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simPC - Your Grandparents' New Computer?
trs9000 writes "The Register has a blurb about simPC, an "idiot-proof" PC set to debut in May of this year. It seems like a step towards a thin-client world, though it is aimed primarily at the elderly. For about $400 for the box and a $13-per-month subscription, users get a box with a propietary OS and software preinstalled for online banking, spam filtering, virus detection and online storage. What users don't get is the ability to install software, burn CDs or download large files. Initial release is only for the Netherlands and Belgium."
You insenstive clod!
And isn't this the name of that Indian computer?
Nothing is idiot-proof to a sufficiently talented idiot... :)
How soon we forget: webtv, iopener, audrey etc.
It's not easy selling computers to people who don't buy computers. WebTV was a lot cheaper than this, and sold very poorly, not because it wasn't a good value but because it was targeted
at people who don't buy this stuff! At $400 + $13/mo, you not only have the "I'm just not interested" factor, but also the "are you kidding, I can't afford that!" factor.
I just don't understand why people keep trying these "basically it's a crippled PC" business models. It's been proven so many times that even with a decent product and huge marketing budget, they just don't sell.
On related note, I'd like to share a little secret about the Philips Sonicare toothbrush. Now, anyone who's used the Sonicare knows that this thing really does a fantastic job on teeth and gums. It's got some seriously powerful, high frequency action. Well, it turns out that the slender angled neck is perfect not only for reaching those tricky back molars, but is also perfectly suited for navigating the details of the inner labia. WARNING: do not stampede for the clitoris! The Sonicare is just too powerful to go there without careful warming up. You should probably also steer clear of the bristly side at first. I strongly recommend enabling the 14-day EasyStart feature, which gradually ramps up
the power as she becomes comfortable with it. Good luck!
To me, this is hardly what my Grandparents need. What happens if the company goes under? Stuck with a useless pc? For roughly the same price, I would much rather them get a mac mini...would mean a whole lot less "Why can't I do this...?" type phone calls headed in my direction.
For $500 and $8.33 a month, you could get a Mac mini and do the same thing, with less viruses and spyware.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Haven't we seen these before? iOpener anyone?
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
So you pay for something which can't do most the things we find useful in a PC? Then we have to pay by the month? Hey lets just install Windows starter edition too, that way we'll have a PC which can't do anything.
I bet this is dead within 6 months because it's so stupid.
I like muppets.
"...boy, you can buy yourself one of them newfangledy calculatin' machines or you can sell a pig in a poke to a one-eyed man with a two-eyed mule. And if that don't set your pears to picklin' then I'm not worth a squirt of spit into an Alabama wind. Yep, that's what I'm sayin'."
Okay, so Granny drank a hell of a lot...
Most business plans are great if they can be made to work.
With a $200 to $300 wholesale cost, they can make their money back in a year on a unit, not counting what they make with targetted advertising on their captive audience.
Lock in grandma to a 2 year contract and you're set!
Bundle in a few Tivo-esque features... they are already set for VOIP... might be the killer app(s) for the grandparents!
Agile Artisans
The unit can't burn CD's or do video editing.
In my experience this is precisely what elderly people want to do with their PC's.
I think a configured Mac mini with it's stable, easy to use operating system hooked up to a DSL router (ie it holds the connection for you - not the computer) is probably just as easy to use and has more of the stuff that grandparents actually want to do.
As a side note, the proprietry OS scares me. What happens when the company goes under and there's something wrong that prevents the OS from loading (like hardware failure). Say bye-bye to the last 5 years of photos and letters from the grandkids.
"And then I visited Wikipedia
Mac mini + simple Finder.
I dunno about updates, though. I know you could use Apple Remote Desktop/VNC, but it'd be nice if I could patch Granny's Mac over SSH.
Not sure if your trying to be funny or not, but i think he was talking about the simPC, not the toothbrush...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It runs on a proprietary OS; and to prevent problems, users won't be able to install software, download big files, burn CDs or DVDs or edit videos.
I just purchased an old Pentium Pro, MS-DOS box for $10 and it has all these features. Looks like my system was just ahead of its time.
It's kind of amusing, given the plethora of "well, duh, I'd get a Mac Mini" comments, to speculate what the response would have been like two days ago or, more importantly, what the people involved with this product were saying yesterday when Jobs unveiled it. Poor schmucks.
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Mostly Harmless
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Monitor extra. Keyboard extra. Mouse extra. That's another $200 or so. Much more if you buy an Apple display. The Apple Mini comes in somewhere around $700.
2) Do not eat simPC.
Simple interface. Mail program filters out most all the spam you get. No need for worrying about getting a virus.
Why would I want a PC if the Mac mini is available?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
It runs BSD.
What are the % of geeks that had to go consult Wiki to find out what a clitoris of labia are?
mini Mac. No viruses. No spyware. Higher security. Let them download everything they want and enjoy the full multimedia experience with no restrictions.
Easier to use. As close to trouble-free as a computer can be, for the user and the tech support (you, their son or grandson).
Grandma still has spam and phishing to worry about, but what platform doesn't?
I've been on the "Buy Grandma a Macintosh" campaign for years. And now it makes more sense than ever.
Actually they're only buying a computer because you never write to them. Plus they would like to keep in touch with all their friends who haven't died yet.
So what would a computer designed for the elderly with money be like?
Do you think that they went out and actually asked anyone over 70 years old what they would want in a computer? Not likely. Probably just had a few focus groups of five or six 20-somethings with coffee and doughnuts throwing stupid suggestions at each other. Like "Let's make it real easy to use!" (meaning: "Let's make it real easy to buy!").
If I were really old then my body would be not functioning well, and I would not be happy about it. So what would I want in a computer?
Well, since no young people like to live the old and the middle aged people are too busy and have enough money to get away from them, the elderly tend to live alone and lonely. They have fragile bones and if they fall down they tend to stay down a lot longer than they would forty years ago.
So how about a PC with a microphone that will dial (the number that connects any telephone line to the authorities in the USA) and pre-recorded message requesting help to come to their address when they yell a specific phrase from the floor? A phrase like "Help! I've fallen and I can't move!". Or, "Help! I'm having a heart attack".
How about if the PC could interface with the medical equipment that they have bought with your inheritance money? So they could just buy the sensor part and have this $400 PC do all the digital work that all expensive microprocessors inside each piece of expensive home medical equipment is now doing?
How about an autodialer for the phone so that they can just say "Mildred? Are you home?" at the PC and have the PC dial Mildred and act like a telephone instead of having painful arthritic fingers trying to stab at little buttons that they can't see anyway on a cheap plastic phone that doesn't work well because it's been dropped so many times because it's so hard for an old person to hold?
How about a good fast flatbed scanner interface so that they can put a paper or letter on the scanner surface and actually be able to read it on PC screen in big, big letters that can be seen with eighty-year-old eyes?
If you are seriously trying to make a PC that old people will buy, then make a PC that is seriously helpful to older people.
In the glory days of the dotcom boom, FreePC gave away 10,000 computers, free, nada, goose-egg. No shipping, no contracts, no obligations EXCEPT you had to run their advertising overlay when you were browsing the Web.
I know because I got one. I still couldn't believe it when the UPS man showed up with the boxes. It may be that there are VERY FEW things in life that are free, but this was one of them.
They were cheapie little Compaqs with a Cyrix M-II CPU but at least you could brag that the price/performance ratio was extraordinarily high. Actually, they ran fine, certainly good enough for browsing...especially after you wiped off the disk and put a fresh install of Windows on it. (My mom still uses that machine to this day.)
I just finished setting my wife's grandmother up with a Mac. We all chipped in and found her a 600Mhz Snow iMac (summer 2001 model). I got it used for $395, and the CRT monitor will let us move to an easier resolution as her eyes wind down.
We also have her grandson across the street, and by buying her an Airport Base Station, we were able to connect her to his hi-speed internet.
I think Simple Finder could work, but in her case I just made a little AppleScript that opens Mail, Safari, iPhoto, iTunes, and iChat (She has 640MB RAM so there's no problem). I just want to let her launch everything with one touch, let her sort using Expose, and then quit when she wants.
No virus worries. Simple machine w/40GB drive. Damn cute looking. No noise (convection cooled). We may even add an iSight (600Mhz G3 is the minimum spec for this). This really is the perfect grandparent machine.
simPC!
-only $14.95-
* Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to simPC.
* Caution: simPC may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
* simPC Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
* Do not use simPC on concrete.
Discontinue use of simPC if any of the following occurs:
* Itching
* Vertigo
* Dizziness
* Tingling in extremities
* Loss of balance or coordination
* Slurred speech
* Temporary blindness
* Profuse sweating
* Heart palpitations
If simPC begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
simPC may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, simPC should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration...
Failure to do so relieves the makers of simPC, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of simPC include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
simPC has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Do not taunt simPC.
simPC comes with a lifetime guarantee.
simPC
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
A PC with a Live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, Gnoppix, etc.) gives you something similar without being tied to a single vendor. You even get regular upgrades (subscribe to a CD burning service or have the kids burn the new CD every few months). It also comes with lots more applications out of the box.
My parents are roughly retirement age; my father retired at the end of last year; my mom turns 65 in about a year. Although my father did work with IBM System 3 gear back in the 1960s, I am the "techie" in my branch of the family tree. (Strangely, my cousin Jon, born within a week of me, is also a techie, working for NeuStar or whatever their name is now. Must have been a solar flare around then...)
When I was a teen, they had Commodores. I went to college, got into the x86 architecture (though not into Windows) and after some years, my parents made the move to PC's as well. Most of my computer-owning relatives have PC's as well - my sister and her husband, aunts on both sides.
Now, I've had Macs for the last few years. I still have a Linux PC as well, but I've been making it clear to them that Windows is bad mojo, and - perhaps more importantly - that I am only going to offer them limited help with their Windows PC's. (I support Windows PC's for a living, and don't like doing it for free.) They've seen my Macs. They know I'm happy with them. And they know my Macs do nifty stuff and don't have the security problems Windows has.
My sister and her husband have a bad case of Mac envy right now, and are saving up for one. They had been saving for an $800 eMac, but boy, does that $500 Mac mini look appealing.
My parents just made a "things to buy" list, and there's an Apple logo on it. Again, I think the Mac mini will appeal to them, since they've already got a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.
Where I'm going with this is: some grandparents and other people may buy a Simputer or whatever if they see Ed McMahon flogging it on an infomercial, but these days, a lot of folks have descendants or friends who are "tech-savvy," and they look to them for advice. And if those "tech-savvy" folks don't have, or don't like, a Simthingy, they'll be recommending something else, whether it's a PC or a Mac.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Even before the Mac mini, I would probably have said "never buy a computer called "the Simp".
Apart from the awful name the proprietary OS and monthly fee are a huge, massive turn off - what happens to your data when the monthly fee runs out? I am assuming that since they are meaning this for the simplest of folk that all data is held remotely and they own it, and it's in some wonky format they will be reluctant to free it from. Heck, even if the data is local to the box you may still have the data format issue.
And what about the aspect of accessing your bank through some unknown system? This thing could easily be a sham to spend a year gathering account numbers. It gives me the willies.
Just all around it screams to be avoided, existance of Mac mini excluded.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because you have to be an idiot to pay $400 for a crippled computer and then pay $13/month for the privilege of using it.
"A simPC is an easy and safe computer with a low price".
(Unelegant, word-for-word translation.)
JP
And not only that, but I'm thinking that there's an inherent flaw in treating users like idiots and designing a product "for idiots".
This arrogance in the computer industry is getting on my nerves already, and I _am_ a programmer. The whole "if you get bitten by our bugs or piss-poor design, you're an idiot luser" attitude.
The fact is, since everyone just has to compare computers to cars, computers and especially software nowadays are at the point where cars were in 1900. They were a fragile, shoddy contraption that needed you to be an experienced mechanic just to keep it working. (Or rich enough to afford getting a mechanic to keep repairing it for you.)
That's exactly the point where computers are today. Each time grandma calls that her computer crawls to a halt, imagine her with a rickety 1900 car that broke down again. On flat ground. For no obvious reason, other than piss-poor primitive construction.
Yes, there probably is some invisible reason, such as that on the PC she clicked on the wrong link, or with the 1900 car she took a too tight curve. Guess what? In both cases the user shouldn't have to deal with that crap.
Except that wereas the car industry went and improved their product, the computer industry is content to call everyone an idiot. Cars eventually stopped breaking down each time you pushed the gas pedal too hard or drove over a small stone you didn't see, but computers didn't. The computers still break down for as little as a malformed packet. (See the buffer overflows.)
And instead of fixing their own damn deffective product, the computer industry keeps blaming the user. "Noo, our product is perfect. It's those idiots who broke it. Let's give them a crippled locked-down PC they can't break." It's an idiocy of the calibre of "let's give them a car which only goes in a straight line, so they don't break it by taking tight curves."
And IMHO those are the _real_ idiots. Not the users.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
they tried to take over my windoze completely in order make my online life more simple and secure. Going from AOL 4 to 5 to...I got off the merry-go-round at 7, I found AOL insinuated itself into all the functions it could, supplanted or ignored whatever windows features it could...
so here comes a product that, by going it alone, succeeds completely at what AOL had attempted. And guess what? Its going to be so lame and limited even grandma is going to say "WTF!?" Besides, the usual deal with AOL was a big box retailer selling a cheapo PC and saying "we'll knock the price down to $400 IF YOU SIGN UP TO TAKE AOL FOR 2 YEARS" How is this a better deal? That way at least I got a PC with a widely supported [and targeted] if mediocre OS.
I don't think grandma is goin to use a computer until it dawns on her that there is something she really wants and it can be done on the computer. Grandma is 60 years old and long ago decided she knows what she wants...I'm not stupid, arrogant or hopeful enough to think I could change her mind.
Having tried to set my aged mother up with a PC that would not help theives to her bank account, I know elderly newbies deal poorly with passwords and generally regard even the most common security steps for computer use as an impediment and an affront. Does this $400 box come with surreptitious biometric lock-outs? If not, sales will be as lame as the product.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.