CrunchPad Will Be a 'Dead Simple Web Tablet'

Hugh Pickens writes "TechCrunch's Michael Arrington has been talking for a year about building a touch-screen tablet for Web surfing and now it appears that the CrunchPad is close to becoming a reality. 'We're going to make some really big announcements,' said Arrington, who predicted a prototype would be ready for unveiling by the end of July. The purpose of the CrunchPad will be very simple: surfing the Web. Turn it on and up comes a browser — 'an Internet consumption device,' for reading, checking e-mail or watching video. The CrunchPad will not have a hard drive or keyboard and photos of the latest prototype show a device with a 12 inch screen. 'The screen is now flush with the case and we've decreased the overall thickness to about 18 mm,' writes Arrington. 'The case will be aluminum, which is more expensive than plastic but is sturdier and lets us shave a little more off the overall thickness of the device.' The CrunchPad boots directly into the browser with a Linux-based operating system and a WebKit-based browser. A video of an earlier CrunchPad prototype in action shows a device which, unlike the iPhone, runs flash. 'The next time we talk about the CrunchPad publicly will be at a special press and user event in July in Silicon Valley,' writes Arrington. 'We're full on. These prototypes are real.'"

Comments

Wanna sell them like hot bread ?

[da5idnetlimit.com]

Then please add a strong (8\10 meters) IR interface.

It can then become my universal remote AND my (potato) couch web browser.
Otherwise, I already found some solutions to browse from the couch (aka iphone)

Re:Wanna sell them like hot bread ?

[sam0737]

Build an embedded system, hook to your LAN that serve an Remote Control Webpage...Emitting IR when command is received.

Re:Wanna sell them like hot bread ?

[bjwest]

An iphone for general browsing? You're kidding right? There is no way a device with a 3.5 inch display could be used for serious browsing. A quick lookup or banking transaction maybe, but if you're doing your daily browsing (news sites, research, what ever) you need more than a couple of five or six word lines at a time, and forget about serious posting. A remote replacement, yeah, general browser replacement, no way.

Re:Wanna sell them like hot bread ?

[oakgrove]

The iPhone has a 480x320 resolution for a total of 153,600 pixels.

The N810 has 800x480 resolution for a total of 384,000 pixels.

So, yes, the N810 does indeed have more than double the resolution.

Obligatory...

[maxume]

It's not a netbook and I don't see why anyone would possibly prefer a larger screen in a format that is easier to hold to something with a keyboard.

CrunchPad

[Renderer of Evil]

A $300 digital photo-frame that runs Firefox.

Sign me up.

Re:Old News

[maxume]

The newspaper articles/blogs are from July (one is even from 2 days in the future), but the TechCrunch article (arguably the 'original') is from June.

Re:It needs some method of data entry

[tiananmen tank man]

... so you would hold some small keyboard in your hand and your other hand could be holding the tablet? Sounds horrible.

Re:It needs some method of data entry

[Captain Splendid]

that is not some horrible onscreen keyboard

As someone who uses the Ipod touch onscreen keyboard, and has huge gorilla hands, an onscreen keyboard on a 12" screen will be a piece of piss. Of all the criticisms of the Crunchpad, this is the one that baffles me the most.

Web "Consumer" device

[presidenteloco]

Overall cool - iphone with big enough screen

But they really should focus on design of a virtual keyboard that is large and ergonomically laid out.

We have to avoid trending toward encouraging passive web surfers who are only "channel surfing"
just like the advertisers want you to.

The internet is way more interesting and useful when it is truely two-way, peer-to-peer.

Re:Web "Consumer" device

[tlhIngan]

Dont' forget Flash support. I don't personally *like* Flash, but it's a pretty important part of the modern web. The fact that the iPhone lacks it (and don't give me any of Jobs' crap as to why; lower-spec ARM devices support it) could be a big deal in promoting this thing. Additionally, the larger (and presumably much higher-res) display should make a big difference... except it's too big for a pocket.

Yeah, they support it poorly. Jobs has a point.

I have two ARM-based devices (Archos 605, Nokia N810) which support Flash. The worst thing is to actually go to a web page with flash crap on it, because it causes the machine to drag. Bad flash ads cause the browser to virtually lock up, and while you can play YouTube videos (Archos cheats and use their own player once it recognizes it's trying to play a FLV, while Nokia plays it by running the Flash player natively), some other sites cause it drag again - at one point the Archos only played the audio, while the Nokia virtually locked up, but you could get 1 frame every 30 seconds, and audio that plays for 2 seconds every 5. And you can't scroll, close the browser, etc., because the CPU is busy doing the flash, and there's not enough CPU time to handle the browser UI.

Effectively, you'll need a browser with a built-in FlashBlock, but unlike FlashBlock, it needs to work when the page is rendered, not when the plugin recognizes an embedded flash video in the DOM. Because it really sucks when you're surfing the web, and then hit a page with flash (ad, or other flash thing) that causes your browsing to come to a halt as the CPU is busy doing the Flash playback, instead of rendering the page or letting you do UI things like page scrolling.

I will note that both devices actually run Linux inside. Flash is cool, but really, the implementation of the browser with flash needs to be improved significantly.

Also, a 12" display, the CPU really needs at least a 2D graphics accellerator. 1024x768 is painful on a framebuffer only display.

Once more around the block my friend

[westlake]

With each new generation of hardware the geek seems determined to re-invent the web appliance.

Which no one wants and no one buys.

Not in the numbers which matter to WalMart.

The Kindle stores 1500 e-books for your off-line reading pleasure.

The Atom netbook running XP or Win 7 can play hundreds of MSDOS and Windows games - available as dirt-cheep downloads from places like Gog.com ["Good Old Games"]

Re:Once more around the block my friend

[iluvcapra]

With each new generation of hardware the geek seems determined to re-invent the web appliance. Which no one wants and no one buys.

It's a challenging use case. For the form factor we're talking about, lacking a keyboard but being very thin, having limited proc, and being only marginaly cheaper than a netbook, the real competition in its market is paper. If this thing isn't as useful as paper, why bother getting this for someone to use when an actual nominal "computer" is only marginally more expensive.

I think it's clear that someday something like this will replace a lot of paper, not all of it, but lots of ephemera. I already use my knidle to read my screenplays, and that's already saved 500 sheets in the past 3 months. If something like the kindle had better searching and browsing, and could actually read HTML documents in the manner they were intended, I could be keeping phonebooks full of film codebooks and sound library stuff in their right now.

Something I've noticed with my iPhone, on the other hand, despite the fact that it's a little small to use properly as paper, is that it's extremely difficult to be browsing something on my computer, and then to continue my browsing session on the phone, or vice versus. The only way to do it is to email links to yourself, and that's a supreme pain.... Something I still think about from Minority Report were the larger pad-like storage devices they used to move files from one rig to another, like when Tom Cruise's assistant would look up a series of mugshots on one machine and bring them over to his. The assistant would collect the mugshots, drag them off his screen and ONTO the screen of the pad, as if the pad, by nature of touching the computer, were an extension of his monitor, and then he could take the pad, which had a display and could show everything it held, and carried it to the other computer. From there, the pad then became an extention on Anderton's monitor, and he could look at the material directly on the pad or drag it to his system, completing the loop. Why the fuck can't someone build an internet tablet that can do that? All that haptic stuff was cool, but for some reason, in my work, I'm constantly wishing I could take something I'm working on at this moment, drag it to a pad, and carry it somewhere, perhaps to move, perhaps just to work in-situ on the pad.

Re:It needs some method of data entry

[Soul-Burn666]

I've got a 8.9" tablet-convertible netbook installed with Windows 7.
Even with this relatively small screen, the built-in onscreen keyboard is really quite nice.
While I can't easily touch-type on it, I can definitely "hunt-and-peck" with 2 hands. On a 12" screen I should be able to use all my fingers.

In a previous video of the Crunchpad, they used some clunky looking onscreen keyboard and I hope they switch to something better (like the Win7 one).
A multi-touch screen will make it even better.

Re:It needs some method of data entry

[generic.individual]

I was thinking something like a slide out keyboard, like g1 phone style. A keyboard is really so much nicer than touch for entering data. In my book it is an essential requirement for serious web browsing and email but shouldn't get in the way or be there when you don't need it or you might as well just be holding a laptop.

Re:Will it be possible to close the browser?

[drgould]

Is it at all possible to close the browser and use the tablet as a proper computer? That would be magical.

It runs Linux and I find it difficult to believe that they are making any serious attempt to "lock it down."

If you can't access at least a shell prompt out of the box, I'm sure someone will post a youtube how-to video within 5 minutes of release.

Re:It needs some method of data entry

[eric-x]

Put a keyboard on the back which can be folded to the front, depending on the position you can use it as a pad or a netbook.

I'd buy it if..

[Anonymous Coward]

it was double the price and had an apple logo on it.

Re:It needs some method of data entry

[edittard]

I'm sure I've nevr seen anything like that!

Got Impatient and Got Myself a Real Tablet

[jacksonyee]

Between waiting for the Pandora and the Crunchpad, I found a real tablet at BetaMacs - the Motion Computing M1300 with a USB keyboard for $310 including shipping (They no longer have any stock here at the time of this writing, unfortunately, but GainSaver still has a couple). The battery only lasts about two hours, but I can run a full Windows XP/Ubuntu installation with almost 640x480 x264 playback (stutters a bit during busy scenes).

Thanks for the concepts, Mike. If you had used a Cortex A8 with a 7 inch screen and slide-out keyboard, I might have had a niche for you in my gadgets collection. See you next time!

Re:It needs some method of data entry

[ciderVisor]

"Piece of piss" is Brit-speak for saying something is simple/easy to do. He's saying that operating a touch keyboard on a 12" screen would be very simple in comparison to typing on an iPhone.

If you knew that, then my apologies.