I recently celebrated my birthday and as one of my requested gifts I received a PlayStation Portable (PSP). My intention with this toy is to use it while I travel, to play games while flying and in hotel rooms. In addition to playing games the PSP also plays music, plays video and surfs the internet. Talking with a person whom I had just met about this they commented, “You should just get a laptop.” Of course I have a laptop, and I could just play games on the laptop. I also travel with a Blackberry and an MP3 player. Since there is so much functionality that overlaps between these devices, what in the world am I doing packing them all over the country? Isn’t the intent of these devices to have one device to rule (replace) them all?
For me the answer is no. Each of these devices has a unique role or advantage, personally, for which I prefer to have each available. These roles have less to do with the functionality of the device than my information or media consumption preferences and the relative ease and strengths of the specific functionality. Yes, I could play games on my laptop, but not easily in a plane or lying in bed. My Blackberry and PSP will play music, but I am not going to strap one on to go run or workout. My Blackberry keeps me constantly connected and I prefer to read text web articles on it but would rather view multi-media rich websites on my laptop. Each of these devices has one or several specialties that make it important enough to keep with me, even if I have another device that performs a similar function.
The development of different interfaces for RiteTrack reflects this idea of different devices being best for specific tasks. An excellent example is the recent release of the RiteTrack Status Board BlackBerry App. A BlackBerry or Smartphone would likely never be extensively used to access and navigate a complete RiteTrack system, but the Status Board fits perfectly into this form factor. The functionality is discreet, the interface simple, and it is exceedingly useful for clocking in and out while travelling. Until the availability of a rich web interface and the release of RiteTrack Silverlight there were tasks and functions that were necessarily weaker in the web client. While the Silverlight release eliminated this issue, as RiteTrack appears on more devices we will target the best functionality from the system for each interface.
