By Harikrishna S. Aravapalli
How many times have you been in a situation where we buy the latest handheld communication device, only to find it becoming obsolete in a few months? What seemed like a cool gadget at the time of buying now looks like a thick and heavy stone slab, which you're carrying around.
Not to mention the precious dollars spent, trying to impress ourselves and our folks. Why does this happen? Is there a way of keeping in possession our latest communication gadget or device and at the same time ensuring that it does not become obsolete within a short time?
Personal computer, the older brother of the handheld communication device
Let's look at the time tested PC. It has a big box. It has a monitor or computer screen, keyboard, mouse, webcam, microphone and a few USB ports to connect to other compatible peripherals (like gaming devices, printers, scanners etc), thus giving us enhanced user experience.
But while all this is possible, do we really need to buy all the PC-compatible peripherals that are available in the market? The answer is a no, but we are aware that if we buy the basic computing unit (the box itself), we can always buy and connect any peripheral device as per our needs, later on.
These needs themselves can vary from one PC user to the other. Hence this PC architecture is well accepted and gives the user a comfort factor from an investment perspective. This is the experience of the typical PC user.
The handheld communication device of today
Now look at the handheld communication device of today. First of all, it is most often than not, provided by a telecomunication service provider or its supplier. It often has an alpha-numeric keypad, a small display screen, facility to connect to a cellular communication service provider. Then, depending on the model of the handheld device, there may be additional features like storage, music player, and it may also have software to support email access, Internet surfing, and running a set of mobile applications.
The catch here is that all these basic and exotic features are provided by the same communications service provider or its supplier who manufactures these handheld devices. The user seldom has a choice of what features his communication device should have and what it should not have -- at least in terms of the hardware. This is the key difference between a PC user's experience and a handheld device user's experience.
The Interoperable Mobile Device (IMD)
With increasing maturity of the users of the mobile phone or handheld communication device, the time is now ripe for experimenting with newer communication and handheld devices that can be assembled by the users themselves, almost like Lego blocks.
