** Continued From: Pocket PC vs Palm! - Part #1

In part one of this two-parter, I gave the reasons why the innovative adult webmaster should consider building content and sites designed for hand-held devices, namely PDA’s or Personal Digital Assistants. I explained that people want mobile Internet and email. They’ve got their desktop machines. They’ve got their laptops that are portable but not nearly as portable as a pocket-sized computer. I wrote about recent improvements to PDA units and connectivity. I provided examples of sites and services that are already profiting from PDA porn.

"The difference between the two operating systems is more a matter of user knowledge. Any Palm or Pocket PC device can be upgraded with software to make up for out-of-the-box abilities."

In the first article I showed you that there were two popular operating systems for the PDA. One is the Palm OS and the other is the Pocket PC OS from Microsoft. I told you that in this article I would define the differences between the two operating systems.

Why is it important to know the differences? A couple of reasons.

Number one, if you intend to create PDA content, then you’ll want to create it so that can will be viewed easily and properly by the highest number of PDA surfers. While both Pocket PC and Palm OS support Internet and email, there’s other issues to consider such as the ease of connectivity and the power of the individual hand-held device.

Number two. You might need to buy a PDA for yourself.

Palm OS

I began Part #1 with the phrase "It pays to be first."

At the moment, more people own Palm enabled PDAs than own Pocket PC units. Palm and Handspring devices cost less, which is the main reason for their popularity aside from the fact that Palm was first in the commercial PDA market. Naturally, the Palm OS is the dominant operating system software when it comes to Personal Digital Assistants.

However, there’s a reason why cheaper devices are cheaper. A low-end model -like the Palm Zire 21- can do basic PDA stuff like store addresses and beep reminders. With add-on hardware such as a modem the user can connect to the web but not nearly as well as they can with a high-end PDA, such as a Sony UX50 with it’s 128 Megs of RAM.

Still, the PALM OS contains a calendar, address book, calculator, Instant Messenger client and an HTML browser. If you want a WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) browser or an e-book reader, you’ll have to install additional software. Another advantage to the Palm is that it the Tungsten T, T2 and T3 models all come with built-in Bluetooth wireless. But if you’re a lover of Microsoft programs, you won’t find them bundled on your brand-new Palm or even Sony model.

Pocket PC

As an owner of a PDA, it’s pretty cool to be able to download my Outlook contacts and emails onto my device. I also like to use mine as a mini word processor. I have a nifty hard-shell keyboard that I can hook up to my PDA so I can write article and take notes. When I’m done writing an article, I can save it in Word format. I can then upload that Word document to my PC or laptop or email it directly from my PDA.

While people may like the price of some Palm devices, when it comes to syncing with MS software like Excel, Outlook, Word and Power Point, you can’t beat a Pocket PC enabled Toshiba e805. In addition, the Dell Axim X30 and the HP iPAQ 5555 and iPAQ 4150 come with built-in WiFi.

Really, the difference between the two operating systems is more a matter of user knowledge. Any Palm or Pocket PC device can be upgraded with software to make up for out-of-the-box abilities. The questions you have to ask yourself are, what do you want from your own personal PDA and if your market is the PDA market, who do you want as an audience? Do you want to own a unit that costs less but needs more? Will your PDA surfers mostly be using Palm machines or Pocket PC machines?

If you want to get your own PDA, take into account not just the cost of the primary device but also factor in the price for extra software or hardware. If you’re looking for PDA porn surfers, keep in mind that the low-end users probably aren’t using their units for surfing nearly as much as high-end users.

PDA porn is still in its infancy. No matter how sweet the new model PDAs are, it’s going to be a while before PDA porn is considered any kind of norm. Right now, you have time to learn about Personal Digital Assistants and if they become the next big thing for adult webmasters, you’ll be ahead of the game!