Slashdot Mirror
Death of the UMPC?
An anonymous reader writes "Remember the UMPC, that little tablet that Microsoft once called Origami? Well it looks like that Intel has scrapped the idea of promoting the UMPC, in favor of a much smaller (and less capable) Mobile Internet Device (MID). The UMPC is now heading for a market niche, where it may be replacing the tablet PC as a mobile computer for field technicians. The MID takes on the role of the original UMPC concept, but it won't run Vista."
...but they have the temerity to pooh-pooh the iPhone?
Hey, while we're at it, how's those tablet PC sales, guys?
It won't run Vista. What more could you want from a computer?
but sure will run linux.
If you'll notice, the Intel device is very similar to the Nokia N800. It runs Linux, and uses Nokia's Gtk enhancements for touchscreens called "Hildon".
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
A MID is basically a way to push the UMPC into the consumer range, at around PDA prices. I see it as a competitor to Nokia's internet tablet, of which I own one, and am quite fond of it. A MID is a device that takes into account the shortcomings of Internet Tablet's and addresses them, while still maintaining the appeal of the form factor. It's not a device for hardcore computing, its a device for laying in bed and surfing the net, maybe while listening to some music, or podcasts. That it is also quite portable, and has the capability to also act as a mobile VOIP phone wirelessly connected to a bluetooth headset, or to be a portable movie/music player as well is just icing on the cake.
There is a point in any products design possibilities that when reached makes the product very undesirable. Something that is bigger than a pda but too big to put into a pocket, smaller than a tablet but too small to have a practical screen, something as powerful as a laptop but without the convenience of a full size keyboard. I am one of those relics still addicted to the Palm products, I have a TX and for all intents and purposes it can do everything that I need to do when I need a quick mobile fix, otherwise I fire up the laptop for real work.
load "$",8,1
The MID takes on the role of the original UMPC concept, but it won't run Vista
Because if it did, you'd have to lug a car battery around everywhere.
Now maybe they can get rid of the oft-hyped "VIIV"....
The market niche is already occupied - sounds distinctly like a high-end PDA (some of which run Linux) as well as some of the high-end smartphones (like the Treo, latest Nokia linux phone, etc.).
[Insert pithy quote here]
I think the UMPC is a great idea, but as with any mobile PC, there is a limited market.
There is a reason why ultra portable laptops are expensive and hard to get. The market is simply too small to become mainstream. If you go for desktop replacements ranging from 19" screens and up, you get the same thing.
Also, when you create a far too big hype around it like Microsoft did, you kind of have to expect something superb as well. If only they had released it without all the fuzz about it, media wouldn't kill it. We would look at it as some semi-gadget and semi-useful tool.
Also, why they pushed it so hard before we could actually catch up with the hardware is beyond me. Yes, first generation products are often crap, but if you combine the words ultra mobility with low battery life, you kind of ask for it.
Full Tilt
Given that MID will be based on the McCaslin platform which will include a dual-core Stealey processor running about 600-800MHz, it should run OS X nicely. Both 10.3 and 10.4 are usable on machines as slow as a 400 MHz G3, so a tuned 10.5 should run acceptably on MID.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
And when, exactly, are Intel and Microsoft going to focus on something useful?
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
I want a cellphone running Linux with a docking port. I want to dock it to a better keyboard and a typical desktop display and network, and I want to be able to login to it remotely via ssh and display apps remotely via X, and to get to its storage as a network drive or usb drive.
Seems pretty trivial, when that's available, let me know.
If it never really took off...
In a mobile computing device, there 3 parts consumes the most powe: CPU, storage and display.
Looks like Intel is going to solve the CPU power usage issue here. NAND flash pricing and storage capacity is catching up. All we need now is a cheap and low power consumption display. TFT LCD is alright for mobile phone is because the LCD is not on most of the time. However for MIDS, people can browse the web for hours, it would really kill the battery fast.
So, until LCD can significantly reduce power consumption or other technologies (E Ink or OLED) rise to the occasion, there would not be a really viable product.
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
"...but it won't run Vista."
And this is a bad thing?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
....I had *completely* forgotten about that thing since the article about its introduction scrolled off the front page of Slashdot.
Perhaps part of making something popular in the market is its visibility in the public eye. Those iPod white headphones and the iPods themselves are easily spotted and have a cool, trendy image to them.
Where I work nearly everyone has a laptop, regardless of the need to take work home or not. I think people need to feel important and look like they take their work home, either in a briefcase or a laptop. I work downtown and theres lots of suits and the briefcase makes people feel all self important. Its practically part of the "dress for success" motto.
As for its utility vs other devices, I can carry out all tasks in normal usage of windows applications with internet connectivity. I can't type as fast as on a full laptop, but its no less of a performance loss than typing emails on a pda or cell phone.
These devices just don't have the professional or trendy image to make it in the market place. I believe MIDs will go much further than UMPCs.
I remember when I first heard about this thing. It sounded cool, but not cool enough to spend over $1,000 on. That is the death of lots of gadgets. They are cool for $500, wonderful for $250, and you can't live with out them when they are only $100, but at >$1k it is just kind of neat.
We are the Borg...
I saw one yesterday that ran Mobile Windows, could support MS Office, AIM, a VPN tunnel client, browser, PDA functions, camera, mp3 player, bluetooth, 802.11g WiFi and of course a 3G near broadband speed cell phone. Cingular 8525.
OSNews just linked an article about the first computer that could fit in this category, from 1981, the Epson HX-20.
Kind of looks like a neat idea for its time, albeit a little limited by the available information processing technology of that era.
Is that what you use to hack Paris Hildon's Blackberry?
The Nokia N800 is a pretty nifty device, a WLAN-enabled "Internet tablet" with a nice high resolution screen, running the open source Maemo platform based on the Linux kernel. Maemo has a very healthy open source developer community, and tons of the best applications have been ported to it. What is missing, however, is a GSM chipset, or indeed any non-WLAN networking capability. Nokia apparently does not want its "Internet tablets" to compete with its smartphones. I am waiting, then, for an "N1000" that combines these capabilities. Perhaps OpenMoko will be successful, but it doesn't have the WLAN chipset.
Any device that combines these three factors - open source and full hackability, phone, and regular networking - will be a killer app. Hackability does not mean that it has to be difficult to use: with a Debian-like system for software management, users can experiment with new apps easily. Of course, many of the current economic models around cell phones (ring tone downloads, background images, specialized content portals) are not really sustainable, and so the market may be biased against that innovation. But a smart company will recognize that by maintaining strategic leadership within an open source ecosystem, they will create many more business opportunities for themselves than in a proprietary, locked down market. It's too bad that Apple doesn't appear to be that smart company. I hope that Nokia is.
Current mini-Tablets, UMPCs, OQOs - any ultra-mobile (read small) PC solution for that matter, have an inherent disadvantage - they try to do too much in too little. miniaturization with full functionality is good but only up to a point - there comes a stage where the purpose of a device has to change, and then change the way people use it (and not necessarily the other way around always). We assume that a PC by it's very name defines the purpose of the device - that it has to store, process and communicate information. The OSs these days run high overheads and demand lot of hardware to support, which might be worthwhile if the system can be fully utilized - but when the goal is portability, the heavy framework becomes more of a burden than a feature. This is where a paradigm shift is needed - and it can be achieved, with the sweeping assumption that Internet is ubiquitous (an assumption that doesn't seem to be so wild these days).
A Mobile Internet Device would be a lean lightweight device that runs a small but not heavy-duty processor, and minimal hardware to support primary functions such as display, input, audio etc. It will not have an OS. Instead, what it will have is a Web Browser , and a basic BIOS type menu for system maintenance. The browser can be (preferably) written hardware specific, so it serves the dual purpose of a very basic OS as well as the browser itself. Of course the browser has to bem ore powerful than our regular ones with all appropriate plugins (Flash, JAVA, pdf etc) installed, but it still is no OS. It may look like this restricts the users to primarily browsing, but browsing is hardly passive these days - you can read, write, speak, draw, design - pretty much do any normal function with today's increasingly effective web apps. For instance - Google Docs & Spreadsheets replace MS/Open Office; there are similar web equivalents for other desktop functions and more are coming. In fact, there are webtops like Goowy and eyeOS which pretty much obviate the need of any local OS for common computing functions. No hard disk is needed because there is no large local storage - solid state memory will suffice. Onboard graphics card is enough, because all the display shows is Web content. The convergence of these hardware and software ideas lead to the perfect MID - not as small as a phone perhaps but small enough to be ultra-mobile, yet capable of replacing your regular desktop and serving as a PC solution for many ordinary users. The only (and reasonably significant) catch is that it needs a constant connection to the Internet to function.
Again, once the device starts to have extra applications other than the browser, it ceases to be a viable solution. The industry fears its product will fail if it doesn't provide the world to the customer, and the customer is often grabbing at more than what he/she will ever use. Only if we accept the design rule that this is this device's specific purpose, and we learn to use it that way (and there is no severe handicap in that for regular users who just like to browse or read mails or play a little solitare - all of which you can do online), will portable PCs really find a mass market.
My sig has been answered.
What a misleading title! First of all, it is a couple-week-old news. And second, nobody is going to kill UMPC, it will not be targeting the consumer market anymore ($500-$1000 and 5"-7" screens), where MID takes its place. UMPC will still appeal to professionals, though, with screens bigger than 7" and pricetags of way above $1000...
Thank god it wont run vista....
Like... an OQO? With Linux installed, of course.
Granted, it doesn't do calls per se. But it does have built in EV-DO WWAN. So maybe you could get a data plan and use VOIP?
The iPhone comes pretty damn close, but i still need a bluetooth commbadge.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
... when looking around the Microsoft Vista site for information about a future UMPC purchase, I stumbled across the Origami Experience Pack ( WGA validation required before downloading )
It's available for download now, and contains three programs aimed at UMPC use on Vista. It comes with a Sudoku game (?), a "designed for UMPC" shell for movies, music, pictures and programs, and apparently some improved touch-screen functionality. Would be interested to hear feedback from those with UMPC's using this on Vista.
The price of a gadget does not make it more or less indespesible - it just means more or less people might own one. I am happy to pay a lot of money for something that works well, and something that works well generally will come down in price because a lot of people buy them and keep buying them. The original Palm was a great example of this, but they didn't handle product evolution with and when my Palm V died I didn't see a new model I was happy with, so I dropped the line.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The funny thing is that I bet the HX-20 had a better keyboard than virtually anything they're turning out today. (Although admittedly tough to use one handed, or without setting it down on something.)
That's one of the reasons I've never really gotten into the whole text-messaging/blackberry stuff. I could afford one (and my current phone does do texts) but it just seems obnoxious. I'm not going to sit there and type in a damn message with my thumbs, that's stupid, and probably unhealthy in the long run. (Some of these things -- like the blackberrys -- are big enough to have 2-hand, 4-finger chording keyboards on the back, too, or even miniature QWERTYs broken into two sections on the back for the fingers of each hand, with the spacebars on front for your thumbs. That would be a lot smarter than hunting-and-pecking with two fingers for the whole alphabet.) Obnoxious. When someone can come out with a portable message device that's comfortable to type on, and doesn't look like it was designed for a lobster instead of a ten-fingered human, maybe I'll be more interested.
It really mystifies me -- people are probably spending more hours per day, on average, sitting in front of a computer and typing, than ever before; certainly more than people were in the 1980s. However, as we've gotten to spending more time at computers, the keyboards have gotten crummier and crummier. I know part of the decline is probably because now people use the mouse as an input device a lot, but in terms of the volume of typing done by a person now versus in 1980, it's gotta be higher today with all the email people do. You'd think that people would pay more attention to things like their keyboards, but instead they seem to care less. I don't get it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Realy. You'll get firefox, you'll get Opera. There is already a crapload of applications, development tools, and other such things being developed for touch screen devices. Linux support for this hardware is going to be great and everything will work out of the box. And it should be very fast.
It'll go nice with my Neo1973 when that becomes aviable. The nice thing about this thing over the Nokia Linux tablets (which are very nice in themselves) is that you will have good video acceleration.
With the Nokia tablets they have the hardware _capabilities_ for video acceleration, both 2d and 3d, but they can't use it because the only drivers aviable for acceleration are propriatory Linux kernel modules. Thus they aren't cool and they probably don't work with the kenrel that is used in that device.
But with the Intel stuff they will use a low power version of the Intel 915 which I beleive will have 2d acceleration with some decent 3d performance. This means that this thing should have better media playback performance and actually be usefull for video games. Probably up to Quake2 or even Quake3 complexity.
Why on earth would you want to pay the 'Apple Tax'? It's like a joke.. somebody took a Apple sticker and stuck it on a PC. I laughed that the Apple icon was practically a 200 dollar upgrade all by itself.
That's one of the curious things about this article. It meantions that it won't run Vista, but it doesn't mention that it's designed specificly to run Linux. Maybe they are holding out for Intel to switch to some embedded Windows version?
There comes
a certain size
point where lack
of width of the
screen really
begins to be a
problem.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Disclaimer: I own an ultralight notebook, the smallest MP3 player I could find, a tiny car, and a Wii. I should be the target market for these things.
However, they really didn't bother to actually test market these things before putting them out there. For one, the lack of a keyboard really limits usability. Heck, keyboards are becoming standard on phones these days. To not have a keyboard on a laptop replacement is silly.
Two, they don't fit anywhere. They're way too big for a pocket, so you have to put them in a bag or backpack. At that point, you might as well just use a 3 lb Sony Vaio Tx, or a 4 lb Lenovo v, or a 4.5 lb Dell Xps or one of many other ultralight portables out there. And really, that's the key: laptops are losing weight as fast as the balance between performance and price will allow.
But worst of all, they never really had a use. They all take time to boot, so there isn't much use as a dayrunner. They have no keyboard, so word processing is out. And forget photoshop. What, exactly, are you supposed to do with one? Play halo? Web development?
Ultimately, all of the tasks that were supposed to be delegated to the UMPC were actually far better served by high-end phones. Need e-mail, texting, intranet access to a client database, and synching to a desktop? Just get a treo. They're about 1,000 dollars cheaper, and they fit in your pocket.
While I was intrigued by the concept, I won't be shedding a tear for the UMPC. They were far ahead of their time. Which is to say, someone was pushing them early in the hopes of making a quick buck.
The ______ Agenda
I'm not sure I do want GSM built into it. I'd rather have a nice small phone which I can comfortably hold to my ear, and a separate tablet. They can talk to each other via Bluetooth.
Xenu loves you!
Full-face-screen cell phones with touch screens, web browsers and 802.11 have been around for years. Unlike the iPhone, they're programmable. Some come with slide-out keyboards (yeah!), others use on-screen keyboards. Many have cameras. There are a dozen different finger input methods for them. Even tilt sensors have been around. You even have a choice of several different operating systems.
The real question is why there is all this hoopla over the iPhone; as far as I can see, there is not much that's innovative about the iPhone: it's the same form factor and the same functionality as dozens of devices before it. The iPhone is a nice stylish design, but so is the Prada.
Otherwise you'll end up in the poo poo.
There are a few places where the N800 could be improved for *some* people's use (however, these could be just as well done by someone else, because it's an extra cost for Nokia to have several runs of different hardware).
1) Bigger screen. A 7" diagonal or better, similar to the DVD players. Makes it more of a light laptop. Not really as comfortably portable, though, so you still want the original N800 form factor
2) Much longer battery. The battery given though is one that is commonly available for other products, so this is understandable. Either a thicker base with two (or more) such batteries in, a higher-density battery for replacing or the ability to add a battery pack with ordinary (AA) batteries as a direct power source
3) Faster boot. If the system suspended to flash after shutting down applications the system would be much faster boot. Though you'd probably want a "restart from fresh" boot which redoes the suspend image. Feed this back to the mainline code and we may have a better suspend-to-disk (you need as much disk space as the plain booted image, not as much as your physical memory, which will also reduce load times for the image)
4) Extra-portable. The Palm is great as a PDA. The TX would be perfect if it were on smaller hardware and therefore cheaper (it's a waste because the OS isn't multi-tasking so cannot get the full benefit of a fast processor and the apps are all pretty small so the built in space is a little unused). The N800 is more powerful but takes longer and is geared for non-PDA internet tasks. Another version that had a smaller screen, cheaper hardware and a PDA suite (and running on cheaper hardware) would be more portable, longer lasting and so would hit the space used by the Palm.
The OQO is also uncomfortable to use, the mouse/touchscreen is annoying, its too heavy, it gets really hot and the battery life sucks. For most things its going to be used for the processor is overkill and a lower end PDA will do a better job for less money. Whether it runs linux or not its not a nice peice of hardware. About the only thing I can see it doing well is acting as an in car GPS or entertainment system.
I too think we need to get some decent docking features on a PDA so you can just plug in a normal screen and keyboard. The neasrest i've seen is plugging a USB keyboard/mouse and a CF-XGA card into a Sharp zaurus or using VNC to it over wifi.
You would think /. would want to filter this (and frosty piss) trash...
This must be a Microsoft employee trying to make Mac users look bad.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Ah, UMPC, we hardly knew you. ... in fact, that's probably one of the things that went wrong.
They're great for posting on Fark now.
You just described a handheld thin client device, which while nice for some applications is worthless in parts of the world that have limited connectivity. It's worthless for the traveller who wants to be able to work offline, for that matter.
Why? Because Linux is a hulking pile of suck? It's inconsistent, flaky and it looks like someone threw it up after a long night of drinking. Also, Linux advocates tend to be blind to its obvious problems and only complain about how proprietary software COSTS MONEY. I don't see any substantive reasons in your post for why anyone would prefer Linux other than that it's FREE. I don't want one of these devices, no matter what OS it's running, but if it were running Linux? I'd be sure to NEVER buy one. With MacOS X? I might consider it, depending on the cost of the device.
MacOS X will not be ported to this new platform simply because Apple has no interest in licensing its OS for a device which will be in competition with the iPhone. Get down off your OSS soapbox before people realise what an idiot you are.
ROTFL
In September, http://www.openmoko.com/ will be available. I just hope my t637 survives until then.
No one? That's what I thought.
I wrote a huge editorial on this subject and what happens when Windows, Linux, and even Apple enter the UMPC market. The summary: When there is competition on any platform, the consumers end up the big winners. There is room in the market for all three platforms and the competition will push the backers of each to adopting this platform more.
As long as I'm helping to keep the tasteless, unvisionary hordes of native PC users off our platform, I don't really care what you think I am.
huh? Is that you, Steve B. ?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
As others have mentioned the UMPC was no use for real work and too big for portability. I think people that would be interested in this kind of device, would rather it was in their phone. Which is exactly what I'm looking for a phone with 3G/HSDPA, WiFi, a VGA screen and a keyboard. My reasoning is that there is no point in fast mobile internet if you can only read 'Slas' without scrolling:) Now I can find phones that have most of my requirements, what extra did the UMPC have? Storage, nope SD cards are going for £10 per gb. Speed, nope (see below!). Battery, nope.
The other thing that killed the UMPC was the OS, MS didn't put any where near as much effort into it as they did for say the media centre UI's.
UMPC's needed an OS that boots as fast a phone, they needed an OS that could cope with the lack of screen res, they needed an OS without any unneeded bloat. XP/Vista just is not that OS, and I'm not sure if it could have been made into it either. And tbh fair, I don't think Linux would have cut it either...the effort to make it suitable might well be less though.
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person