

Finally, A JooJoo Update: VentureBeat Interview - kloncks
http://venturebeat.com/2010/02/01/joojoo-crunchpad-tablet/

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kloncks
Interesting tidbits:

\- When asked about how many pre-orders they got, Chandra refused to release
numbers, which is fine. I, along with many others, have a feeling it’s not
much, even if it apparently “exceeded [FusionGarage's] expectations”

\- The article’s title seems a bit deceptive. Or perhaps I missed something.
The title, “JooJoo CEO pledges to ship this month, claims deal with leading
phone maker”, really seemed to suggest they were in talks with a major phone
maker for some 3G connection. In the interview, however, all Chandra does is
“not rule out” the possibility of 3G.

\- On having an App Store, Chandra strongly said No, citing his belief that
with the Internet, no one needs Apps. Moreover, he also suggested that iPhone
Apps are merely copies of what’s available online. I will not criticize that,
because honestly I wouldn’t know where to start but it sure does sound like a
cop-out to me especially with the amount of success behind the iPhone that can
be directly attributed to the 140,000+ applications available on the device.

If the JooJoo did offer an App Store clone anyways, would developers really
jump on? Probably not. So, even though this is a clear cop-out, even if he had
major plans for an JooJoo Apps, it’s highly unlikely he could get that off the
ground. I suppose it’s easier to just bash the iPhone App Store and claim the
Internet as your savior.

\- Lastly, when asked about perhaps the most interesting question – what
differentiates the JooJoo from the iPad or why the JooJoo is better – Chandra
cited two things: bigger size and flash.

Two things. First, it’s tough seeing an educated critic asking for an
unstable, albeit very popular, web application known for causing a horrendous
amount of system crashes. I still don’t understand why no Flash on the iPhone
is a problem. Adobe has to wake up and fix things; otherwise, HTML5 will very
soon replace it. Good riddance. Now, regarding the bigger size. Besides the
fact that it seems very immature to use ‘bigger size’ as your top feature,
it’s also interesting to me just how dismal it makes their situation look.
“What’s your top feature over the iPad?” “Well, we’re, like, an inch bigger.”

~~~
elblanco
> I still don’t understand why no Flash on the iPhone is a problem.

Really? a full 50% of my browsing nowadays uses something with flash in it.
(as I sit here typing while watching my hulu queue).

> HTML5 will very soon replace it. Good riddance.

We are in most definite agreement here. I'm not saying flash is great or
anything, but not supporting flash in someway is like not supporting .jpg
files. Heck, even my gp2x wiz ( <http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-
gaming/bfc7/> ) supports a little bit of flash.

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ZeroGravitas
Has anyone actually used Flash on a touchscreen, whether tablet or phone
sized? It would appear that there would be major obstacles (e.g. how do you
hover the "mouse" over something or get keyboard input for games) but I've
never heard anyone complain about it so either it all just works beautifully
or it simply doesn't exist yet.

~~~
iron_ball
It's easy to program a Flash app to work with a touchscreen -- just limit your
interactions to mouseDown, drag, mouseUp. But if an existing app relies on
hover or keyboard, I can't see how you'd go about using it. Maybe if the
screen were extremely sensitive, it could work like a Wacom: light contact
"places" the mouse, heavier contact causes a mouseDown event. But that's not
in the current technology.

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elblanco
I think everybody was taken aback by the relatively low price of the
iPad...when the pricing for this was set, I think lots of people were amazed
it could be so cheap...now it seems a bit high in comparison.

The difference a day makes.

~~~
raganwald
Apple has established itself as a premium brand. I would hate to go head to
head with them at a comparable price... People are going to think that the
Apple is a Lexus and you are a Chevrolet unless you have a couple of billion
dollars and a decade to invest in advertising your brand.

That being said, I will say I like the idea of a 16:9 tablet. I owned a
Toshiba Portegé TabletPC and loved web browsing on it. It never crossed my
mind to try to watch a movie on it. But I now have almost all of my DVDs
legally ripped and do watch things from time to time in bed or on a plane.

