iPhone 4S, Surface Tablet, PalmPilot: 10 Mobile Gadgets We Love
With Valentine's Day coming up, we're waxing nostalgic about some of our most-loved mobile devices, from the PalmPilot to the iPhone4S.
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In honor of Valentine's Day later this month, InformationWeek is highlighting the gadgets we love. From the silly to the serious, we just adore technology, and we know you do as well. Over the course of the next week, we'll be taking a look at some of our favorite tech toys of all time. Today, we're paying homage to our favorite mobile devices.
The mobile device seems like a pretty short-lived category, but when you think about it, we've been doing our best to miniaturize and mobilize technology for decades. Our smartphones are now significantly more powerful than the computers that landed on the moon (talk about mobile technology). The iPhone is less than eight years old, but remember when you couldn't live without a PDA? They've been around since 1984. Think about that for a second. The first PDA came out the same year Apple released the Macintosh and this awesome commercial.
Anyone else find it a little eerie that the devices released Apple (and others) since then actually do make our world a little more like George Orwell's 1984, with cameras everywhere? These items even make it easier for the government to track us wherever we go.
OK, taking off our tinfoil hat, we've known since the first cave painting that we needed a mobile device. Those paintings recorded the memory of nomadic hunters and gatherers. The scenes painted on the walls told of the success of the hunt for sake of the painters -- should they ever return -- and for others who may have found the cave. The only problem was you couldn't fold up the cave wall like a map. So stories had to be shared around the camp fire. Since then, we've been on a quest to find ways to store our most important information in more efficient and more mobile means.
[Office for Android, Outlook upgrade, and more in Microsoft news.]
Of course, we could just fill a whole gallery of mobile devices with various versions of the iPhone, the iPad, and the Galaxy. That would be dull. So, the rules are that only one version of any mobile device gets into our top 10 here. And, even though it is obvious that the iPhone 6 is more powerful than earlier versions, if a device has multiple versions, we're going to pick the one that we enjoyed most during its run. Otherwise, if it stores information and you can pick it up and move it, it is fair game. Chances are, you've owned a bunch of these in your lifetime.
Click through InformationWeek's list of favorities, which runs from newest to oldest. See which of your favorites we nailed. Then hit us up in the comments section below and tell us about all the ones we missed.
Call me a Windows fan boy. Call me crazy for loving Windows 8. But the surface is the tablet I've waited for -- one that lets me do enterprise-level work. I still think (and I'm not the only one) that the tablet is becoming an obsolete thing very quickly. Squeezed from the left by phones that are getting bigger and more powerful, and from the right by lighter and more powerful laptops, tablets like the iPad make no sense anymore. But there's a strong case for the Surface, which connects better in an enterprise setting that is often full of Windows apps.
This is my personal phone (until my contract allows me to upgrade later this year), so I'll admit to a little bias here. But I picked it for its enormous battery life and clean design. I love it because it says "Life is Good" every time someone follows me on Twitter. Yes, that's silly. Yes, I could get other phones to do that. This one did it for me from the beginning. You can make me happier by following me on Twitter @GeekendDave, so that it keeps saying "Life is Good" to me.
I could have easily picked the iPad. And in many ways the Kindle Fire is a limited device (especially the original, the one I chose). It's designed mostly for forcing people to give their entire paychecks to Amazon every month. But there's something downright cheery about this tablet. From personal experience, I can say it is amazingly robust. I gave it to my then-six-year-old daugher, who is now closing in on nine, and the thing looks and behaves exactly as it did the day I bought it. That's more than I can say for her clothes, toys, shoes, or books. It is way too thick by current tablet standards, but that somehow adds to the appeal of what I always think of as a glorified e-reader with Internet. It isn't the best tablet ever made. But it is one of the most lovable and loved around.
In my mind, this is the classic iPhone. It is the first with the retina display. The front-facing camera is the kind of minor addition that tends to make Apple fans weep with joy. The gyroscope and accelerometer boosted mobile gaming. The most entertaining way I've ever seen iPhones used was when the gyroscope was first introduced, and people were saying you could use them to read greens on golf courses. I can't tell you how many times I saw these things laid out on grass. It's true, if you had the patience to lie these smartphones down every six inches or so for your whole putt, they could do read the green. Personally, I'd rather use my iPhone for Facetime.
The PDA heyday lasted maybe a decade or so, at most. During much of that time, PalmPilot was like Kleenex. For the brief period people used the term PDA, they were far more likely to say PalmPilot, even when referring to a product that was not made by Palm. Other models were better or more functional. But the Pilot was the genre-maker. Also, I have to give a shoutout to the Palm Treo, the first smartphone I ever owned. It was not a good phone, but you never forget your first.
(Image Source: Museo8bits via Wikimedia Commons)
It's certainly mobile. And it's certainly a device. Yet, the Game Boy has no connectivity and nothing we think of in terms of storage. Unlike the others on the list, the Game Boy isn't something which is used to store and transmit info. Still, the Game Boy was a major step forward in handheld devices. The multi-billion mobile gaming economy started right here. No Game Boy, no Fruit Ninja.
Mobile storage and playback. Ability to "write" your own mix-tapes onto it. Sounds like a mobile device to me. Plus, the Sony Walkman was so cool in the 1980s. And without it, there'd be no iPod. The Walkman is, by far, my favorite mobile device on the list because it is the only 20th Century mobile device I owned on which I can still play back the stuff I stored on it. Try doing that with anything on your PalmPilot.
Books are the original mobile device. Stone tablets were too heavy. Clay broke. And loose paper just blows away. The book is a convenient data carrying case with very flexible playback. You can go forward or back very easily, bookmark favorite sections, and even edit as you go. Unfortunately, search capabilities are a bit slow and these mobile devices can be heavy. When it comes to longevity, though, books rival any magnetic media. Plus, we've got so many I couldn't pick a favorite one.
Of course, we had some honorable mentions, such as the iPad, the Samsung Galaxy, and even Google Glass. I'm guessing Microsoft HoloLens will be on a list of our favorites, eventually. What's your favorite mobile gadget? Are there any that shouldn't be on this list? Any we missed? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
There will probably be some debate over whether the laptop is a mobile device. But in my mind there is no question. I've used one on the beach, on a plane, on a subway. The ThinkPad specifically was the only laptop for quite some time that was approved for use on the International Space Station. Now, that's mobile. There were other, earlier laptops, and there were more beautiful laptops. There were certainly lighter ones. But the Thinkpad, at least until Lenovo bought it, was a rugged, reliable piece of machinery. And nearly every word I've typed as a professional has been on a ThinkPad of one version or another. The ThinkPad is the old gray mare and she ain't what she used to be.
There will probably be some debate over whether the laptop is a mobile device. But in my mind there is no question. I've used one on the beach, on a plane, on a subway. The ThinkPad specifically was the only laptop for quite some time that was approved for use on the International Space Station. Now, that's mobile. There were other, earlier laptops, and there were more beautiful laptops. There were certainly lighter ones. But the Thinkpad, at least until Lenovo bought it, was a rugged, reliable piece of machinery. And nearly every word I've typed as a professional has been on a ThinkPad of one version or another. The ThinkPad is the old gray mare and she ain't what she used to be.
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