Already, wireless carriers and electronics manufacturers offer products with several pieces of the puzzle. Palm’s Treo line of smart phones is certainly close. But no one has perfected the total package.
It’s imminent, though. The timeline is months, not years, before once-distinct tasks and pursuits, business and personal, blend into one ultimate appliance.
Just try prying Ben Mack’s smart phone from his fingers.
With one tool, a Treo, he e-mails friends, phones business contacts and looks up movie times. “The promise is exciting to me,” said Mack, an Atlanta freelance writer and author. “I’ve got a phone, a PDA, an iPod. … Soon I won’t need to carry all these things.
“It’s going to become my wallet.”
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Edited by Curt Wagner ([email protected]) and Kris Karnopp ([email protected])