

Where's the CrunchPad? - fromedome
http://www.businessinsider.com/wheres-the-crunchpad-2009-9

======
jsz0
It was apparent from day one that the economics of this device just didn't
jive. Large high resolution touch screen display assemblies are expensive.
There's no way around that. Even if this device was powered by a wad of used
chewing gum it would be hard to hit a $300, $400 or $500 price point. Let's
assume it's not powered by used chewing gum and speculate you need a CPU
capable of handling modern web technologies. I believe Flash support was
promised? Double, or triple your baseline CPU specs. Flash isn't getting any
skinnier as the years go on. So you have this wonderful device with a huge
touchscreen and a fast CPU that magically costs only $300, er $400. Great.

How's the battery life? Turns out good small form factor battery technology
isn't cheap. Unfortunately that big LCD touchscreen and fast CPU need lots of
power. Let's assume you want the battery to last at least 2 hours (which would
be on the low side of acceptable for a modern laptop) but you don't want the
device to be 2 inches thick. Maybe with a really good battery and some serious
power management tweaking you can get your 2-3 hours. (just don't watch a
flash video with your backlight turned above 50% or cut that figure down to
45-60m)

Don't forget industrial design. No one wants a 2" thick tablet so figure
almost everything in the device has to be carefully designed to fit into you
enclosure. Make sure it doesn't overheat. Make sure it gets good radio
reception. Make sure there isn't a design flaw that causes the battery cover
latch to break and fall off due to repetitive stress. Make sure you built it
out of durable plastic. It's probably going to be bumping around in people's
backpacks a lot. You might also want to include some boring stuff like
BlueTooth, 802.11 wifi, at least leave some space for a GSM/CDMA chip and
antennas. Probably wouldn't hurt to include some storage so you can run an OS.
Oh you need one of those too. Linux is a great starting point but there's
probably no off the shelf solution that is going to perfectly fit your
hardware. Expect to have at least a small team of developers working on it for
you.

So yeah, $300. Where's the pre-order link?

~~~
rbanffy
"So yeah, $300. Where's the pre-order link?"

<http://www.laptop.org> plus a $100 mark-up?

It's doable. The CPU doesn't have to be an x86 or have a huge amount of
memory. A small amount of flash memory also suffices instead of spinning
metal. It could all be mounted directly on the motherboard, reducing
manufacture costs and required components (no need for a SATA controller if
your flash is not connected through SATA). Linux runs fine on ARM. If we want
to get fancy, couple the touchscreen with a PixelQi LCD and you have an LCD
that works fine without backlight.

Heck... I would be delighted to help designing such animal. I want one badly.

------
jrockway
Turns out that designing a consumer electronics project from scratch isn't
quite as easy as writing about how Facebook has a "fax this photo" feature.

Also turns out that talking about what you want a project to be is easier than
making it so. Good lessons for everyone here.

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TomOfTTB
The only thing I'm really upset about here is the lack of communication. A new
product type made by a new company is going to be delayed. Especially when
you're dealing with hardware. It would be unreasonable not to expect a delay
or two.

But you shouldn't just disappear. Everything that was posted on TechCrunch
about this product seemed to be aimed at one goal: to get people invested in
the idea. Now that they've done that it's really bad form to just let several
deadlines pass with not even a word as to why nothing's happened.

I'm not saying reveal specs or anything but just a simple tweet would do.
"Hey, we've run into delays on the Crunchpad, expect announcement in November"
(or whatever)

------
Timothee
One thing I'm surprised about (or maybe annoyed actually) is how, with time,
the rumored Apple tablet has become something certain to compare other
products to. Even though nobody has ever seen one.

~~~
jm4
It's a page straight out of Microsoft's playbook. Microsoft pulled the same
shenanigans with Cairo and we're still hearing about how some of the features
promised back then (WinFS) are right around the corner. It's really not a bad
strategy at all. You assume very little risk by not having to actually produce
anything, chip away at any foothold a leader might establish and then release
your own incremental improvement if your competitor shows there's a viable
market.

~~~
TomOfTTB
In Apple's defense they haven't announced anything and I doubt the leaks we've
seen were planned by Apple (since they're all over the place in regards to
features). Microsoft would actually announce the product and then not deliver
when their competitors folded.

~~~
jm4
There's no need to defend Apple. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It may
annoy some people, but it's hard to argue its effectiveness. So-called leaks
are another good method. You get to see which ideas resonate with consumers
before investing in their development.

I remember a Joel article (at least I think it was Joel) about a slightly
similar concept. He talked about putting a link in a web application to some
feature that didn't exist yet. Then you would track the number of 404 hits on
the link to gauge interest.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I see what you're saying and I don't really disagree. I'm just not sure that's
what Apple's doing. The problem with Apple is many of their fans are so rabid
that they'll fall for even the most ridiculous leak. Steve Jobs says his
Toilet paper's scratchy and there will be fake Apple toilet paper leaks on the
Web by sundown. So it's hard to tell when Apple's actually leaking and when
it's just everyone going crazy.

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hipsterelitist
Any news surrounding the CrunchPad has to be taken as seriously as everything
else from Arrington's mouth, which is to say not very.

I'm surprised it has made it this far, but I doubt we'll see an actual product
in the near future, otherwise Arrington's hype machine would be in overdrive.

------
mcormier
Michael Arrington is a Mogul? Really?

------
cromulent
Apparently Nik Cubrilovic is sorting it all out for Arrington.

[http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/bootstrappr/soa/Duel-of-the-
fa...](http://www.zdnet.com.au/blogs/bootstrappr/soa/Duel-of-the-fates-
Atlassian-and-Omnidrive/0,2001092438,339297682,00.htm)

------
natemartin
I think they're finding out that coming out with a consumer electronics device
is a lot more involved than simply coming up with a list of features and
telling someone else to go build it.

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dan_the_welder
Tablets are awesome, it's just the 2000 dollar price point that kept them out
of the running.

------
huhtenberg
Perils of improper outsourcing ?

~~~
axod
Perils of believing there is a large market where there isn't one?

I love the Apple rumors also. "As reported somewhere else, someone said on his
blog he believes Apple is 'definitely' working on a tablet." Oh well, that
proves it then.

~~~
huhtenberg
I think the market _is_ there, but it may not be uninitiated so to say. Once
someone explains to people that they can now comfortably browse the Internet
while sitting on the john, the sales _will_ go exponential :-) But this is a
substantial marketing expense, so .. hmm .. perhaps crunchpad may be in the
right position after all. They have effectively reserved for themselves a
market niche of inexpensive tablets, and so they just need to sit tight for a
while and let Apple do the marketing. Once the tablet ball gets rolling, they
can introduce their stuff and capitalize on the pre-established "cheap tablet
pioneer" status.

Hmm .. so it may work after all. Weird :-)

~~~
axod
>> "at they can now comfortably browse the Internet while sitting on the john"

That's what a netbooks for, and better than a tablet, you can put it on your
_lap_ and have 2 hands free to operate it.

I use my Macbook on the toilet, in bed, on the sofa etc all the time and have
never thought "hey I wish this didn't have a keyboard, and I wish I had to
hold the screen with one hand and try to type one handed on the other on the
screen"

~~~
huhtenberg
Don't know about you, by my browsing of the Internet and reading of the PDFs
requires virtually no typing. Ideally I'd like to have a notebook with a
detachable touch display, and the tablet is as close as it gets to that.

~~~
smokinn
I want a tablet so that I can read a pdf on the metro on my way to work. Often
there are enough seats for everyone in the morning so I suppose a netbook
would work then but in the evening I'm usually standing so keeping something
on my lap wouldn't work. Holding a light tablet and scrolling down by sliding
a finger down the screen would be awesome though.

