Extreme PDA Mods…not quite extreme enough
November 11th, 2006 | by dnw |
This extremely modded cradle for a Dell PDA grabbed my attention the other day.
The thing that appealled to me was the compactness of the device given all the connections it had. Why is this important? Well, being able to have a device that can be
ubiquitous with its connections is useful as you can use it for many things without the expense or clumsiness of multiple devices. It’s almost that ‘patch-panel’ idea where customisation to fit the purpose and abilities can be quickly performed.
One thing it didn’t do, is something which I’d been thinking about since having a loan of the Tablet PC’s I reviewed here and here. Whilst using those I found that reaching the whole screen area was problematic, yet I really like the intuitivenes of tapping and dragging. I came to the conclusion that a small section of the screen being set aside as a ‘touch-pad’ area would be useful. Now, this also could be applied to a PDA device, where a PDA could run ‘touch-pad’ type software (possibly even same code as the Tablet) and you connect the PDA to any computer to give you a touch-pad input device.
I know companies like Wacom already make touch input devices but they tend have a capacitive and not resistive interface, which is not always conducive to people who need to use different input methods - like myself, who uses a mouthstick - and to whom a resistive type interface is preferable.
In addition, having a touch-pad device that is software based means it could be largely hardware independent and could be used on a myriad of devices. The user choosing the device that best suits their situation, not being forced by design or the hardware to conform to it - or worse, being locked out of using it all together because their abilities and/or needs don’t fit the hardware design.
The device’s built-in connectivity such as wireless, bluetooth or IR could be used for the link to the computer being controlled - even devices like touch screen phones could be used.
Well, I strayed a long way from the subject that spurred this post, but it needed to be said. Separation of function from form and allowing the form to be chosen by the end user seems to just make sense to me. What I outline is just one example of it.
