Why the CrunchPad mattered | Hacker News Reader

Why the CrunchPad mattered

crunchgear.com

22 pointsvaksel14 comments

It didn't matter. The Crunchpad would have basically been a neat tech-toy for the people who had the disposable income to toss at it.

The world is littered with "almosts". You could just as easily argue that the ultimate failure of this indicates that bloggers should stick to blogging and not try to build companies and products.

I'm not saying I wasn't intrigued by it, and probably would have bought one if it ever shipped, but the TC guys shouldn't strain their arms patting themselves on the back for not shipping a product.

Totally agree. I normally don't like to play the pundit on the side shouting "I told you so," but in this case I think Arrington et al deserve the criticism. They've had the hype machine running full blast for a year now. The TechCrunch name alone guaranteed that early adopters would buy the things in massive numbers. However they couldn't cross the finish line with the product. The CrunchPad therefore doesn't deserve any more attention than any of failed consumer product ideas that never saw the light of day.

The Crunchpad would have basically been a neat tech-toy for the people who had the disposable income to toss at it.

At the price point which they were planning to sell it, it would have been the same price as most netbooks. Since it caters to a similar audience ("casual" computer users), it is possible that if it had launched, it would have been popular.

Unlikely, but possible.

The only reason the CrunchPad mattered was because it gave TechCrunch and CrunchGear something to write about.

There are already tablets available which have the feature set the CrunchPad would have, below the price point they were trying to hit (i.e. http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.31523 )...

That doesn't have the same feature set at all. It's a 7'' screen.

I must be dyslexic. Whenever I see a post titled "Why X Matters," I can't help reading "X doesn't matter."

I know the tablet PC is like the dream device of the future, but do people really think these things will be useful?

I can think of only couple niche uses:

- replacing a notebook for people who like to sketch ideas

- replacing a doctor's clipboard

- doubling as a wacom tablet (cintiq) for designers

A touchscreen PC with no keyboard is extremely limited in utility and ergonomically awkward at best. We're already carrying around android/iPhone devices and slim, lightweight laptops--what does a tablet PC add to that mix?

Unless a company completely reinvents the idea of the tablet PC, I think these devices are destined for failure. Maybe Apple has something up their sleeve?

Probably not a market for us programmer types. But there's a huge segment of the population that just surfs youtube all day long. My dad just likes sitting in front of his computer watching crunchyroll, the only time he uses the keyboard is when he's doing his taxes

A touchscreen PC with no keyboard is extremely limited

I don't know about you, but when I browse the web, I actually don't type that much.

Mike Arrington was specifically referring to the need to browse the web from his couch. In browsing mode, you like to explore and click. Type? Not so much.

And intensive use of my iPhone has shown me that the screen is just a bit too small to seriously browse the web for more than 10 minutes at a time.

So yes, there might be a market there.

Sure, while browsing the web, you explore and click most of the time, but there are plenty of instances when you need to type: a query into google or a url into the address bar, logging in to websites, commenting on a blog post, responding to an email. These things will have people reaching for their laptops in no time. Even if these are specifically for browsing the web from the couch, why not just use a laptop? They even have built in stands (the keyboard) so that your arms don't get tired holding them up.

Also, I'd imagine that typing on a touchscreen tablet PC is considerably more cumbersome than on an iPhone, since you'd only have one hand available.

Lack of a physical keyboard seemed like a dealbreaker on the iPhone too - but it wasn't. You can't touch type with an on-screen keyboard, but it's more than serviceable.

It would behoove the New York Times, for example, to build something like the CrunchPad for consumption of the newspaper. They won’t do it because it is seemingly off-mission.

Umm, I seem to recall seeing a really interesting video a while back of a blogger visiting the NYT's tech arm - and being shown their work on small format devices and "digital paper". So I think he's dead off there.

Anyway. It's kind of hard to write commentary like this - because so far there is no real evidence that as advanced a device was ready to go at the (last) price point mentioned. The Crunchpad is an exercise in poor marketing and poor management. None of the initial promises ($200, open source design etc.) were met in the end. There were months of silence about the device. Very few images and demonstrations of ongoing work (apart from the same artfully posed renderings).

To be utterly honest I frankly don't believe they had the product they say they did at the stage they claimed.

Ultimately though whatever stage they were this product never made it from the "TC office" to the shelves. It's currently a complete failure from any perspective.

It would have mattered for a week, maybe two.

Then it would be one cool coaster. I could probably set 3 or 4 beers on the thing.

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