Apple PDA Rumors Persist
14 Nov 2000 15:00 EST

Even though we are becoming more skeptical by the day, our in-box is constantly littered with comments and innuendo suggesting that Apple is still carrying a torch for a new PDA device. After last quarter's less than stellar financial results and a corporate re-trenching by captain Steve Jobs, the odds that Apple would use valuable resources to "re-invent the wheel," when the likes of Palm and Handspring are already doing it so well, seem unlikely.

There is almost no chance that Apple would release a PDA running their own OS as this would surely sap resources that need to be used to get Mac OS X released on schedule. Go2Mac will stick to our guns that there is still a minute chance that Apple could re-brand a Visor or Palm as the elusive "iMate" - but such a beast could only run the Palm OS. The momentum of Palm developers and platform at large is already too great. Any attempt to compete with the Palm OS would be sure handheld suicide. Ask the folks over in Redmond about that one.

Conspiracy Theorists Unite. A series of Handspring Visors in iMac/iBook colors could be released with an Apple badge for a nice bundle opportunity, but the marginal value (and profit) to Apple would be negligible because of the lowering floor of PDA prices these days. Witness the Palm m100 and the Visor bare bones edition.

So where does that leave us? There is no doubt in my mind that an Apple-badged PDA would sell, as I am sure and Apple-badged tape dispenser would sell. But that doesn't mean that it makes sense. Unless, of course, unless Apple took the Sony route and released a US$400 black and white PDA. Highly unlikely, Apple has already learned that lesson.

To further douse the Apple PDA fire, it is pretty well known that Jobs detests PDAs. He thinks of them as nothing more than toys that are a distraction to business users that need "a real computer." That said, pending some reliable evidentiary proof that the Apple PDA project still exists we are ready to put this one on the back burner for a while.

Oh wait, X-Files fans will undoubtedly appreciate this one.

Could this be one of those pictures taken by a secret Microsoft sponsored breach of the Apple labs? Or even a shot obtained by the Hubble telescope of SJ using it in his backyard? Both doubtful, but fun to imagine, nonetheless. :)

Source : O'Grady's