Just a Thought - Apple's Seed

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Maybe there should be a Palm death knell. If there was one I'd likely be a high contributor, but I wouldn't like it very much.

You see, I really like Palm and the devices they produce; well, some of them anyway. I also believe that the traditional PDA is passed its prime. I'm not the only one, it seems; there have been a few articles that point to a serious decline in PDA sales, and Palm has been going through internal gyrations of its own in an attempt to keep itself from becoming a chapter in computing history.

All is not lost on the PDA front, however: I recently took a look at Palm's new Life Drive and I thought it was the right direction for Palm. In fact, I thought the LifeDrive was the right direction for all PDAs; it had a lot of function, extremely handy, and was almost the idea laptop surrogate. I say almost because it lacked 3 rather significant features that would have made it THE laptop alternative; horsepower, a keyboard, and lower price.

Perhaps I was asking too much of Palm because such a device my not be possible with the current prices of components. Still, if they added just one of those three features and kept the other two as they are, Palm could sell a zillion LifeDrives.

The Treo 650 is another device the Palm does well; it's small, easy to use, and priced juuust about where it should be to attract buyers who don't mind parting with a little extra pocket jingle. As I understand it, Palm can't make them fast enough.

It seems that if Palm concentrated on improving the LifeDrive and the Treo 650, and, perhaps, added a few models to each lineup, then it may succeed in redefining the Personal Data Assistant, and itself.

So, it puzzles me to no end why Palm would trade its wonderfully simplistic Palm OS and take on that PocketPC stuff from Microsoft on some of its Treo 650 phones.

I've read some of the analysts' opinions; some say that offering PocketPC on Palm devices is a good move, while others believe it points up the hidden problems with the Palm platform. 

I'm not sure I believe much of what they say, but PocketPC on a Palm device seems wrong to me somehow.

You know when you are eating something in an unfamiliar restaurant, and what you're eating looks appetizing, and it may even taste great, but there's something about it that just doesn't set right with you? Sure enough, 3 hours later you're in the john nearly doubled over in pain and trying to decide which end to point at the commode.

That's how this whole PocketPC on Palm thing strikes me. But hey, I've been wrong before; maybe Big Redmond is Palm's savior. Or not.

Be that as it may, it occurs to me, and I would assume that it has occurred to some of you, that now might be an ideal time for Apple to get back into the personal data device business.

Do I mean that Apple should make a new and improved Newton?

Well....maybe.

As the Newton seemed like a Palm Pilot on all sorts of steroids, so too would the device I envision Apple making compare to the LifeDrive.

Since this would be a new device from which many new ideas may grow, I thought that the name of this new device might be simply 'iPod Seed'. (Steve, feel free to use it if the feeling moves ya.)

Well, OK, iPod Seed is a little hokey, but stay with me for a bit.

As I said, Apple's iPod Seed would be about as similar to Palm's LifeDrive as the Newton was to the Pilot. iPod Seed would be a brick compared to the lithe little iPod nanos, but form will follow function, and I'm talking loads of functions:

• 20GB or more hard drive 
• Wireless everything (WiFi, Bluetooth, IR, and whatever else you can throw in)
• SD card and/or Compact Flash slots
• Multimedia slot(s) for connecting to cameras, TVs, computers, audio systems, and projectors
• 4" diagonal (or more) 16:9 format LCD or OLED touch screen
• USB 2.0 AND FireWire 800 (OK, I'll give up the FW800, but grudgingly)
• A really good processor (like Intel's XScale or AMD's Au1100)
• A good amount of FLASH RAM (at least 256MB because that is where you'll actually work from, and everything gets moved to and from the hard drive in the background to save speed.)
• An iPod dock port to allow seamless connectivity to the hundreds of iPod accessories  
• and a built-in, but hide-able keyboard (I'd settle for a separate Bluetooth keyboard but the interaction would have to be seamless)

And I'm talking loads of function:

• Surf the Web anywhere. WiFi for direct connections, Bluetooth for indirect connectivity thru Bluetooth enabled cellphones.
• Actually work on documents.
• Download photos and movies from digital cameras and media, thus freeing up the media for more pictures.
• Be iTunes compatible
• Carry 1000+ songs
• Carry 1000+ photos 
• Carry movies
• Have typical PDA functions 
• Games (oh yeah!)
• Nnd stuff I can't even begin to imagine

Basically, The Seed would the hub of the mobile lifestyle: Phones, the Web, cameras, other devices and services would all be able to connect to it while you are away from you main computer. In the home, the Seed could be used as a wireless remote terminal, allowing you access to your main Mac without having to sit in front of it.

I hold no illusions that Apple is even remotely considering such a device, but man, if they did, it could become as popular as regular iPods are today or as popular as the new video iPods will be in a few weeks. With Palm going through trials and other PDA type devices feeling the encroachment of do-it-all cell phones on their turf, building a Seed might not seem like a sound business decision, but savvy marketing and a good price point could be all it takes for the iPod Seed to take root and grow.

(See? The name works after all.)