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AUGUST 2004

Product Review:
Information Appliance Associates' PocketMac Pro Utility
By Mitchell Levine

Like most PDA users, I love the technology, but can't stand the inconvenience of a PocketPC-style PDA's incompatibility with the Macintosh network that powers Education Update. True, it's much more practicable than carrying a Rolodex, laptop, portable library, scientific calculator, and, if you're like me, Game Boy. On the other hand, a Windows-based laptop or notebook isn't always available to keep a Compaq handheld synced with the documents and databases I often need to interface. And, since, although PCs have made some inroads into our institutions of learning, education is still very much Apple's market, most schools are equally vulnerable to this limitation

In fact, to schools following the model of Smithtown, New York, and equipping all of their students with PocketPCs, this "minor irritation" become a formidable obstacle to IT deployment, severely handicapping the system with cross-platform issues. That spoils what would seem to be a natural combination, as Pocket PCs are really in many ways complementary to the Mac: they offer superb multimedia, graphics, and extensive third-party software.

However, the release of PocketMac Pro has created an outstanding development in this regard. Thanks to Information Appliance Associates' application, a wide variety of Pocket PC devices, including many brands of convergent cell/PDAs, can work directly with any Macintosh computer running OS X, Panther or Jaguar version, without even installing any new software on your PDA. Popular utilities and document formats like Entourage, iCal calendar, MS Word and Excel, Mail.app and Now Software's Now Contact can run and be synchronized on any Pocket PC with the program installed. Even better, for those that need or would appreciate multi-platform access, with PocketMac Pro edition, a Pocket PC can be used with either Windows or Mac OS-based systems.

Best of all, PocketMac Pro, as the manufacturer notes, only costs about 19% of the purchase price of a new PDA, even before any potentially applicable education discounts. The latest version of the software additionally includes the company's well-known RegKing application, which offers considerable performance enhancements for PocketPC graphics and web browsing. 

Unlike corporate buyers with budgets to buy all the latest and greatest hardware they want or need, school systems need to make every piece of equipment they own work with every other piece. For those districts taking advantage of the many benefits of the Pocket PC medium, investigating PocketMac Pro at the company's site, www.pocketmac.net, will be well worth the investment of time.#

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