- Interviewer:
- Most people associate you with books and
articles about the Macintosh. What inspired you to write a book about
the PalmPilot?
- Pogue:
- Ironically, it hit me at the Macworld Expo last
August. As I watched, two guys opened their PalmPilots and started
talking to each other with incredible excitement. I opened mine and went
over to see what they were talking about. They were showing each other
the latest shareware they had downloaded and installed. The hilarious
thing is that within five minutes, there were six people all standing in
a cluster, showing each other their PalmPilots and comparing notes.
I thought myself, "Where have I seen this scene before?" And then I remembered -- it was 14 years ago at my college computer store when the first Mac came out. Not since then had I seen people get so excited over technology. And I realized that this was a major wave I wanted to be surfing.
- Interviewer:
- But certainly there are plenty of other
PalmPilot books.
- Pogue:
- Well, there weren't any at the time. And even
today, although two other PalmPilot books have been published, over half
of each book is just shareware listings. People seem to think that the
PalmPilot is so simple, there's nothing more to it than what's in the
user manual. They're way off on that.
- Interviewer:
- What do you mean?
- Pogue:
- Well, I'm continually amazed at how few of the
PalmPilot's extended capabilities are even mentioned in the PalmPilot
manual or the PalmPilot advertising. The PalmPilot, for example, turns
out to be very good Web surfer -- who knew? Ordinarily, you'd rule out
this tiny handheld as a Web browser on the basis of its black and white
screen alone. But what 3Com doesn't tell you is that it isn't a black
and white screen! The PalmPilot actually has a gray scale screen -- it's
just that the operating system doesn't take advantage of it. But some of
the Web browsers and graphics programs do, and it's breathtaking.
- Interviewer:
- In Tim O'Reilly's article about his
love affair with the
PalmPilot, he wrote about some really interesting ways people use
their machines, like fishermen storing tide tables, baseball fans
storing the schedules for their favorite teams, and travelers storing
subway maps. What are some other uses of the PalmPilot that have
surprised you?
- Pogue:
- Well, I've become hooked on using it as a
teleprompter for speeches. Don't laugh! The Palm III's new font is
1/2-inch tall lettering, which is easy enough to see from your podium.
You control the speed of the auto-scrolling with the four plastic buttons
at the bottom of the PalmPilot -- Stop, Start, Faster, and Slower -- it's
ideal for giving speeches, giving presentations, and so on. (The
shareware you need for that is AportisDoc or TealDoc.)
And some of the best stuff is yet to come. The Palm III has built-in MIDI-file support, for example, so as soon as some programmer writes the software to access it, the Pilot will be a great little single-melody Walkman. And the Palm III's infrared transceiver is actually IrDA standard, which means you'll be able to use the PalmPilot to beam data to HP printers, Macintosh PowerBooks, and other infrared-equipped computers.
- Interviewer:
- What are some of your own favorite uses of
the PalmPilot?
- Pogue:
- Writing books about it.
No, seriously: my main use for the PalmPilot is what everyone uses it for: hauling my life's data around when I'm on the road. When I go into NYC for a day to take care of clients, or off to a trade show or book tour, the PalmPilot always keeps me on track for the next meeting. A few times I've used it to check things on the Web when I didn't feel like booting up the laptop.
- Interviewer:
- What about these new Windows CE devices?
- Pogue:
- Complicated, slow, and unbelievably greedy with
batteries. PalmPilot fans change their batteries maybe once every
couple of months. With Windows CE devices, you measure battery life in
hours.
I'm sure the Windows CE things will find their market -- Microsoft won't give up until they do. I mean, I guess it's useful to be able to read your actual Word and Excel documents while you're on the train, which you can't do on a PalmPilot without conversion.
But the beauty of the PalmPilot platform is the open architecture. By being so open with the programming scheme, 3Com has inspired literally thousands of programmers to write amazing stuff for this little palmtop -- an incredible variety of programs, most of them tiny and most of them free, for every conceivable use. You can use your PalmPilot as a TV remote control, a pager (you can even get a little gadget that makes it vibrate when the page comes in), as a wireless modem, even as a mouse for Windows! Whatever it is you do -- medicine, music, computers, law, just reading on the plane -- there's PalmPilot software that can accommodate you. That's certainly not the case with Windows CE software, which is bigger, slower, more expensive, and harder to write.
- Interviewer:
- So a new hacker culture has been spawned?
- Pogue:
- For sure. The PalmPilot community is unbelievable.
HUNDREDS of Web sites. User groups. Programmers coming out of the
woodwork. A good chunk of them, by the way, adore the PalmPilot so much
simply because it's NOT from Microsoft!
- Interviewer:
- This was your first book with O'Reilly.
- Pogue:
- Right. And I have to say -- and the fact that this
is an interview on their own Web site has nothing to do with it -- that
it was an incredible experience. O'Reilly is best known for its very
technical books. (In a way,
PalmPilot: The Ultimate
Guide is one of their most consumer-oriented projects yet.) But at
every step, the company's technology background made the book project
easier. For example, on Day One, they give you a Microsoft Word template
filled with these gorgeous, predefined styles, all ready to use. When
their artist prepares a table or graphic, he posts it on a private Web
page so you can have a look and provide feedback -- within five minutes.
None of this Fed-EXing things back and forth.
In fact, when it comes time to look over the finished pages, they don't waste time, money, and rain forest pulp by sending me some huge stack of printed-out galleys. Instead, they create Acrobat PDF files and, again, post them on their private Web site. The turnaround is instantaneous, and I get to see exactly what the book is looking like -- while there's still time to make corrections.
- Interviewer:
- So what about this new Macintosh handheld
Apple is supposed to be preparing for 1999? Will you still be a
PalmPilot cheerleader?
- Pogue:
- If that gadget exists, I'll have to wait until I
try it.
But as far as I'm concerned, the PalmPilot is already a Macintosh handheld. In so many ways, it's the descendant of the Macintosh and of the Newton. The menus, the dialog boxes, even the placement of the buttons are all clearly modeled on the Mac. 3Com even told me that when they were designing the PalmPilot's built-in software, their model was Claris Organizer for the Macintosh. (Which is highly ironic, since 3Com just bought Claris Organizer to use as the new Macintosh front-end software for the PalmPilot!) Many of the original Newton designers have all gone over to Palm, too. The PalmPilot couldn't be more Mac-like if it had in Apple logo on it in.
PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide covers a lot of things no other PalmPilot book does -- for example, the Palm III, IntelliSync, music software, and so on. But I was especially excited to be able to be the first to write about the new Macintosh HotSync conduit -- a freely distributed software connector between the Macintosh and the PalmPilot. Software programmers can use it to hook up their PalmPilot programs with the Mac. After two years of being a second-class citizen, the Macintosh is finally going to become the premier PalmPilot platform in a number ways. It's nice to see my two technological loves coming together that way.
- Interviewer:
- Looking into your crystal ball, what do
PalmPilot users have to look forward to over the next year?
- Pogue:
- I'm firmly of the belief that in technology,
Nobody Knows Anything. Trying to predict the future is an exercise in
purest futility, as the guy who sold DOS to Bill Gates in 1981 for
$10,000 can tell you.
But Palm Computing has expressed an intent to keep it simple, keep it cheap, keep it focused -- and make it smaller. PalmPilot wristwatches and panels built into your car dashboard or briefcase lid aren't out of the question.
Voice recognition is a big Holy Grail, too, although I'm guessing that's still years off.
I don't mind. I'm pumped enough about the PalmPilot I've got today.
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