The PalmPilot and the Devices That Taught Us to Be Connected

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Imagine carrying a little computer that knew your appointments,

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remembered your contacts, kept track of your to-do list and stored all these

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little notes you were forever forgetting.

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You couldn't scroll through social media on it, watch videos or send someone

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a dozen photos of your dinner. It didn't even make phone calls.

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But back in 1996, it felt like a glimpse of the future.

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It was called the Palm Pilot and it was designed to put a little bit of your

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life inside your shirt pocket. Not your entire life, mind you. just the useful bits.

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Looking back, the Palm Pilot feels like one of these devices that arrived before

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we quite knew what a smartphone was supposed to be.

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Now there had been other personal digital assistants, including Apple's Newton,

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but Palm took a more focused approach.

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Instead of trying to squeeze a desktop computer into your pocket,

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it concentrated on a handful of things people actually needed.

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You had your calendar, address book, memo pad and to-do list.

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You could write on a screen with a stylus using a system called graffiti that

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required you to learn a simplified way of drawing letters.

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It sounds a bit ridiculous now, but it worked surprisingly well once you got used to it.

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And then there was the cradle. You'd put your palm pilot into this little dock

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beside your computer, press a button and synchronise your information.

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Your appointments and contacts would be updated on both devices without having

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to enter everything twice.

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Now it wasn't seamless in the way we understand that word today.

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You had to be at your computer, connect the device and deliberately synchronise it.

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But the idea was powerful. The information you needed could travel with you

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without you having to carry your computer around.

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The Palm Pilot wasn't trying to do everything. It was just trying to do a few

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things well enough that you wondered how you'd manage without it.

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As the years went on, that idea of a pocket-sized digital companion started

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to change. We wanted more than a place to store information.

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We wanted to receive it too.

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Enter BlackBerry, which became famous for bringing email into people's hands wherever they were.

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Its physical keyboard made it possible to write messages quickly,

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and that little flashing notification light could turn an otherwise ordinary

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day into a constant stream of things demanding your attention.

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Then, in 2005, BlackBerry Messenger arrived. BBM was a different kind of messaging experience.

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You connected with other BlackBerry users through their Pins,

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could set up group chats, and see whether messages had been delivered or read.

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Those tiny indicators changed the rhythm of a conversation. You weren't just

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sending a message and hoping someone eventually saw it.

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Instead, you had a sense of what was happening on the other end.

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And if you used BBM at the time, you'll probably remember that it became part of how you socialised.

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Sharing your pin, adding contacts, changing your status having group conversations

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that seemed to run all day there was a sense of belonging to a little community

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and owning the right device was your ticket in.

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BBM wasn't the only messaging service around, of course, but it had an identity,

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and people became attached to it.

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In hindsight, it feels like a service that deserved to be remembered for more

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than just being a feature on a BlackBerry.

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Then the iPhone arrived in 2007, followed by the first Android phone in 2008,

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and the smartphone began to change shape.

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Instead of a device built primarily around email, contacts or organisation,

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it became a touchscreen platform for apps, music, photos, games,

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maps and an ever-growing list of other things.

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In comparison, the Palm Pilot's collection of practical tools began to look

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like a smaller part of a much bigger idea.

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The BlackBerry's keyboard and messaging strength still mattered,

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but the competition was no longer just about who could make the best pocket

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organiser or the quickest email device.

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It was about who could build a platform people wanted to use for almost everything.

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And that shift changed our relationship with these objects. The Palm Pilot helped

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us organise information we already had.

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BlackBerry helped us stay connected to work and to each other.

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But the modern smartphone combined

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those ideas with a world of apps and services that kept expanding.

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There's a cost to that too. A device that once helped you check your appointments

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can now interrupt you with emails, messages, headlines, notifications,

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and whatever else it's decided needs your attention.

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The technology became more capable, but it also became much harder to put down.

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I don't think that means the pass was necessarily better. The Palm Pilot wasn't

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going to replace your phone, and BBM couldn't do everything we expect from messaging today.

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But each of these devices had a clearer sense of what it was for.

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Looking back, there's something really appealing about the simplicity of the Palm Pilot.

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You picked it up because you needed to check something, make a note,

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or remember an appointment. It wasn't asking you to spend the next hour inside it.

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And BBM had a particular kind of social connection that wasn't quite the same

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as messaging on a platform everyone used for everything.

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Your contacts were tied to a device and a community. That could be limiting,

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but it also made the service feel distinctive.

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BBM eventually expanded beyond

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BlackBerry phones, including launches on iPhone and Android in 2013.

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But by then, mobile messaging was becoming a much broader, more competitive space.

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Being tied to one device had helped give BBM its identity, but it also made

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that identity harder to carry forward as the market changed.

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The Palm Pilot and BlackBerry weren't failures. They helped establish the habits

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and expectations that later smartphones built on.

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But the things that made them special were gradually absorbed into devices that could do so much more.

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Today we carry our calendars, contacts, notes, messages, cameras and entire

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social lives in one device.

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It's difficult to imagine going back to a time when those things lived in separate places.

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But the Palm Pilot is a reminder that the future didn't arrive all at once.

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It came in little pieces.

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A pocket organiser, a wireless email device, a messaging service that made a

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delivered notification feel exciting.

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Each one changed what we expected from the technology in our hands.

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And perhaps that's what makes these devices worth remembering.

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Not that they were better than what came after, but that they helped us work

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out what we wanted from the future in the first place.

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I'm Danny Brown and this is Artifacts.