TechCrunch Tablet makes an early debut
crunchgear.com
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To rephrase, why hasn't the industry been able to do this? They are the ones who have made this possible anyhow; it is not very innovative on a technical level; it is obviously a good idea. What took them so long?
If these tablets sell, they certainly will.
Oh, perhaps one thing is the requirement to fork a dev team to maintain a niche OS... methinks that's one of the biggest reasons?
seems like an ideal product for a y combinator startup!
They've also had a number of failures, but people don't really remember those (Newton, cube, etc)
And do you know what the final newton designed by Apple turned into? The Palm Pilot.
Often a recipe for total disaster - making something that's technically impressive, rather than something that people actually want.
"Entrepreneurship is about believing something will sell even though every market measure says it won't and then implementing it even though every competitor says you'll fail"
Apple? They choose to not compete on the low-end market.
Please explain for me. I have an iPhone for portability, I have a laptop for semi portability. I have a mac mini for watching movies etc.
I can't think of how a tablet device like that would be useful. It's sort of too big and delicate to take traveling - nothing to protect the screen, so a laptop or netbook wins there.
The only use I can imagine is having it in the kitchen on the wall to look up recipes :/
Perhaps "the industry hasn't been able to do this" because there's not a proven market there. Further, there have been several tablet type laptops with flimsy swively screens, most of which seem total failures.
I can completely see geeks buying this. But that's a small market and one which I don't think you can make a lot of money from.
Also could the packaging be any more copied from Apple packaging?
I would never buy one of these because my tech needs, like yours, are a bit more "nuanced" depending upon my need at the moment.
Look at this as a "gateway" device for people that aren't as "hardcore" as you or I.
Although now you bring it up, I don't know the biggest reason behind Origami's failure. Maybe I overestimate its usefulness. I can see Walmart and such taking a big interest though, for inventory control and also modified for in-store use. But you may be right.
As for the packaging, unless Apple is truly the one that started this kind of packaging (which I doubt, but could be wrong, but also wouldn't care), it doesn't strike me as an Apple rip. To me, they're all obnoxious... to hell with the "experience" :-P
Then big issues in the device then were lack of flash and lack of power. They claim those have been resolved. We shall see.
Will a device like this become ubiquitous? I can see it finding a home in the kitchen, next to the bed or on the coffee table. The key here is making it lightweight and not delicate. I'm thinking something more in between a TOUGHBOOK and a MacBook. Something you can drop in the kitchen and throw on the couch and have the kids play with. Perhaps, with a aim of $200 that doesn't even matter.
The separation of input/output areas is an improvement on paper. Starting with the typewriter, it's been an enduring and ubiquitous design. Exceptions like the iPhone are primarily output.
Well, my grandmother is technically inept, the concept of computers scare her - the keyboard, mouse, so many wires etc. It becomes a little overwhelming.
This sort of device would be something she could use to play games like solitaire, perhaps read emails from family (maybe sending them back depending on how easy it is to use) and generally, it would be more instinctual for her to touch the things she wants to navigate, rather than have to grab a mouse and direct it to click onto what she wants to look at.
It's a device for people who aren't like us. The odd thing is that it will be pushed by techcrunch - I hope they have a more direct to consumer marketing plan in mind than just advertising on techcrunch, as I think they'll really be missing out on it's real potential.
The technological device for people scared by technology
Surely that's a plus, even though it's NIH.
Hang in next to your door.
1. Have it show your daily schedule, weather, errands as you walk out the door. You can add to the schedule and errands/todos from your iphone, computer at work etc. 2. Your gym routine for the day.
Keep it in your toilet.
* Browse the web/email while your on the toilet. * Have it play Pandora while your in the shower.
Keep it in the livign room.
* Instant TV guide.
Kitchen.
* Grocery list. * recpies
Essentially any application where you dont need telephony but you do want a big screen and a kiosk like interface. (Ie where a keyboard is needed minimally).
My mom, would love such a thing. Instant on would be really nice in something like this.
Bleedin' isn't. (Obvious, I mean).
"like a laptop but less powerful", "a netbook without the keyboard", "an iPod touch with gigantism", "a PDA that doesn't fit in your pocket", "a kindle without the high DPI screen or long battery life", "an OLPC without the low price tag or cool features".
Full TabletPCs never took off. They are more expensive and have the restricted form factor. TC is betting that it's the higher cost that stopped them. I'm betting it's the restricted form factor and resultant limited usefulness.
I predict TC will only sell them to the sort of person who sees a tablet, or a chumby or a clocky or any other of a dozen terrible devices on TC and comments "OMG OMG I WANT ONE". That may yet be a big enough market, so I'm not going to predict out and out failure yet.
The ability for a non-engineer to connect resources together to produce the device is a function of Moore's Law.
If TC is really worth as much as 24/7 Wall St. and others have speculated, then the marketing dollars are taken care of. Also, Arrington is well known and a highly resourceful individual.
In my view the problem with the tablet market has been a combination of high pricing and bad timing. The market for tablets now is increasing though and the benefits can be great. I think many of the naysayers here are thinking there is no way a tablet can replace a laptop or phone for various reasons, but I say that the market for a tablet is not directed at them. A tablet is not meant to be a replacement device, but instead a compliment to your current devices and/or a business tool. Here are some immediate benefits/uses I can think of:
1. Faster boot time (great for presentations, looking something up quick on the internet, inventory management systems, sales professionals) 2. Lightweight compared to laptops (remember cost is a factor here too) 3. No clunky equipment inside, making the lifespan a little longer 4. So the monitor sits wide open and may not be durable. This opens up a market for accessory companies to build durable covers. Both my Blackberry and iPhone have screens that came with no protection, but I was quick to buy covers for them both. 5. Can be mass produced for cheap. Take away experimentation costs and development costs, Arrington has said that the cost to produce will be $200 or less. This makes them accessible to everyone.
Before knocking tablets, you must remember that not everyone has a computer on 24x7x365 and easily accessible. Being able to easily check web-based email or surf the web is the entire point of this device. No boot-up, zero to minimal errors, no complex operating system to fight with, the list goes on.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/we-want-a-dead-simple-w...
Updates:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/30/update-on-the-techcrunc...
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/19/techcrunch-tablet-updat...
This is why all computers (Dells, HPs, etc, not sure what Apple does) are manufactured by a handful of companies (Solectron, Flextronics) which actually run the Chinese factories.
In particular, artists can be quite finicky.
As someone who has used both the Cintiq and pen and paper, I prefer the pencil/paper combination for storyboarding and general sketching as you get more feedback (feeling on your fingertips) than with a Cintiq because of the rough vs smooth surface.
Don't get me wrong, the Cintiq's are awesome and can allow some amazing tasks to be completed (especially with storyboarding & appropriate software), but often times I feel people need to make a deeper connection with the task at hand that the cintiq's just don't allow in certain creative arts.
I guess it's all a case of perspective. Sometimes imperfections are the key to making things special.
Plus, to Wacom's credit they have the many different pens to be able to quickly simulate different effects (and make it more like a traditional workflow) while the artist is using it - yet this stylus has no such thing.
The Cintiq's also have a very cool swivel stand for turning/tilting the device to make it more reminiscent of an animation disk. There's also a special wrist/pinky finger strap to help your hand move over the device more smoothly and reduce smudging.
Plus this patent looks like it has a rolling ball. I don't know of many artists who use ball point pens to draw with.
Specifically, most use felt tip pens, markers or pencils. Some of those artists even stop using pencils when the shaft becomes too short because it throws off the balance of the whole thing and becomes less intuitive for them to draw with.
In fact, in the pencil community (go read some pencil niche blogs, these people are REALLY passionate about their writing tools) there are several people who refuse to use a pencil with an eraser on the end (and the opposite is true) because of the counter balance effect.
Then there's also the fact that different pencils (both brands and grades) move across surfaces in different ways. I know of at least one artist who actually switches between 2 pencil brands of the same grade to achieve different effects while drawing.
Moral of the story, not all writing instruments are created equal - you can't just substitute one for another and expect the same result.
Love that comment. Very zen, very Friday, very deep
Looks like one-functionality devices are making a comeback.
Specifically, what's different this time?
But the absolute difference in price might make a difference with respect to other alternatives, especially non-computing ones. That is, new applications, new markets.
Are there any? Historically there's only one way to tell (try it).
This device probably hits a different sweetspot (more versatile I'd guess) than the Kindle.
When you "make a profit" you are successful. Twitter has a long way to go before its successful. Thankfully it has patient investors who are allowing it to experiment with a revenue model, because they're convinced its a cash cow. I'm more skeptical of it being the next best thing.
Hardware, besides the cue cat, has to sell, and sell well enough that people are making money off the slim margins. TC will know its design is successful when Dell puts out a knock-off tablet for half the price.
I took this to mean Twitter. As many users of their service originally started out using it to mass-txt their friends.
They're only talking about texting. Not twitter.
In other words, I don't think Kindle will die immediately, but its time is up.
Your sentence ended too early. You forgot the "for me".
I used to read Project Gutenberg ebooks on my Palm Pilot... the Palm Pilot 2. That's a monochrome (effectively) 160x160 screen. I was fine. There's a lot of us who don't mind so much.
(I know studies show reading speed drops, but I wonder if it might pick up again if you tested someone using a display like that long enough to get used to it. At any rate, I sure didn't feel slowed down, which is the important thing.)
I'd buy this over a Kindle in a heartbeat, though I'm still not going to give up my laptop keyboard so I'm not in the market at all. (But I'm even more not in the market for a Kindle.)