A mobile device challenge

My P800 is a powerful PDA/connected device. I can hit Google and get an answer to most questions in a minute or two. Possibly longer, if there's no signal, or if the Web is hard to navigate.

Compare this to a simple, cheap, paper diary. In the back is a high-res London tube map. In the front are conversion tables, lists of phone numbers for airlines and other travel operators. There are miniature road atlases and city plans for major destinations, dates of religious festivals, country codes for the whole world, lists of currencies for every country.

The diary, by virtue of its place by your side, is an ideal repository for information of all kinds. This prompts two thoughts: why don't moleskines, which have a similar aim, also have this useful set of information, and why don't PDAs? Looking things up on Google is just too slow, untrustworthy, or unreliable (e.g. US gallons and British gallons).

I think a trivia/map/conversion/etc. collection, similar to an application I had on my now-departed Psion, would be an ideal target for a mobile device. Even better if it's easy to update*.

Any takers?

* I'm thinking sync, or updates like an anti-virus program. Consider the iPod's notes — you could make this as a hyperlinked collection of useful facts; a kind of static, mass-market Wiki…

Posted at 2004-09-26 10:36:37 by Richard • Link to A mobile device ch…
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