Did Arrington actually pull off the CrunchPad WiFi tablet? | Hacker News Reader

Did Arrington actually pull off the CrunchPad WiFi tablet?

blog.dustincurtis.com

74 pointsdcurtis50 comments

Even at $300, I would buy 10 of these for my company. Touch-screen + WiFi + Browser = ability for me to get rid of every single bulky PC on our assembly line. If it has USB, then I can hook up a barcode scanner and completely change how our process works. Right now, it is such a hassle to setup a PC with touch-screen and deal with maintenance etc. Good touch-screen LCDs cost $300 at least and it's a pain to deal with the drivers. Netbooks are good but I don't need a keyboard and don't want to deal with a full-fledged OS. Tablets are perfect but so expensive and a hassle to lock-down. Given all the time in the world, I'm sure most of us could rig up something under $500 similar to what the Crunchpad tablet aims to be. But I'd rather get a stable/solid system that I can easily buy more of when needed.

crossing fingers

I was kind of hoping the picwing guys would get it together and I could use smartframes for this kind of thing. They seemed closer to a real product.

If the topmost port in the fourth picture of http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/19/techcrunch-tablet-updat... is not a USB port, I don't know what it is. Since a barcode scanner is basically a keyboard, you almost certainly don't even need any extra support from them. I think you're in luck.

(Also, I don't want to make a separate post: That link also says "we were aiming for $200, it looks like $299 is more realistic".)

I'm also crossing my fingers. This would make my startup MUCH more easy to get going.

TechCrunch would never respect a company asking them to take down leaked photos... and these weren't leaked, they were published publicly. By which I mean: Can someone who has local copies of these put them up somewhere? (Dustin?)

I'd be interested to see them.

Also, not sure what the netbook comment in the post really means. It was pretty evident how big netbooks were going to be after the first Eee PC went for sale, which was late 2007. But that doesn't really matter, since Arrington's tablet isn't really anything like a netbook (at least, not as they're traditionally defined now).

We're going to start to see a lot of cheap, touchscreen tablet PCs running Linux and Android (and maybe Windows 7), though, over the next couple of years.

It is nicely designed. Here is what it looks like:

http://zee.posterous.com/did-arrington-actually-pull-off-the...

Thanks! Those looks pretty slick.

And this is what the packaging looks like: http://bit.ly/WTxHK

[update] pictures are back up at the original posting

If I was going to launch something like this, I'd want to keep it secret until it was ready for market. Arrington obviously made a mistake by posting the photos, and it ruined the surprise.

I took them down to be nice. TechCrunch has never done me harm. But I put them back up because they seem to have propagated everywhere now.

No he leaked them on purpose to drive up interest in the project. What we're all doing right now is exactly what he wants.

It's possible. I'm happy to drive up interest in this though. It looks like a genuinely awesome product.

If thats the case, you should have updated the post saying "seeing as how the photos are now everywhere, Im putting the pictures back up."

They should add two white knobs along the bottom ... and an accelerometer that allows you to hold it over your head and shake it to put it into screensaver mode ...

I think it is astounding that Arrington (and everyone else on the team -- I'm sure there are many) was able to pull this off. A lot of people have bones to pick with him, and he can certainly be a little brusque (speaking as a former TechCrunch intern), but he is one incredibly capable guy -- a consistently excellent writer, bitingly funny commentator, and, apparently, a mean product designer/manager. I almost wish TechCrunch didn't take up so much of his time -- there's probably a lot more he could be doing.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/19/techcrunch-tablet-updat...

Info on an earlier prototype + video. 3 months ago the software was pretty workable and the had the hardware, albeit thicker than it should've been. So it seems perfectly plausible that it's ready now.

I actually own crunchpad.com, wonder if I should do anything with it

redirected it to the blog post?

already doing that

not if you want to make some money out of it..you need to justify you own domain because your have business tied to it and nothing to do with their brand..and then only you can hold it/may be later sell it..careful, arrington is from domain industry so it is tough party on other end ..so be smart in how you handle.. (assuming you want money..) if not then it is pretty easy just send email

I'd agree with this guy. WIPO is ridiculously quick to snipe away your domain name and give it to someone with a trademark if you don't have a legitimate business or use for the name.

I would highly recommend creating at least some fake company or intention out of the page so you can say you wanted the domain for something else. With a name like "Crunch-Pad" I'd suggest making it a simple Web 2.0 to-do list like pat.io.

At least that way you could let them buy it off you if they were interested.

well

a) I registered the domain about 6 months before Techcrunch started calling the thing crunchpad, so they don't really have any claim to the name. In fact it wasn't them who came up with the name itself in the first place, it was one of the comments.

b) Plenty of companies make the same mistake of failing to register a domain name. If Apple didn't sue over something like iPhone and Dell over Adamo, I doubt there is much of a leg to stand on. + There is no trademark yet for crunchpad

Funnily enough, that story was posted on Techcrunch only a few weeks ago: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/28/dell-belatedly-buys-ada...

c) I don't really plan to bend Arrington over the barrel on this. But I think it'll play better if he contacts me, instead of me just emailing out of the blue offering the domain. Since we all know how unlikely it is to get a response from Techcrunch

If the $200 price tag is real, I see myself putting one of these babies in my bathroom in front of the toilet, another one in my kitchen. Imagine one in your living room hooked up to your media center/TV/etc.

I'll hang one in my garage for when I'm out working on something... At 200 bucks, if it gets a little motor oil on the screen, I'm not going to worry about it too much.

For $200 a pop I can tile one wall of my office with them for $16,000.

That sounded smart before I typed it.

I'll believe it when I have one in my hands :-)

It looks so slick, and then picture 4 is the power adapter with a guy holding a soda can in his crotch at the top of the frame.

What's amazing about Apple (from whom they seem to have taken packaging design cues) is not an initial sheen of beauty, but that they keep the beauty going throughout the experience.

Where are they getting the touch screens?

Does it matter? Aren't they a commodity?

A year ago when this was conceived, no, not really, but it looks like the price has indeed come down sufficiently to make this viable. http://interstore.com/product/139-1460/348348-001+LCD+KIT+R/... is one I found.

If this thing is real, I'm going to be buying more than a few of them.

Looks like the world's biggest iPhone.

I am going to buy one just to use it as a huge novelty phone gag.

Now I just have to figure out how to waterproof it so I can read The Economist in the tub.

regardless of arrington's involvement, i really like this idea and really would like to see it have at least some success. it could only mean good things for the direction of netbooks.

I would buy one if I could take hand-written notes on it. That's the ability that I most envy my friends with tablets for.

so where exactly is the address to his posterous account? I only knew of the techcrunch.posterous.com account.

Photos were there (at techcrunch.posterous.com), but it seems like he removed them.

CrunchGear post about it: "Leaks are always hardest when they hit home."

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/04/09/crunchtablet-hits-the-n...

What's the difference between that and a Windows Tablet (apart from the price)?

Besides it running on Linux not a whole lot. But its $200 that was the whole point.

Capacitive touchscreen! I was pleasantly surprised, I thought it would be resistive. Almost all Windows Tablets have inductive digitizers, where you can only use a special stylus (like a Wacom), but you get angle/distance/pressure information.

Most new Tablet PCs also cost 6-10 times more, and have awful battery life because they are overpowered.

As stated in the comments over there: it's a mockup. And I'm pretty sure it is, been a while since an update on the crunchpads and all of a sudden they're in production? Nahhh, don't think so.

Wow, the pictures are already taken off.

I want one.

An iphone that does not fit in my pocket...where do i sign up?

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Kindly refrain.

Apparently Oscar Wilde said that.

I thought puns were the lowest form of wit.

I also just read that wit is the highest form of sarcasm. Does that make puns a high form of sarcasm?

Puns may be bad, but poems are verse.

Ipod Touch without the music built in... even better!

Actually, I'd prefer this to a netbook, especially if it isn't locked down.

Reminds me of the original iBook...antiquated design.

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