Slashdot Mirror
Origami Feedback Mixed, says Samsung
Ben Camm-Jones writes "Citing a mixture of reactions from customers who bought its Q1 device, Samsung has said that the pre-launch teaser campaign run by Microsoft about the Origami project may have been misleading."
Microsoft misleading? Naw...
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
I always feared that project would fold.
Nowhere in the article does it mention exactly HOW it fell short of the advertizing. Does its handwriting recognition fall short? Is its reported collaboration short of the mark? This article is about as worthless as it comes to getting any real information. Perhaps they modelled their article writing on the Microsoft advertizing campaign?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
For those of you who don't want to read the article this is the section detailing how people felt mislead:
"someone [with prior] understanding of Origami, [they have been] saying 'We expected this and expected that' and comparing specification and price with laptop computers," said Steel. But even though a laptop can deliver more, it comes at a price, Steel noted."
Nor have they ever released vaporware.
...
By definition vaporware is never released
Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do!
Any success at all for the Origami would have been a surprise. It was (is) much too small to be a PC in any context (especially with an anemic screensize, heck lots of tiny devices approach the resolution and quality of the Origami) and way too big to be a portable device like an mp3 or video player.
For those trying to make it PC-like, the device short-shrifted users on usability like keyboard functionality. For those wanting portable devices, the Origami was way overpowered and cumbersome (who the f*** wants to fire up Windows to play an mp3 or a video?!?).
In between someone must have envisioned a niche market -- there likely is one, it's just not very big, and not noteworthy beyond the demographic for which it might be useful (hospitals, shops, warehouse grocery stores, etc.).
The Origami wasn't that much different (IMO) from the notepad type portables, except it was lighter in features, but still heavy in the wallet requirements. Sometimes these devices seem to be brain farts -- "what if"s, and they get run up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes. Hats off to Microsoft for a clever attempt at "mystery" marketing the Origami. Sometimes the buying public has a clue before the marketers.
So, Microsoft hyped a product (that seems to do take a good jab at it's niche), and someone says it *looked* like it might have done something else. When I see an add for a BigMac on TV, and go in to buy one, it's not *as* big or *as* juicy as in the commercial, but still worth it. So, marketers promoted a product? Big deal.
Gee, they actually found someone who liked it?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I think it all comes down to battery technology. We don't have the battery tehnology to make something like Origami really useful yet. IMO, it needs to have at least 8 hours of battery life at the minimum.
My theory is that the whole Origami project teaser campaign was a tactical spolier campaign by Microsoft that didn't work out. I think they assumed that Apple would come out with some fancy new product on their 30th anniversay, and so timed the campaign to coincide with that to spoil, or at least taint, anything Apple did. But then Apple didn't launch anything, and Microsoft was left running a spolier campaign without anything to spoil. I bet if Apple had released a new product, Microsoft would have made a lot more noise.
When I first saw the Oragami teaser site, and read articles speculating what it was, i thought it was that blue and white cell phone looking thing that folded into a few different combinations (i can't find a picture right now...can someone help?). Then when the countdown was over, they showed this honking thing, basically a bit smaller than a tablet pc. There is no market for that. It's still too big. Anything bigger than a cell phone is too big to be convenient. Similarly, anything bigger than a cell phone should probably have been designed and marketed as a non-portable device, since if most people can't fit in in their pocket or a small clip on their belt, it just can't be called "portable". I don't carry my laptop clipped to my belt. It would have been time better spent if they modified a PDA to do everything these things do.
My name is Wootzor von Leetenhaxor
I would tell you, but I don't think I'd finish before
Some reviews say Origami's unusable; some say it's overpriced.
At the end of the day the teaser campaign was mishandled. This kind of product is a tough sell at the best of times - as shown by the relative failure of the tablet PC. Samsung have a good product, but at the price of a very good laptop it's a near impossible sell. People like keyboards for serious work and there still isn't enough processing power or good enough software to make handwriting recognition a suitable alternative.
,as was, was hyped to the moon and back but at the end of the day disappointed. Maybe it's a sign of the tech market - we tend to like less fluff and more hard facts?
But it was the teaser campaign that really hurt the product. Trying to run a teaser campaign that would grasp the news agenda at the same time as the world's biggest trade show like CeBIT might have sounded good but it annoyed a lot of journalists. At the same time the hints we did get on features were so inflated that when the final product came out it was a big let down.
Teaser campaigns are notoriously difficult to pull off. Look at the Segway for example. 'Ginger'
Work bought it for me, for a very specific purpose. I suspect we're the only people that have a job that it's just perfect for.
It's slow, it's heavier than you'd like, it gets really hot in use, it's fiddly to interact with, and it's not worth anything like the money. I know you should expect nothing else from first-generation hardware, but it really is almost entirely pointless for nearly everybody (it's absolutely perfect for what I need it for, but that's an extremely niche market, believe me, and if Pocket Internet Explorer on a PDA was anything more than a toy, I wouldn't need it at all).
The hype was extremely misguided - it's just a very small tablet PC, it was never going to set the world on fire. But that's neither here nor there - hype or no hype, my main criticism of it is that it's not even very good at what it's meant to do, never mind all the things people imagined it would do before it came out.
That actually it does have another thing going for it. It's absolutely perfect for is watching the BBC's streaming World Cup webcasts from the office toilet...
Oragami was not a revolutionary product. It was is not even an xbox. What it is is a product that really doesn't exist, and the initial marketing was done for the benifit of the fer vendors who took a chance to manufacture it. Not that MS did not take that risk.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It seems that the real problem was how badly Microsoft marketing managed the release of Origami, giving too little information at a time, which causes people to guesstimate wildly.
Despite this obvious rant, the only thing I liked in TFA is how I misread the sentence:
For a split second, I read:
What do you do with a toilet computer? How (and where) do you put the pen away????"Nor have they ever released vaporware."
I think vaporware, by definition, is never released.
My name is Wootzor von Leetenhaxor
Sheesh... Some people didn't like the iPod when it lauched.. Some people don't like Palm's Treo.. Some people don't like the XBox, or the PSP, or the Gameboy.. Some people liked New Coke..
Can anybody name a product launch without "mixed" feedback?
The article has slim to no details as to what the problems were, and I suspect this is only on slashdot because of the dig at microsoft.
Does anybody have any real info on the device?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I'm not sure I can agree here-- I spent $299 + tax on my Nokia 770 as opposed to about $1200 for the Q1; while the Q1 is running Windows and has a more powerful processor, it's also much bigger. I can carry my linux based 770 with me wherever I go very easily (fits in a shirt pocket) and have had no problem using it anywhere. For me at least, the extra $800 isn't worth it.
rob.
I'm vaguely considering getting some hardware like this (or perhaps one of those dinky if overpriced Fujitsu lifebooks) as a doodling/art tool.
I'm hoping someday touchscreens will be the standard, not the exception. Or, conversely, that drawing on a blank pad on your lap or on the table while looking at what you're drawing on separate screen will be considered some weird anomaly.
Any suggestions for hardware? I don't need a huge "canvas" but Palm is a little too small (often with flakey digitizers as well)
I'd love to see Apple get on this.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
It is the perfect tool for Origami Software Developers :)