Finally, A JooJoo Update: VentureBeat Interview | Hacker News Reader

Finally, A JooJoo Update: VentureBeat Interview

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10 pointskloncks8 comments

Interesting tidbits:

- When asked about how many pre-orders they got, Chandra refused to release numbers, which is fine. I, along with many others, have a feeling it’s not much, even if it apparently “exceeded [FusionGarage's] expectations”

- The article’s title seems a bit deceptive. Or perhaps I missed something. The title, “JooJoo CEO pledges to ship this month, claims deal with leading phone maker”, really seemed to suggest they were in talks with a major phone maker for some 3G connection. In the interview, however, all Chandra does is “not rule out” the possibility of 3G.

- On having an App Store, Chandra strongly said No, citing his belief that with the Internet, no one needs Apps. Moreover, he also suggested that iPhone Apps are merely copies of what’s available online. I will not criticize that, because honestly I wouldn’t know where to start but it sure does sound like a cop-out to me especially with the amount of success behind the iPhone that can be directly attributed to the 140,000+ applications available on the device.

If the JooJoo did offer an App Store clone anyways, would developers really jump on? Probably not. So, even though this is a clear cop-out, even if he had major plans for an JooJoo Apps, it’s highly unlikely he could get that off the ground. I suppose it’s easier to just bash the iPhone App Store and claim the Internet as your savior.

- Lastly, when asked about perhaps the most interesting question – what differentiates the JooJoo from the iPad or why the JooJoo is better – Chandra cited two things: bigger size and flash.

Two things. First, it’s tough seeing an educated critic asking for an unstable, albeit very popular, web application known for causing a horrendous amount of system crashes. I still don’t understand why no Flash on the iPhone is a problem. Adobe has to wake up and fix things; otherwise, HTML5 will very soon replace it. Good riddance. Now, regarding the bigger size. Besides the fact that it seems very immature to use ‘bigger size’ as your top feature, it’s also interesting to me just how dismal it makes their situation look. “What’s your top feature over the iPad?” “Well, we’re, like, an inch bigger.”

> I still don’t understand why no Flash on the iPhone is a problem.

Really? a full 50% of my browsing nowadays uses something with flash in it. (as I sit here typing while watching my hulu queue).

> HTML5 will very soon replace it. Good riddance.

We are in most definite agreement here. I'm not saying flash is great or anything, but not supporting flash in someway is like not supporting .jpg files. Heck, even my gp2x wiz ( http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/bfc7/ ) supports a little bit of flash.

Good observations, I was mostly thinking along the same lines.

I think that Fusion Garage lacks the whole "graceful execution" part of this equation. There are already various tablets and tablet-like form factors out there, which 99% of the market have not heard of yet. In all truth, a simple bootable web-browser in a small package is not really even that much of a leap anymore, and this is basically what the JooJoo has become.

If the JooJoo offers nothing unique (ie: Apps/Content) over any other small form factor device, it mostly becomes an issue of lowest price. I could market a KooKoo tablet for $10 less and become a serious threat to their business.

Chandra comes across, to me, as a guy who essentially lucked into someone elses product idea, but never really figured out what the Ah-HAH! factor was.

1 year from now, both the JooJoo customers will be wondering why they dropped $500 on a dead-end product.

Has anyone actually used Flash on a touchscreen, whether tablet or phone sized? It would appear that there would be major obstacles (e.g. how do you hover the "mouse" over something or get keyboard input for games) but I've never heard anyone complain about it so either it all just works beautifully or it simply doesn't exist yet.

It's easy to program a Flash app to work with a touchscreen -- just limit your interactions to mouseDown, drag, mouseUp. But if an existing app relies on hover or keyboard, I can't see how you'd go about using it. Maybe if the screen were extremely sensitive, it could work like a Wacom: light contact "places" the mouse, heavier contact causes a mouseDown event. But that's not in the current technology.

I worked on a Flash EMAR app that was deployed on touchscreen tablet PCs. You don't need to worry about how to do mouse over unless your app needs mouse over support. As long as your app can work with click and double-click you are fine. Feedback from users was overwhelmingly positive, partly because it cut hours of paperwork every week, and partly because the UI was responsive and easy to use.

I think everybody was taken aback by the relatively low price of the iPad...when the pricing for this was set, I think lots of people were amazed it could be so cheap...now it seems a bit high in comparison.

The difference a day makes.

Apple has established itself as a premium brand. I would hate to go head to head with them at a comparable price... People are going to think that the Apple is a Lexus and you are a Chevrolet unless you have a couple of billion dollars and a decade to invest in advertising your brand.

That being said, I will say I like the idea of a 16:9 tablet. I owned a Toshiba Portegé TabletPC and loved web browsing on it. It never crossed my mind to try to watch a movie on it. But I now have almost all of my DVDs legally ripped and do watch things from time to time in bed or on a plane.

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