Another Internet Appliance Dies

pescatello writes "Here's a CNET story describing the disappearance of the internet appliances from the market. The latest is the AOL/Gateway/Transmeta Internet Appliance. While it won Comdex's Best in Show in 2000, it hasn't been pushed by either AOL or Gateway, and is now unavailable anywhere. " Meanwhile, my Audrey came in yesterday.

Comments

PCs are internet appliances anyway

[MosesJones]

$400 or less gets you a PC that can do everything you want on the internet, and has the advantage of a hard-disk. All of this internet appliance stuff seemed to miss that point. The idea that you had a $200 box that required a $40,000 box at the other end to act as its brain seemed to be... well brain dead.

The internet is just one reason that people buy a PC, playing games, editing documents, scanning in your photos are all common reasons that people get a PC. Internet appliances couldn't do these things as well as a PC and so deserved their fate. Bad business idea, bad tech idea. Remember X Servers ? They made sense when a Unix box was $20,000 and you could see the reduction in cost, but with internet appliances you would have to sell a huge number of boxes to cover the costs of the backend servers.

Then there are the really stupid ideas... an internet appliance which is basically just a browser, a standalone browser and email client. Something that is cheap and doesn't require a backend server, but does bugger all, and does it worse than a PC. BushTV in the UK is an example of that, and several of these other elements are good examples of abject failure of brains (I know I worked for a company that had such a stupid idea, I worked on abstract software for STBs, they decided to spend $3m on building a box... went bust).

Internet appliances will succeed... when they are appliances. A cooker which connects to food.com or whatever to get receipes, a fridge which connects to the supermarket to order replacement Red Bull, a phone which reads out your emails.

But not when it is a crap PC.

Market these things as supplementals

[dmorin]

I think the biggest failing of the internet appliance is that they're usually billed as "get this instead of a full blown machine." Several reasons cause that to not work: some people *want* a full machine, and are afraid that the appliance won't do task Q that they're absolutely going to need (even though on the PC they never do it), some people *want* to have the freedom to choose their internet service independently of their device (people like to buy a PC first, and then buy a service, not be told "Hey, by buying this appliance you're committing yourself to a three year contract!"), and lastly, the damned price point. Like another poster said, Audrey rocks, but not for $500.

But you know what internet appliances can do? They can be supplemental to your own PC. How about a device that allows me to check my mail from the TV by using my existing connection? Or remote control my PC to start printing something, so that I can go upstairs later and just pick it up? How about a touch screen device that I have right on the table in the front hallway that can rapidly pull up a traffic or weather channel before I head out the door on the way to work (something I plan to make my Audrey do)? I don't want to surf on my tv or my touch panel. I have specific types of information that I want, and if I can find a supplemental device that will deliver those things to me quickly wherever I happen to be, then I'm gonna be all over it.

No crystal balls

[fajoli]

Reading some of the comments about the "obvious" failure of these internet appliances makes me think many slashdot readers have crystal balls. Many of these companies banked on broadband access to the internet to be commonplace within the time frame of their business plans.

If every house has a T1 line to it, an internet appliance makes a lot of sense for the average consumer. The extra network traffic wouldn't slowdown average applications since the bandwidth is there for it.

And it makes sense to have a central computer requiring zero administrative work by Joe Public. Their appliance would just work with the latest and greatest software. For the those wearing linux-colored glasses, imagine having your computer always running the latest and greatest distribution with no work or compatibility headaches on your end.

The real failure of the internet appliances can be blamed on communication companies that couldn't find a way to make broadband a reality fast enough. With the recent failures of DSL and wireless internet providers, it seems that not only has the crop withered, ie. the appliances, but the farm isn't worth keeping either!

Looking at my personal crystal ball, if the phone companies, cable companies, et al. get their act together and provide broadband access to substantially more customers at reasonable rates, internet appliances will be back.

Right idea, wrong partner.

[Ami Ganguli]

If you made one of these out of a PlayStation it would sell like hotcakes:

• Runs PlayStation 2 games
• Plays DVDs
• Does e-mail, surfs web, etc.
• Comes with one year of AOL
• Monitor is optional - works fine with a TV but at lower resolution
• Expandible w. hard drive so it can run Linux and OpenOffice (or "AOLOffice" maybe?)

It's just what Sony and AOL both need to fight Microsoft. I wouldn't use it myself, but I'd definately buy one for my mother so we could finally communicate by e-mail instead of running up phone bills.

Back to previous rant

[King Of Chat]

Maybe, one of the reasons is that, as long as they keep adding more complicated stuff to web sites, it's never viable to produce a cheap (ie, all in hardware) web browsing device. (I did rant on this subject before.)

First it was frames (which fucked the Web TVs), then all this layers, DHTML crap. What next?

If the stuff is cheap and in hardware then upgrading your browser or downloading this week's plugin is not really an option.

I bet that lots of companies could produce a cheap, simple browsing device - providing all you wanted to browse was /. and Need To Know.

Does anyone else want to join a Keep Websites Simple/Kill All Graphic Designers movement?

What I want

[renehollan]

"We've learned a lot about what people want and what they don't want," Lund [Gateway spokesman] said.

O.K., Then why hasn't someone created the obvious (IMNSHO) appliance? Namely one that:

1. has an 10/100 (or even GigE) Ethernet interface;

2. can receive streamed audio and video and decode it to the appropriate outputs: analog stereo audio, S/P-DIF digital audio, Dolby AC-3 5.1 digital (possibly analog as well), composite video, S/Video, RGBHV and or SD/HD component video, 1394 transport of audio and video, as well as the ubiquitous CH3/4 RF modulater A/V; [obvously not all of these are required on all versions of the product, but some A/V streaming support is essential];

3. Provide a Web-like control interface for such remote sources, and possibly a complete browser.

Options might include multiple A/V inputs for existing local components (and the ubiquitous IR controller), along with local (or remote) HTML "interface pages" for providing a UI to control them; or even an embedded 10/100 Mb/s switch.

The idea is to try to (a) allow for A/V data to be retrieved from an existing home server, and (b) tie in all the other legacy devices you have (perhaps via some kind of outboard adapter). Current attempts at "universal controls" are clumsy at best.

I just got a new Sony 32" HDTV ready set, and HDTV satellite/terrestrial receiver. The set has multiple inputs, and the receiver can provide different resolution material on multiple outputs, but switching resolutions requires controlling BOTH the receiver output AND the set input. Alas, the only remote which does this is the receiver remote which lacks the fancy split picture and other TV controls. Yes, I could program a "universal remote", but it would lack the necesary buttons. Things like a Pronto help, but are a hack at best: I should just plug things together, maybe download a "driver" or "plug-in" of some kind to the device I described above, and it should "just work".

Now, you're all thinking, "1. Use a PC. 2. Do it under [GNU/]Linux. 3. GPL the code and release it". Well, fine, except: (a) PCs are ugly, (b) PCs are noisy. I haven't found one quiet enough to do the job in a living/family room setting.