20 Personal Content Experience: Managing Digital Life in the Mobile Age 2.2.1.6 Navigators Navigators are becoming common companions for people outside their home bases. The maturity of GPS technology and the availability of accurate maps make current navigators most suitable for use in vehicles and outdoor recreation (section 7.2. provides further discus- sion on location-based applications and content). High-rise buildings in cities often obscure navigation satellites, so personal navigators may still take a generation or two to fully support pedestrians. Dedicated navigators can offer better usability, but the same functionality is avail- able in a number of phones and PDAs. 2.2.2 Swiss Army Knives “Swiss army knife” is our nickname for a multi-purpose device that can be used for performing several different tasks on many content types. However, extending its functionality to new tasks and content types is still diffi cult or restricted. For example, many mobile phones provide a limited set of pre-installed applications for voice communication, messaging, imaging, time management, and music. To broaden the application palette, the users may download Java applications to the phone, but they do not integrate fully to the phone’s computing plat- form, resources, and services. Moreover, the device may not have enough available memory to store several applications. The extensibil- ity is there, but it is limited. Sometimes devices initially designed for a single purpose later include capabilities for other purposes. For example, the mobile phones were at fi rst dedicated tools for voice communication but have later evolved into multifunctional gadgets. Similarly, Apple’s iPod was origi- nally designed for listening to music, while current versions may be used for browsing and viewing images and video, as well as managing time and contacts. Interestingly, iPod is not designed for obtaining, maintaining, or sharing content, and for that purpose the user must use the iTunes client application on a desktop computer. 7 Similarly, in handheld gaming consoles, Sony PSP is leading the evolution of this device class towards more feature-loaded devices. 8 When compared to arguably similar Nintendo DS, Sony PSP is closer to our Swiss army knife category, because it is designed also for brows- ing web, music, video, and images, whereas Nintendo DS is committed to gaming. 7 http://www.yourpsp.com/ 8 http://www.nintendo.com/systemsds