A time to transition

In the late 1990's I got onto the Palm bandwagon which was disrupting the personal digital assistant ecosystem with a radical new device, the Pilot, and the PalmOS. I ordered mine from Amazon and had it delivered through Posta (this giant is currently sedated) from the USA to me here in Nairobi Kenya (e-commerce was already rife).

It was a time of revolution, the device was compact and feature rich, it was what we were all waiting for, digital organisation.  This was a time of radical productivity improvements through the application of technology,

The device had a monochrome touch screen (this was 1997), used a stylus (note was standard) which you used to write on the screen using a shorthand language called Graffiti  instead of typing on the onscreen keyboard.

With this easy way to input text the Palm Pilot became the darling of those in the medical fraternity, with the stylus this meant that doctors could take notes without having to remove their gloves.

If you needed to do even more typing there was the external full size folding keyboard which when folded was the size of your power bank today, the battery was awesome so you did not have to carry a 3rd device.

When unfolded you had a full size QWERTY keyboard.  The combination of the Palm Pilot and the keyboard meant you had a complete replacement for your desktop. No need to thumb type.

Then there was the cradle that allowed for charging and also synchronising to your desktop, a seamless process right out of the box no need to download apps to your device which use up expensive mobile data.

Then came the pre-GSM cellular aka mobile phones of which I got my first one in 1998 , I had to carry two devices like most of you do today, my mobile phone (Motorola 7200) and my Palm Pilot PDA. 

With the limited contact storage available on the Motorola mobile it was either I carry a little blackbook with numbers or tag along my PDA, being a techie the decision was a no brainer.

After this was the GSM network and the arrival of old faithful Safaricom, we migrated from the Etac system to GSM and this required switching devices, I picked the Nokia 7110 Slide, a brilliant phone but I still had to carry multiple devices to remain at the same level of productivity.

During this time things were moving very fast in the technology space with email becoming pervasive.  Fortunately Palm, in all its changing ownership, was working hard to remain relevant and that they achieved with the launch of the Palm Treo which was a combination of the Palm Pilot and the Handspring Mobile Phone, it was time for me to return home.

I dumped the Nokia like the proverbial hot potato and took back to the Palm platform like a flying fish back in water.  Bought the Palm Treo 180 off ebay, it had a monochrome screen that was smaller than the one on my Palm Pilot but the sacrifice was worth the eye strain as now I could go back to carrying a single device. 

Technology was not waiting and a few months later I moved on to the Treo 180s with a colour screen and Internet access, 21st Century here I was.

When the next generation was released I was right there on the front row with the rest of the cult members.  The Palm Treo 650 & 680 were already fighting what was a loosing battle, the war had already been lost and with it the drop in global productivity begun as hardware and software where ripped violently apart.

Palm also played a major role in the demise of high productivity by killing the Graffiti functionality, that some of us had become experts at using, forcing us to revert to typing.

It is my strong believe that Palm's death knell was when they partnered with Microsoft to produce a Windows Mobile device, such moves had not augured well for others.

I kept loyal to the brand right to the bitter end, even picking up the Palm Pre just when the company was bought off yet again, this time by HP who like all the others could not stomach the innovation of the product and proceeded to kill it and license off the ground breaking WebOS operating system to a TV manufacturer. At least it lives on in a new body but continues to provide seamless use on smart TV sets.

My last Palm device was the Palm Pre Plus with the Android ass kicking WebOS but it was too little too late, productivity was no longer at the forefront any more it was all about revolution with the Linux movement taking hold.

In addition Android has taken hold of the industry and its mother company made sure the competition was dead, first I lost some of my MS Exchange clients to Google Google stole my client later they stopped my Palm Pre from syncing to Gmail, the pressure to move on was rising.

The techies had become the new yuppies and they wanted "open source" no more being held ransom by the new conglomerates aka Microsoft.  A revolution was taking place and like any other there would be many bodies strewn on the battle fields, one of which was that of Palm who met its death at the hands of HP.

Unfortunately the techies carried along the hapless end users who are totally lost in this world of apps which explains why they are so mesmerized with instant messaging phenomena such as WhatsApp which does not integrate well with calendars but that is a rant for another day.

It was time to stop bemoaning the death of Palm and move on, my search for a worthy replacement was on, what a painful journey it has been, the device part is settled with my final migration to the Huawei Mate8.

My standards have been set very high by organisations such as Palm who set them so high that even in death they remain an enigma to the rest of the industry. 

I have skipped from a 3.1-inch capacitive touchscreen over a 24-bit color 320×480 resolution HVGA liquid-crystal display, 512 MB RAM, 16 GB Storage and 600 Mhz single core processor

Moving to a 6" Phablet with an IPS panel, 1080 x 1920 full HD resolution and incorporating Gorilla Glass for strength. 3 GB RAM, 32 GB and 8 Core 2.0 Ghz processor incorporating a separate GPU! 

Don't get me started on the camera resolution.

With the hardware sorted out, their own processor, it is time for Huawei to look at the OS as the true power of its devices are greatly curtailed by the buggy Android OS, many might not agree with me on this point but fortunately Apple's meteoric success exonerates me.

I strongly believe that Huawei has the staying power to bring back sanity into the world of productivity through enhanced mobility especially taking into consideration that they run most of the backbone that is the Internet and the wireless connectivity infrastructure, not even Apple as that luxury.

So, my journey back to full productivity will still take a while as I learn to navigate the new world of Android and its myriad of mainly mediocre apps that solve niche issues.