

Hands on with the JooJoo (nee CrunchPad) - AndrewDucker
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/hands-on-joojoo-crunchpad/all/1

======
mahmud
_JooJoo runs a custom OS created by Fusion Garage, which means it’s unlikely
to have the cool apps from independent developers that made the iPhone a hit
or juiced the PC ecosystem._

How custom is it if it runs Flash? Gnash is not powerful enough to recompile
across platforms and play video off of Hulu. And I don't think they have the
binary-translation technology to convert the flash-player binary, or even
flash swf/flv files, to their own binary format (if they did, they wouldn't be
in the gadget manufacturing business; they would be entitled to double digits
in Adobe's shares/market-share.)

So, Wired, what Linux or Windows Mobile based OS is JooJoo really running? You
couldn't get your hands on the device just long enough to find out? Tried
about:config or similar tricks? How about finger-printing the hell out of it
with nmap until you arrive at a ballpark?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
They've publicly stated it's "unix-based" or some such nonsense, so it's
linux.

~~~
veemjeem
freebsd can also run flash pretty well too, so it might be bsd based too... I
haven't tried hulu on my system yet, but most flash sites work pretty well so
I'd be surprised if hulu doesn't work.

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daveungerer
_But it only has Wi-Fi connectivity. That means unless you are in a hotspot
with blazing fast Wi-Fi, the tablet can seem terribly slow._

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the average Wi-Fi is much faster than 3G or
Wimax. Unless the reviewer is suggesting that someone would want to plug a
tablet into a wired LAN.

~~~
jrnkntl
Watching streaming HD video doesn't go that well with a slow internet
connection through Wifi, I guess that's what the author is aiming for.

~~~
jason_tko
With the new 802.11N WiFi protocol, HD streaming works great on a speedy
internet connection.

------
fiaz
_JooJoo is an interesting gadget only if you buy into the premise of a
completely web-oriented lifestyle. That means using just the internet and what
it offers. There’s no way to save documents locally or access .pdf files or
create documents and presentations locally._

I'm getting bored of this and speculation by journalists that this device
won't sell for the going price. Does anybody remember how many units of the
first Kindle sold? It really feels as though the "journalistic" opinions about
this device have more to do with siding with Arrington than actually talking
about the merits of this accomplishment.

~~~
zimbabwe
Wait, what does the Kindle have to do with anything? I remember journalists
loving the Kindle when it came out. There was a slight backlash months after
the original sold out, but it's been very positively received by everybody but
Hacker News, which still thinks Amazon is Orwellian because let's face it,
we're not quite as bright as we think we are.

Are you saying JooJoo is interesting if you _don't_ buy into the completely
web-oriented whatever? Because they're not saying _It won't sell for this
price_ in your quote. They're just saying, unless your goal is to use the
Internet, this isn't what you want.

~~~
fiaz
_I remember journalists loving the Kindle when it came out._

Exactly my point. Throw in the fact that Google is putting all of their effort
into relying fully on the web/cloud, I would think that the journalists would
love this device too.

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buymorechuck
From watching videos of JooJoo, UI latency and scrolling performance are quite
terrible.

It seems that rendering is done on the CPU, when it should've been on a GPU
accelerated compositor or tiled surface manager.

That would probably save significant battery life (which we haven't heard
anything about) and really kick ass at performance.

SoC GPU + CPU combos are fairly inexpensive parts, but even the first gen
iPhone PowerVR MBX lite would've had reasonable performance.

More ranting on my blog: <http://www.satine.org/archives/2009/12/08/gpu-my-
joojoo/>

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jason_tko
I get the feeling that somewhere in Cupertino, a room full of Apple engineers
are giggling.

~~~
fiaz
Yes, how dare a company run by an Indian CEO put out such a remarkable
device...they should be giggling their heads off.

EDIT: Based on the immediate downvotes I've received I would like to know:
_why_ should Apple engineers be giggling? Honest question.

~~~
sounddust
You got downvoted because you baselessly accused the parent poster of being
racist in his comment. If you had left out that comment and just asked the
question, you would have likely been upvoted instead.

Apple engineers might be laughing because their prototype tablet - which they
have likely been working on for a year - is probably far beyond the the JooJoo
pad in innovation. The JooJoo pad is not bad, but it's also not particularly
innovative (an iPod Touch resized to 10" would already be a better product,
just to give an example).

Also, in order for the JooJoo pad to succeed, it needs strong marketing. Apple
is the master of marketing, and the team behind the JooJoo pad abandoned
someone who would have been an effective marketer and buzz-generator (and who
gave it a great name - the CrunchPad). No matter what happened between Fusion
Garage and Arrington, FG should have hired a competent marketing team to come
up with a name and strategy for promoting the device.

~~~
fiaz
The parent comment in itself was vague enough to be interpreted as such. I'd
rather have an open discussion about such issues instead of covering them up
as though they are not there.

I should also point out that the key word in your comment is _might_. I can
just as easily say that somebody _might_ be justified in being offended by the
parent comment.

~~~
mahmud
Do you know how many Apple engineers and product managers are Indians? Silicon
valley is not the place you wanna play the race card. Desi-coders are a fact
of life.

~~~
fiaz
Which is why I doubt somebody at Apple would be giggling, regardless of what
they have up their sleeve. Hence my initial comment and follow up question.

To be clear: the parent comment is vague enough to be interpreted as
offensive.

~~~
sounddust
_the parent comment is vague enough to be interpreted as offensive._

This is false. There is absolutely _nothing_ in the parent comment that could
reasonably be interpreted as racist/offensive toward Indians.

I assume you're fixated on the "Cupertino" part of the sentence, but this part
of his comment is a completely normal construct of English to creatively refer
to a person or organization. Another example of this would be if Microsoft
lost a patent suit against a European company and someone said:

"Somewhere in Redmond, a chair is being flung against a wall.".

The above quote would have nothing to do with racism or "US vs. Europe". It
would be a creative way to refer to Microsoft, specifically to Steve Ballmer
who is rumored to have thrown a chair across the room after receiving some bad
news.

Your interpretation of the possibility of the comment being offensive is
simply wrong, and it's unacceptable to accuse someone of racism based on an
incorrect interpretation of a comment which you weren't even sure about. At
the very least, you should have politely asked the poster to clarify.

~~~
fiaz
Linguistically there is no reference in the parent comment to _what_ the Apple
engineers should be giggling at; also, the word _giggling_ can be interpreted
as ridicule. Based on my life experiences in seeing how "non-Indians" have
dealt with off-shore development teams in India, I think my interpretation is
perfectly reasonable. I know these are isolated cases and not the norm in the
IT world, but the parent comment in itself is fairly non-representative of HN.

~~~
sounddust
"Giggling" _does_ refer to ridicule in this comment. But why would you assume
that the ridicule refers to the race of the people involved rather than the
actual product? There is no basis for coming up with that conclusion.

I'm sorry that you have witnessed mistreatment against Indians by non-Indians
in the past, but that does not give you the right to baselessly slander the
reputation of a stranger because you _personally_ misinterpreted what they
said.

You don't know anything about the original poster; he could be Indian (or have
partial Indian ancestry) for all you know. He might have been the leader of a
campaign for equal treatment of off-shore development workers. You don't know
him, and here you are accusing him of racism because you witnessed some _other
people_ being racist to Indians in the past. I don't know what else I could
say to you to explain why this is wrong, so I'll just stop here.

~~~
jason_tko
Your analysis is 100% correct.

I regularly work with Indians, and have plenty of Indian friends, and co-
incidentally love Indian food. Race did not even enter my mind upon writing my
original comment.

------
jlgosse
The biggest issue for this device is the fact that it is supposed to be used
as a web browsing device only - yet it only supports wi-fi. I think that is a
huge oversight.

How will one use this anywhere if you can't connect to a 3G network?

------
kenshi
The pictures of said device look nice, but $500 for a web only tablet seems a
bit steep. But then, perhaps there is a market for such a device - for people
who only use web apps and want something convenient to surf the web on.

In some ways I think it is a rival to the litl netbook. And of course, with
Apple's reputation and all the rumours of an Apple tablet they are going to
have to face a market which will include a lot of people who are just going to
wait and see what Apple release.

Still its nice to see a new company producing some hardware. Will be
interesting to see how they do.

------
DrJokepu
I would actually consider buying one if it could run a proper OS (e.g. proper
Windows or proper Linux). I have been looking for a device for ages I could
use for reading e-books in bed before sleep (notebooks are too "heavyweight"
for that and I think that the Kindle and other e-book reader hardware are way
too underpowered and painful to use).

This one looks like it has just the right dimensions and a responsive iPhone-
like touchscreen would make it really easy to use for reading.

~~~
rajasaur
Wouldnt it be possible to do the same through an iPod or iPod Touch? Given
that the joojoo has no keyboard or apps, there isnt much of an advantage
except for the screen dimensions.

~~~
DrJokepu
Well I've got a G1 which is very similar in this respect to the iPhone
(although the touchscreen is a bit less responsive and the config is slower)
and in my experience it's quite a painful experience to read books on it. The
screen is very small and generally it isn't as much fun as reading a dead tree
book. Also, it can't read Microsoft Reader .lit files (which is a very common
e-book format) so I would prefer something Windows based.

~~~
nwatson
i use my G1 to read news and articles everywhere ... when awake in the middle
of the night, while eating lunch, at a coffee shop, etc. You can't beat it for
convenience, I suppose in a few years when my eyesight gets worse I'll need to
rethink this.

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eli
So how are they not screwed once the first Chrome tablet comes out?

It's basically the same thing, but Chrome OS is open source and has the weight
of a massive company behind it.

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chanux
I expect some branding issues.

