This was an informal survey taken during 1996 by posting to several PDA Usenet groups an invitation to submit details on what people were using their PDA's for. The Relative Use Index below, is a relative sum of how many people said they had a specific type of usage. Only, a limited number of people responded and so the results may not well represent what the PDA user community is really doing. The respondents' length of ownership ranged from 4 to 36 months, with an average of 15 months. The PDA's ranged from low end PDA's without keyboards to high-end palmtop computers. If you would like to email us, with your usage details we will update these results periodically. We hope you find the data interesting.
TYPE OF USAGE Relative Use Index
Appointment 6
Phone Directory 5
To-Do 4
Games 3
Time Saved / Week 0.5 Hours on the Average
Note Taking 2
Electronic Postits 2
Software Development 2
Spreasheet - General 2
Spreadsheet, Vending Machine Input 1
Spreadsheet; Vending Machine Revenue 1
Gift Ideas Birthday 1
Gift Ideas Christmas 1
Electronic Books 1
Cartoons & Animation 1
Bank Chequing Account Tracking 1
Electronic Mail 1
Videos to Rent 1
Library Books List 1
Internet Connectivity 1
LaTex 1
HTML Documents Editing & Printing 1
Wordprocessing 1
General Computing - Highly Mobile 1
Database - WWW Sites 1
Database - Magic Collectible Cards 1
Database - Export To Text Format 1
Database - MIscellaneous In 1
Database - Shareware Register 1
Tax-Stripper Utility 1
To-Do for Bills 1
Calculator - Scientific 1
Grocery Shopping Running Tab 1
Random Number Generator 1
Time Diff. Seconds Calculator 1
Equation Solver 1