Saturday, April 6, 2013

Putting My Old PDA to Retirement

I'm gonna continue with the flashbacks soon. For now I have something to share about what I think of the cellphone shapes nowadays.

It occurred to me when I looked at the shape of my old made-in-China Windows Mobile Glofiish PDA. I took a look at the PDA - after so long being abandoned and collecting dust - as I needed to find an old phone number in it:


As I look at it I realized that it is really similar to Apple's iPhone. I remembered when I first showed that PDA to a friend he commented that the shape was too squared and it is not good looking. But now look at how popular iPhone is.

Obviously the square shape (or rectangle) is chosen as the phone is not only used as phone. It is also used as a small computing device which depends on a rectangular shaped display. So doesn't matter how ugly a square is, you have to accept it as the best shape for PDA or smartphone. I'm just proud that I was among the first to realized that fact.

This old PDA served me really good. I remember when I first arrived at Fairfield, Iowa, I actually mistakenly left it in the washroom in the Galesburg's train station, Illinois. I only realized it when I was on the train to Mount Pleasant. The train's lady chief attendant (not sure what's the right for that post) helped me to contact the staff at the station in Galesburg from the train and arranged for me to collect the PDA in Mount Pleasant station some time the next day or after. And, you know what? I had to pay USD30 to the guy who drove me to the station just to collect the left behind PDA. He was the same guy who fetched me from Mount Pleasant before.

This is how it looked like when it was still in active service:


I have just moved to my own room in UPNM. There is a nice shelf with glass doors which I turned into my own mini museum. That is where I put this old PDA of mine for its retirement:


Its job with me now has been taken by a new iPhone. Happy retirement, PDA.

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