or computing versatility, or both. Legions more have died on the vine, either because no carriers wanted them, or because the manufacturer couldn't create the perfect balance between phone and computing functionality.

One of the very few success stories coming out of the smartphone market is the Treo. While by and large, early Treo versions gobbled with the worst of them, Handspring struck pure gold with the design of the Treo 600. Handspring's acquirer, Palm, then jumped on board with the Treo 650 and 700w.The Treo line has become the de facto standard for smartphones—a device capable of being both a phone and a computer without fatally compromising either. Take note of that balancing act, though—the Treo has never been touted as the best of both worlds, but as a device capable of handling both tasks reasonably well, something that the pretenders can't do.

Sooner or later, however, the marketplace will begin to winnow out the turkeys, the market will get a handle on the technology, and manufacturers will create cutting-edge, dependable smartphones, right? Well, yes and no.

The realities of design and distribution impose inherent limitations on smartphones. Creating a combined phone and handheld computer means that you have to make sacrifices that you don't have to make when designing a traditional handheld.

Smartphones come to market slower

One of the main challenges: distribution. While FCC approval is necessary for any radio-emitting device to be sold in the United States, testing and inspection is considerably more rigorous for mobile phones. This adds delay to the development of a smartphone, and in the computing industry, delay means that something newer just blew past you on the autobahn. Another challenge: wireless carriers. They too insist on testing and extensive input on new devices, including customizing them for their services. From drawing board to carrier launch, it can take a smartphone anywhere from 12 to 18 months to materialize. And when it does, it's still the same hardware, now 18 months older, going up against non-phone devices that are only a few months old.