Hugh Pickens writes "TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has been talking for a year about building a touch-screen tablet for Web surfing and now it appears that the CrunchPad is close to becoming a reality. 'We're going to make some really big announcements,' said Arrington, who predicted a prototype would be ready for unveiling by the end of July. The purpose of the CrunchPad will be very simple: surfing the Web. Turn it on and up comes a browser — 'an Internet consumption device,' for reading, checking e-mail or watching video. The CrunchPad will not have a hard drive or keyboard and photos of the latest prototype show a device with a 12 inch screen. 'The screen is now flush with the case and we've decreased the overall thickness to about 18 mm,' writes Arrington. 'The case will be aluminum, which is more expensive than plastic but is sturdier and lets us shave a little more off the overall thickness of the device.' The CrunchPad boots directly into the browser with a Linux-based operating system and a WebKit-based browser. A video of an earlier CrunchPad prototype in action shows a device which, unlike the iPhone, runs flash. 'The next time we talk about the CrunchPad publicly will be at a special press and user event in July in Silicon Valley,' writes Arrington. 'We're full on. These prototypes are real.'"
Then please add a strong (8\10 meters) IR interface.
It can then become my universal remote AND my (potato) couch web browser. Otherwise, I already found some solutions to browse from the couch (aka iphone)
An iphone for general browsing? You're kidding right? There is no way a device with a 3.5 inch display could be used for serious browsing. A quick lookup or banking transaction maybe, but if you're doing your daily browsing (news sites, research, what ever) you need more than a couple of five or six word lines at a time, and forget about serious posting. A remote replacement, yeah, general browser replacement, no way.
It works great for reading RSS feeds or flipping through Slashdot comments (before the redesign started putting them all over the place). I wouldn't want to use it all the time, but it works quite well for on-the-couch type stuff.
You're not going to be doing any "serious posting" with this thing either. It doesn't have a keyboard.
I've posted some relatively long comments [slashdot.org] from an iPhone, it's when you want to start linking to things the impractical aspects start to show thru.
An iphone[sic] for general browsing? You're kidding right? There is no way a device with a 3.5 inch display could be used for serious browsing.
You've clearly never used an iPhone. The 3.5" screen is very high resolution, so the text is quite sharp and readable at smaller sizes. Safari's ability to zoom the page (scaling everything, not just increasing the font size), its ability to zoom to specific sections of a web page, and the overall speed and smoothness of the multitouch interface makes it a very viable web browsing device.
Coupled with the fact that it's always with you (pocketable, which is not possible a larger display), and always connecte
"Browsing the web" also involves buying online. For this to be useful for many users, it needs a reasonably efficient means of basic text entry that is not some horrible onscreen keyboard. A small Bluetooth keypad/touchpad combo would be better.
I was thinking something like a slide out keyboard, like g1 phone style. A keyboard is really so much nicer than touch for entering data. In my book it is an essential requirement for serious web browsing and email but shouldn't get in the way or be there when you don't need it or you might as well just be holding a laptop.
As someone who uses the Ipod touch onscreen keyboard, and has huge gorilla hands, an onscreen keyboard on a 12" screen will be a piece of piss. Of all the criticisms of the Crunchpad, this is the one that baffles me the most.
Yes and no. Thumb typing works best in landscape mode, but not all apps provide that, so sometimes I do a one-handed, 2 to 3 fingered hunt and peck. I suspect that method would work best on the Crunchpad for me, although, with my hands, thumb typing would probably be quite feasible.
"Piece of piss" is Brit-speak for saying something is simple/easy to do. He's saying that operating a touch keyboard on a 12" screen would be very simple in comparison to typing on an iPhone.
I've got a 8.9" tablet-convertible netbook installed with Windows 7. Even with this relatively small screen, the built-in onscreen keyboard is really quite nice. While I can't easily touch-type on it, I can definitely "hunt-and-peck" with 2 hands. On a 12" screen I should be able to use all my fingers.
In a previous video of the Crunchpad, they used some clunky looking onscreen keyboard and I hope they switch to something better (like the Win7 one). A multi-touch screen will make it even better.
This thing is obviously designed to be your lounging-on-the-couch, don't-want-to-have-your-notebook-in-your-lap machine. Have we degenerated so far that any new device is useless if it doesn't allow us to buy stuff and that we're too lazy to get off the couch and walk over to our regular computers when we want to buy stuff?
Unfortunately Flash's video performance in Linux is awful, and I'm doubting the Crunchpad is going to be sporting a very fast processor, so I wouldn't hold out for full screen video. A video linked from the article shows it doing fullscreen flash video (not Flash's idea of HD either) and it looked like it was managing a few FPS.
Still, I'm quite tempted by one of these. I was considering getting a netbook for the livingroom / kitchen, or just to hand to my girlfriend when she wants to look something up onlin
Really? I've found that it's particularly inane when it's too easily two way. Publishing something should at a minimum involve getting off the couch or picking up and opening your notebook.
Dont' forget Flash support. I don't personally *like* Flash, but it's a pretty important part of the modern web. The fact that the iPhone lacks it (and don't give me any of Jobs' crap as to why; lower-spec ARM devices support it) could be a big deal in promoting this thing. Additionally, the larger (and presumably much higher-res) display should make a big difference... except it's too big for a pocket.
Yeah, they support it poorly. Jobs has a point.
I have two ARM-based devices (Archos 605, Nokia N810) which
With each new generation of hardware the geek seems determined to re-invent the web appliance.
Which no one wants and no one buys.
Not in the numbers which matter to WalMart.
The Kindle stores 1500 e-books for your off-line reading pleasure.
The Atom netbook running XP or Win 7 can play hundreds of MSDOS and Windows games - available as dirt-cheep downloads from places like Gog.com [gog.com] ["Good Old Games"]
With each new generation of hardware the geek seems determined to re-invent the web appliance.
Which no one wants and no one buys.
It's a challenging use case. For the form factor we're talking about, lacking a keyboard but being very thin, having limited proc, and being only marginaly cheaper than a netbook, the real competition in its market is paper. If this thing isn't as useful as paper, why bother getting this for someone to use when an actual nominal "computer" is only marginally more expensive.
I think it's clear that someday something like this will replace a lot of paper, not all of it, but lots of ephemera. I already use my knidle to read my screenplays, and that's already saved 500 sheets in the past 3 months. If something like the kindle had better searching and browsing, and could actually read HTML documents in the manner they were intended, I could be keeping phonebooks full of film codebooks and sound library stuff in their right now.
Something I've noticed with my iPhone, on the other hand, despite the fact that it's a little small to use properly as paper, is that it's extremely difficult to be browsing something on my computer, and then to continue my browsing session on the phone, or vice versus. The only way to do it is to email links to yourself, and that's a supreme pain.... Something I still think about from Minority Report were the larger pad-like storage devices they used to move files from one rig to another, like when Tom Cruise's assistant would look up a series of mugshots on one machine and bring them over to his. The assistant would collect the mugshots, drag them off his screen and ONTO the screen of the pad, as if the pad, by nature of touching the computer, were an extension of his monitor, and then he could take the pad, which had a display and could show everything it held, and carried it to the other computer. From there, the pad then became an extention on Anderton's monitor, and he could look at the material directly on the pad or drag it to his system, completing the loop. Why the fuck can't someone build an internet tablet that can do that? All that haptic stuff was cool, but for some reason, in my work, I'm constantly wishing I could take something I'm working on at this moment, drag it to a pad, and carry it somewhere, perhaps to move, perhaps just to work in-situ on the pad.
It's exceedingly clear that people want a computer which: A) Works better (fast, responsive, stable). B) Is simpler (UI & maintenance).
I'm not so sure.
There have been many attempts to make a go of an alternative UI. Sugar, The Simputer, and so on.
But the traditional school desk has been around at least since the 1890s - and I have a strong suspicion your great great-grandad would have found the desktop UI easy to understand and easy to learn.
His dad's "secretary" was most likely a great walnut cabinet w
I can buy a laptop that will do everything this does and MUCH MORE for like an additional $100. Seems like this device is a dead end niche minus the niche. Without a keyboard, how much email can you do ? Read but not reply ? While a virtual keyboard might work for a few keystrokes, a simple 2 paragraph email becomes torture using a non-existent KB.
I can buy a laptop that will do everything this does and MUCH MORE for like an additional $100.
A $400 laptop isn't one pound and a quarter inch thick (my estimate from the pictures). A $400 laptop can't be easily held like a clipboard. A $400 laptop doesn't have battery life nearly as long as this ought to have. And even if a laptop did manage to have one of these characteristics, it sure as Hell wouldn't have all three and still be $400!
Without a keyboard, how much email can you do ? Read but not reply ? W
Compared to my screen, my keyboard is awfully dirty. It's shiny with grime, even though I clean it about once month. I'm thinking if I had a touch screen, I'd have to wipe that screen clean about once an hour, at least.
For users like - Simple Jack - President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho - George W. Bush - Joe Sixpack - The drooling guy in the wheelchair. - Your baby that is still in the womb. - And even Flippy the chimp!
Nobody has to feel left out from the forums because he can't even enter some simple letters. The possibilities are endless!
With just one clickwheel, you can wheel all day long! Whooo! Wheeee! *lisping* It's so simple!
Company Boss (deep voice, huge pack of muscles, looks like a peasant in a suit):
Between waiting for the Pandora and the Crunchpad, I found a real tablet at BetaMacs - the Motion Computing M1300 with a USB keyboard for $310 including shipping (They no longer have any stock here at the time of this writing, unfortunately, but GainSaver still has a couple). The battery only lasts about two hours, but I can run a full Windows XP/Ubuntu installation with almost 640x480 x264 playback (stutters a bit during busy scenes).
Thanks for the concepts, Mike. If you had used a Cortex A8 with a 7 inch screen and slide-out keyboard, I might have had a niche for you in my gadgets collection. See you next time!
John Markoff in the NY-Times in March 2008: "Apple's multitouch technology began life not as a cellphone, but as a notepad-sized skunkworks project internally dubbed Safari Pad, run by Tim Bucher, then Apple's head of Macintosh hardware. To his credit, Mr. Jobs seized on the technology and morphed it into the iPhone. At Macworld, when I asked Mr. Jobs about the idea of an iPod Touch in a larger "Safari Pad" format, he snapped at me, "I can't talk about unannounced products.""
A dead-simple web tablet. That's like saying that the iPhone will be just a simple to use phone.
I believe the real appeal of the thing will be in the simplicity and elegance of its design, but also in its ability to do just about everything once one installs add-on apps to it. After all, it has a CPU and Linux - why woundn't one do other things on it?
Now if only it can eventually have a super low power display (like the Kindle, but color), so that we are finally free of the tyranny of being near an electric
The UI gestures on this thing are terrible. They're not at all obvious. I don't imaging anyone will be able to figure out how to bring up, say, text entry without being told. It's also unclear how some of the gestures (such as the upward swipe) are distinguished from scrolling.
Just stick an address bar and a few buttons in there, it'll make all of your user's lives easier. There's definitely room. Sacrificing usability for a "full-screen-web" aesthetic isn't a good idea.
So the incorporation of Crunchpad, Inc. and the mention of prototypes by the end of July are supposedly sourced from that "original" article, even though it makes no mention of either of those? Interesting...
Sort of. About 40 seconds into the
demo video [youtube.com] cited by the story, you see a so so virtual keyboard overlayed on top of a dimmed background.
It's a shame that the virtual keyboard is so small that the user must type with one finger. There's plenty of screen real estate there to have a very nice large (virtual) keyboard. (I imagine this single finger text input interface might be deliberate--e.g. multiple fingers touching the screen might confuse the touch-screen hardware?)
Wanna sell them like hot bread ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then please add a strong (8\10 meters) IR interface.
It can then become my universal remote AND my (potato) couch web browser.
Otherwise, I already found some solutions to browse from the couch (aka iphone)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Build an embedded system, hook to your LAN that serve an Remote Control Webpage...Emitting IR when command is received.
Re: (Score:2)
An embedded device with an IR transmitter..
I'm off to the patent office to file for protection on this! "Remote controller," I'll call it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
An iphone for general browsing? You're kidding right? There is no way a device with a 3.5 inch display could be used for serious browsing. A quick lookup or banking transaction maybe, but if you're doing your daily browsing (news sites, research, what ever) you need more than a couple of five or six word lines at a time, and forget about serious posting. A remote replacement, yeah, general browser replacement, no way.
Re: (Score:2)
It works great for reading RSS feeds or flipping through Slashdot comments (before the redesign started putting them all over the place). I wouldn't want to use it all the time, but it works quite well for on-the-couch type stuff.
You're not going to be doing any "serious posting" with this thing either. It doesn't have a keyboard.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
An iphone[sic] for general browsing? You're kidding right? There is no way a device with a 3.5 inch display could be used for serious browsing.
You've clearly never used an iPhone. The 3.5" screen is very high resolution, so the text is quite sharp and readable at smaller sizes. Safari's ability to zoom the page (scaling everything, not just increasing the font size), its ability to zoom to specific sections of a web page, and the overall speed and smoothness of the multitouch interface makes it a very viable web browsing device.
Coupled with the fact that it's always with you (pocketable, which is not possible a larger display), and always connecte
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The iPhone has a 480x320 resolution for a total of 153,600 pixels.
The N810 has 800x480 resolution for a total of 384,000 pixels.
So, yes, the N810 does indeed have more than double the resolution.
Obligatory... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a netbook and I don't see why anyone would possibly prefer a larger screen in a format that is easier to hold to something with a keyboard.
It needs some method of data entry (Score:2)
Re:It needs some method of data entry (Score:4, Insightful)
... so you would hold some small keyboard in your hand and your other hand could be holding the tablet? Sounds horrible.
Parent
Re:It needs some method of data entry (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Put a keyboard on the back which can be folded to the front, depending on the position you can use it as a pad or a netbook.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who uses the Ipod touch onscreen keyboard, and has huge gorilla hands, an onscreen keyboard on a 12" screen will be a piece of piss. Of all the criticisms of the Crunchpad, this is the one that baffles me the most.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It needs some method of data entry (Score:4, Informative)
"Piece of piss" is Brit-speak for saying something is simple/easy to do. He's saying that operating a touch keyboard on a 12" screen would be very simple in comparison to typing on an iPhone.
If you knew that, then my apologies.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've got a 8.9" tablet-convertible netbook installed with Windows 7.
Even with this relatively small screen, the built-in onscreen keyboard is really quite nice.
While I can't easily touch-type on it, I can definitely "hunt-and-peck" with 2 hands. On a 12" screen I should be able to use all my fingers.
In a previous video of the Crunchpad, they used some clunky looking onscreen keyboard and I hope they switch to something better (like the Win7 one).
A multi-touch screen will make it even better.
Re: (Score:2)
This thing is obviously designed to be your lounging-on-the-couch, don't-want-to-have-your-notebook-in-your-lap machine. Have we degenerated so far that any new device is useless if it doesn't allow us to buy stuff and that we're too lazy to get off the couch and walk over to our regular computers when we want to buy stuff?
Re: (Score:2)
Just stand in front of a mirror. And, er, learn to read miror writing or hack the screen driver to reverse the image.
CrunchPad (Score:4, Funny)
A $300 digital photo-frame that runs Firefox.
Sign me up.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately Flash's video performance in Linux is awful, and I'm doubting the Crunchpad is going to be sporting a very fast processor, so I wouldn't hold out for full screen video. A video linked from the article shows it doing fullscreen flash video (not Flash's idea of HD either) and it looked like it was managing a few FPS.
Still, I'm quite tempted by one of these. I was considering getting a netbook for the livingroom / kitchen, or just to hand to my girlfriend when she wants to look something up onlin
Web "Consumer" device (Score:5, Insightful)
Overall cool - iphone with big enough screen
But they really should focus on design of a virtual keyboard that is large and ergonomically laid out.
We have to avoid trending toward encouraging passive web surfers who are only "channel surfing"
just like the advertisers want you to.
The internet is way more interesting and useful when it is truely two-way, peer-to-peer.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Really? I've found that it's particularly inane when it's too easily two way. Publishing something should at a minimum involve getting off the couch or picking up and opening your notebook.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, they support it poorly. Jobs has a point.
I have two ARM-based devices (Archos 605, Nokia N810) which
Missing from the feature list (Score:2)
Once more around the block my friend (Score:4, Informative)
With each new generation of hardware the geek seems determined to re-invent the web appliance.
Which no one wants and no one buys.
Not in the numbers which matter to WalMart.
The Kindle stores 1500 e-books for your off-line reading pleasure.
The Atom netbook running XP or Win 7 can play hundreds of MSDOS and Windows games - available as dirt-cheep downloads from places like Gog.com [gog.com] ["Good Old Games"]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Once more around the block my friend (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a challenging use case. For the form factor we're talking about, lacking a keyboard but being very thin, having limited proc, and being only marginaly cheaper than a netbook, the real competition in its market is paper. If this thing isn't as useful as paper, why bother getting this for someone to use when an actual nominal "computer" is only marginally more expensive.
I think it's clear that someday something like this will replace a lot of paper, not all of it, but lots of ephemera. I already use my knidle to read my screenplays, and that's already saved 500 sheets in the past 3 months. If something like the kindle had better searching and browsing, and could actually read HTML documents in the manner they were intended, I could be keeping phonebooks full of film codebooks and sound library stuff in their right now.
Something I've noticed with my iPhone, on the other hand, despite the fact that it's a little small to use properly as paper, is that it's extremely difficult to be browsing something on my computer, and then to continue my browsing session on the phone, or vice versus. The only way to do it is to email links to yourself, and that's a supreme pain.... Something I still think about from Minority Report were the larger pad-like storage devices they used to move files from one rig to another, like when Tom Cruise's assistant would look up a series of mugshots on one machine and bring them over to his. The assistant would collect the mugshots, drag them off his screen and ONTO the screen of the pad, as if the pad, by nature of touching the computer, were an extension of his monitor, and then he could take the pad, which had a display and could show everything it held, and carried it to the other computer. From there, the pad then became an extention on Anderton's monitor, and he could look at the material directly on the pad or drag it to his system, completing the loop. Why the fuck can't someone build an internet tablet that can do that? All that haptic stuff was cool, but for some reason, in my work, I'm constantly wishing I could take something I'm working on at this moment, drag it to a pad, and carry it somewhere, perhaps to move, perhaps just to work in-situ on the pad.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
It's exceedingly clear that people want a computer which:
A) Works better (fast, responsive, stable).
B) Is simpler (UI & maintenance).
You could have said the same thing about MP3 players, before the iPod came along.
Re: (Score:2)
It's exceedingly clear that people want a computer which:
A) Works better (fast, responsive, stable).
B) Is simpler (UI & maintenance).
I'm not so sure.
There have been many attempts to make a go of an alternative UI. Sugar, The Simputer, and so on.
But the traditional school desk has been around at least since the 1890s - and I have a strong suspicion your great great-grandad would have found the desktop UI easy to understand and easy to learn.
His dad's "secretary" was most likely a great walnut cabinet w
Re: (Score:2)
Netbooks and 'pads' are different markets.
Lets hope they don't price themselves out of their target market.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This sucker's a portable smart screen big enough for two people to view comfortably.
If you can't think of a dozen awesome uses for this, you must consume very little media (or lots of it, but all alone)
What is the need ??? (Score:2)
I can buy a laptop that will do everything this does and MUCH MORE for like an additional $100. Seems like this device is a dead end niche minus the niche. Without a keyboard, how much email can you do ? Read but not reply ? While a virtual keyboard might work for a few keystrokes, a simple 2 paragraph email becomes torture using a non-existent KB.
Re: (Score:2)
A $400 laptop isn't one pound and a quarter inch thick (my estimate from the pictures). A $400 laptop can't be easily held like a clipboard. A $400 laptop doesn't have battery life nearly as long as this ought to have. And even if a laptop did manage to have one of these characteristics, it sure as Hell wouldn't have all three and still be $400!
Re: (Score:2)
A $250 netbook creams this at having a 12" screen? I don't think so!
Android? (Score:2)
Sounds like a natural for http://www.android.com/ [android.com]
do touch screens need wind shield wipers? (Score:2)
Compared to my screen, my keyboard is awfully dirty. It's shiny with grime, even though I clean it about once month. I'm thinking if I had a touch screen, I'd have to wipe that screen clean about once an hour, at least.
Either that, or stop licking my fingers.
Dead simple products, for dead simple people! (Score:2)
For users like
- Simple Jack
- President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho
- George W. Bush
- Joe Sixpack
- The drooling guy in the wheelchair.
- Your baby that is still in the womb.
- And even Flippy the chimp!
Nobody has to feel left out from the forums because he can't even enter some simple letters. The possibilities are endless!
With just one clickwheel, you can wheel all day long! Whooo! Wheeee! *lisping* It's so simple!
Company Boss (deep voice, huge pack of muscles, looks like a peasant in a suit):
I'd buy it if.. (Score:2, Funny)
it was double the price and had an apple logo on it.
Got Impatient and Got Myself a Real Tablet (Score:3)
Between waiting for the Pandora and the Crunchpad, I found a real tablet at BetaMacs - the Motion Computing M1300 with a USB keyboard for $310 including shipping (They no longer have any stock here at the time of this writing, unfortunately, but GainSaver still has a couple). The battery only lasts about two hours, but I can run a full Windows XP/Ubuntu installation with almost 640x480 x264 playback (stutters a bit during busy scenes).
Thanks for the concepts, Mike. If you had used a Cortex A8 with a 7 inch screen and slide-out keyboard, I might have had a niche for you in my gadgets collection. See you next time!
Apple's Safari Pad (Score:2)
John Markoff in the NY-Times in March 2008:
"Apple's multitouch technology began life not as a cellphone, but as a notepad-sized skunkworks project internally dubbed Safari Pad, run by Tim Bucher, then Apple's head of Macintosh hardware. To his credit, Mr. Jobs seized on the technology and morphed it into the iPhone.
At Macworld, when I asked Mr. Jobs about the idea of an iPod Touch in a larger "Safari Pad" format, he snapped at me, "I can't talk about unannounced products.""
Originally at http://bits.blogs.ny [nytimes.com]
Yeah, and the iPhone is just a phone... (Score:2)
A dead-simple web tablet. That's like saying that the iPhone will be just a simple to use phone.
I believe the real appeal of the thing will be in the simplicity and elegance of its design, but also in its ability to do just about everything once one installs add-on apps to it. After all, it has a CPU and Linux - why woundn't one do other things on it?
Now if only it can eventually have a super low power display (like the Kindle, but color), so that we are finally free of the tyranny of being near an electric
Horrible UI (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Someone apparently can't tell the difference between June and July.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The newspaper articles/blogs are from July (one is even from 2 days in the future), but the TechCrunch article (arguably the 'original') is from June.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Will it have a virtual keyboard though?
Sort of. About 40 seconds into the demo video [youtube.com] cited by the story, you see a so so virtual keyboard overlayed on top of a dimmed background.
It's a shame that the virtual keyboard is so small that the user must type with one finger. There's plenty of screen real estate there to have a very nice large (virtual) keyboard. (I imagine this single finger text input interface might be deliberate--e.g. multiple fingers touching the screen might confuse the touch-screen hardware?)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It runs Linux and I find it difficult to believe that they are making any serious attempt to "lock it down."
If you can't access at least a shell prompt out of the box, I'm sure someone will post a youtube how-to video within 5 minutes of release.