A Leader's Mobile Lifestyle: A Fickle Mobile Aficionado | Shohei Onishi (Dean, Graduate School of Health Management)
2007.06.28
I have a weakness for mobile devices, but there was one I used to love more than any other: a PDA from Apple Computer called the Newton. It was packed with various gimmicks that appealed to the user's sensibilities. However, its communication features were not outstanding, and perhaps it was released too early. I stopped using it, maybe because it wasn't sufficient for the network era. Since then, I've repeatedly bought many PDAs only to leave them unused. PDAs seem convenient at first glance, but for some reason, they always felt incomplete, and I ended up going back to paper. It was a classic case of being too much for one purpose and not enough for another.
Looking back now, the era of PC communication using modems with acoustic couplers was a time of great patience. All we could do was wait... On a standard telephone line, it took over an hour to transfer a 1 MB file at a speed of 9,600 baud. Thinking about it now, it feels like a different world.
We now live in an age where exchanging information is easy anytime, anywhere, with mobile devices. However, for me, these are truly restless days. I can't help but feel like I'm always being chased. Yet, I have no choice but to use them. It's a difficult position to be in.
(Posted on: 2007/06/28)