If Apple used a keyboard like the old Psion's that would easily enable it to be jacket pocket size. The Psion was only 6.9" x 3.6" x .9".
Too small of a keyboard. Too small of a screen. There were some serious attempts at creating this nano-sized laptop market (Psion's and HP Jornada), and they failed to catch on. One can attribute the implementation failing because of economic reasons or company mismanagement, but there were a lot of clamshell devices like the Psion floating around and they couldn't survive. That tells me there was and is a usability / market issue. (The fact there isn't a company willing to produce such a niche product at a profitable price today is also interesting. Perhaps there are non-trivial OS expenditures to make the device work.)
The yet to be successful UMPC class devices also seem to indicate market conditions haven't arrived for such a device yet. Like I said with Dave, my clamshell device is really an ultraportable laptop, the smallest that can be made yet maintain the size of the keyboard. Something on the order of 10 x 5.5 x <1 inch with a 10 inch 1280 x 720 screen and normal OS X. It may not be jacket pocket size, but it will be almost MacBook usable with the benefit of more mobility. If priced right, it shouldn't cannibalize MacBook sales and it should serve a market of its own (ultra-mobile & secondary / complimentary computer). If a price can't be found, it'll suffer the same fate as Psion / Jornada.
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An even more creative device that provides almost a desktop keyboard yet is just barely jacket pocket size is the Samsung SPH P9200 only available in Korea http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9795471-1.html
Picture of the device:
Um, that's not a mass market device. It may not even be a niche device. It's a novelty. At least in America, I think it is at best a novelty. Perhaps in Korea / Japan it has an actual niche market. It's got too many folds and mechanisms for my taste. I don't think it'll even be that portable as I think it would be 1.5" thick folded up. That ain't jacket pocket sized.
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From reading other postings here I believe it would be McCaslin Intel chips? that could enable a more true laptop type jacket pocket computer? Either way I think the market is ripe for Apple to capitalize and be the first to fill the jacket pocket laptop market. For business users that type of device would be a steal at $500-700. I would pay double that but right now there is nothing to buy that provides a touch type keyboard and fits into your jacket pocket.
McCaslin is already in use in some UMPCs. It's just an ULV Pentium M with the usual support chipsets, and uses too much juice for UMPCs really. It's just odd that hardly any UMPCs have the Psion clamshell form factor. That should tell you they think UMPC = tablet functionality, not nano-laptop. Menlow on the other hand, which has a "new" x86 architecture (Silverthorne) specifically designed for ultra-mobile devices, is much more suitable for UMPCs.
No way in hell, way to big, that would leave a bulge in your jacket bigger than a 1911! Remember we are looking for something to carry on our person. The other problem is that clam shell or laptop emulating machines suck in the hand held on the go arena. These aren't devices for writing war and peace on, it is a different user and a different problem set then the heavy laptop user.
Well, like has been said, anything else is a tweener device that doesn't seem to have mass market appeal. It either has to be small enough to fit in your hand or big enough to be as usable as a laptop. I went for the smallest possible laptop with a full laptop keyboard idea. If it is UMPC sized, I'm not sure what it would do better than a handheld or a laptop.
Now, it seems the Nokia N800/810 is popular, so there may be a market now for such a device, but lets wait and see. The market where internet access and a web browser is all that is wanted.
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Actually I believe that Flash will be a requirement. There is the issue of performance from the small HDD and there is also an issue with Power. Sure Flash has mixed performance issues but it can be shown to be more power efficient.
Power isn't a big deal. If Apple can cram 5 hours of video life into an 80 GB iPod classic at 0.41" thick, I don't think they'll have a problem with a bigger device. Not sure what you mean by performance.
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Now are we going to get 160GB of flash from Apple? I doubt it. The question is how much do we need and how economical is it for Apple to reach that value. But like I've said I trust Apple not to screw up like Nokia did. 32GB would be to low in my estimation.
Well, which device are we talking about? My MacBook thin? That should have a HDD. A UMPC? That should have a HDD. Heck, I think the iPhone should have an HDD version. The only suitable flash only device is nano and shuffle sized devices. Everything above it can accommodate HDD. There really shouldn't be a flash versus HDD battle for Apple, they should just know that both are viable markets.
Disk drives will have a 5 to 10x $/GB advantage to flash for the foreseeable future. What would make flash more attractive are users not needing the storage capacity and being happy with <20 GB (number pulled out of the air). It may be true, especially with our broadband kind of stuck at 1 to 3 MBit/s and out wired peripheral connection stuck at <500 MBit/s. It's really too bad Firewire 800 is not common, DVD is DRMed to all heck, and storage write/read speeds have been relatively stagnant, as I can see those issues preventing users from needing more storage, so flash is all that is needed. It appears that for music, <10 MB is all that is needed. The iPod nano has on doubled in storage (from 4 GB mini to 8 GB nano) over the last 4 years. That should tell us something.
Having all of your music & audio, all of your 5+ MP photos, and all of your videos (home videos, DVDs) in an iPhone, iPod or Intel's Moorestown mockup should be just as convenient and useful as iPods and music. It just seems that the content and infrastructure aren't there yet. So, I guess I argued myself out of it. Sigh...
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Yep some interesting approaches. Some that stand out include dual core SoC's. What I really find interesting though is that many of the devices are slated to hit 1GHz or so.
What that means is that we will have hand held devices in the near future that are significantly faster than more that half the computers I've ever owned.
I was just thinking ARM will be in handhelds for a long long while and Intel really doesn't have a chance until 32 nm and a good x86 SoC for handhelds can be made. UMPCs will be an interesting battleground. It just seems everyone is assuming that these tweener devices are the next big thing, a market as big as handhelds (including phones here) or PCs. It's not clear to me yet that this is the case, but there is a lot of money going into it alright.
Well, like has been said, anything else is a tweener device that doesn't seem to have mass market appeal. It either has to be small enough to fit in your hand or big enough to be as usable as a laptop. I went for the smallest possible laptop with a full laptop keyboard idea. If it is UMPC sized, I'm not sure what it would do better than a handheld or a laptop.
Well that is really what we seem to be debating. I just see a need for something larger than the iPod Touch / iPhone that is still very portable. There are a number of things that drive that need. One is movies and other visual media, where a higher pixel density can make a huge difference. It is really a matter of how seriously Apple is going to take on the multimedia market.
The second issue driving demand for a larger iPhone is that it makes for a much more capable device when used as a personal computing device. In either case we aren't talking about a huge increase in size. About a half inch in width and maybe tweaking length is all that is needed to bring a lot more capability to the iPhone. Neither of these devices could really be considered competition for the laptop market. In fact a discussion of laptops in this context really doesn't make sense.
Where it would make sense is in a discussion about a tablet PC that is significantly larger than an iPhone. This again is a different market but in part it wold be a machine designed to replace laptops. It certainly isn't the platform for heavy text entry, but frankly many laptops aren't used in that manner anymore. The market is more consumerish than commercial though I could see the platform getting heavy up take in the industrial sector. As far as what it does better, well that is simple really it delivers a bigger screen than the iPhone type devices! Along with that it offers up a form factor that is much more useful than the traditional clamshell laptop approach for people on the go.
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Now, it seems the Nokia N800/810 is popular, so there may be a market now for such a device, but lets wait and see. The market where internet access and a web browser is all that is wanted.
See this is where I see positive evidence that there is demand for something more powerful than the current iPhone. The N8** series is popular even though there are significant hardware trade off in the design. As the software has firmed up on the devices they have been getting more and more interest too.
Frankly I see that market, where internet and web access are wanted, as significant drivers for future hardware. The iPhone in combination with the Nokias are already proving that to be the case. But the machine has to be perceived as a general purpose computing device also. Right now the ability to access cellular networks is very important and frankly one place the Nokias come up short.
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Power isn't a big deal. If Apple can cram 5 hours of video life into an 80 GB iPod classic at 0.41" thick, I don't think they'll have a problem with a bigger device. Not sure what you mean by performance.
Well power is always significant in the portable market even if it is a few milliwatts difference. The issue with performance is that many of the disk drives in these media players where not optimized for computing usage but rather media streaming. For some applications Flash would produce a fairly significant boost in performance even though it would lower power usage. granted at the potable level there might not be a huge difference but it is real and any advantage that can be had power free is worth considering.
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Well, which device are we talking about? My MacBook thin? That should have a HDD. A UMPC? That should have a HDD. Heck, I think the iPhone should have an HDD version. The only suitable flash only device is nano and shuffle sized devices. Everything above it can accommodate HDD. There really shouldn't be a flash versus HDD battle for Apple, they should just know that both are viable markets.
Well if Apple does do an UMPC, one of the best things they could do for themselves is to leave out any rotating media. It just makes for a more reliable machine. But then again maybe I've not had good luck with laptop harddrives so am biased.
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Disk drives will have a 5 to 10x $/GB advantage to flash for the foreseeable future. What would make flash more attractive are users not needing the storage capacity and being happy with <20 GB (number pulled out of the air). It may be true, especially with our broadband kind of stuck at 1 to 3 MBit/s and out wired peripheral connection stuck at <500 MBit/s.
See the thing is when I see people start talking about how much memory a UMPC or even a tablet needs and complain about the lack of space, I realize that we aren't even on the same page as to how the devices would be used. I look at these devices as platforms for people who don't want of need a full blown laptop. In the case of people needing web access and other communications features, it is a consumption model of computing. You don't buy any of these devices to write War & Peace or to program the space shuttle.
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It's really too bad Firewire 800 is not common, DVD is DRMed to all heck, and storage write/read speeds have been relatively stagnant, as I can see those issues preventing users from needing more storage, so flash is all that is needed. It appears that for music, <10 MB is all that is needed. The iPod nano has on doubled in storage (from 4 GB mini to 8 GB nano) over the last 4 years. That should tell us something.
DRM sucks and frankly I haven't purchased a DVD, with a commercial movie on it, in years. I don't disagree with your numbers all that much except to say that Apple may change the equation a bit with respect to large files.
But lets face it it never hurts to have more storage. It should be very easy for Apple to put 32GBs into one of these come the start of the new year and possibly much more. For many this would be OK. I think the key here though is expansion through a compact flash slot or similar. You at least need to leave people with the impression that the thing can grow with their needs.
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Having all of your music & audio, all of your 5+ MP photos, and all of your videos (home videos, DVDs) in an iPhone, iPod or Intel's Moorestown mockup should be just as convenient and useful as iPods and music. It just seems that the content and infrastructure aren't there yet. So, I guess I argued myself out of it. Sigh...
Actually I believe this is a very big draw for the devices. Maybe not all your media but I'd certainly want all my better pics in the unit. While I'm not into home movies at the moment I could see where that would be attractive too.
Lets put it this way it wouldn't take much to chew up whatever amount of storage Apple throws into one of these devices no matter the technology. The trick is that the storage on these devices needs to be rugged. That is why I support flash so much.
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I was just thinking ARM will be in handhelds for a long long while and Intel really doesn't have a chance until 32 nm and a good x86 SoC for handhelds can be made.
If Intel really wanted to they could produce a SOC for the larger devices today. I saw a pic of the latest form Intel and their UMPC chip is extremely small sitting next to one of their production chips. Frankly I'm not sure why they just didn't go whole hog and produce the SOC. Part of that might be customer demand where the ability to hook up alternative I/O may be appealing or the ability to spread heat around the mother boards is useful. Or maybe Intel just isn't feeling real confident about SOC right now
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UMPCs will be an interesting battleground. It just seems everyone is assuming that these tweener devices are the next big thing, a market as big as handhelds (including phones here) or PCs. It's not clear to me yet that this is the case, but there is a lot of money going into it alright.
The only thing that is really clear to me is that the market for traditional UMPC's simply isn't there at the price they are charging. Can Apple hit a feature and price point where the units actually sell? Possibly, but I really believe the market is in the so called tweener device that is based on a tablet design. There is simply more opportunity for innovation and getting things right. Calm shell UMPC's are just an attempt to move a concept into a niche where it just doesn't work.
Too small of a keyboard. Too small of a screen. There were some serious attempts at creating this nano-sized laptop market (Psion's and HP Jornada), and they failed to catch on. One can attribute the implementation failing because of economic reasons or company mismanagement, but there were a lot of clamshell devices like the Psion floating around and they couldn't survive. That tells me there was and is a usability / market issue. (The fact there isn't a company willing to produce such a niche product at a profitable price today is also interesting. Perhaps there are non-trivial OS expenditures to make the device work.)
I used and owned both and they were easy to touch type once you practiced. I could type about 85% of desktop speeds easily. They actually had strong growth and sales of over 2.3 million per year. The real problem was Microsoft being too greedy and wanting to crush Palm so they dropped the OS. Once they did that hardware companies and software companies stopped the clamshell; it was all due to MS. I found the Psion the best as the design of the hardware was easy to carry in a jacket pocket and the typing was a breeze. Their problem was they were trying to convince the world to use their proprietary OS and fight the hardware market at the same time. A modern clamshell if it ran full windows would be the perfect device for most executives, marketing, project managers.
The yet to be successful UMPC class devices also seem to indicate market conditions haven't arrived for such a device yet. Like I said with Dave, my clamshell device is really an ultraportable laptop, the smallest that can be made yet maintain the size of the keyboard. Something on the order of 10 x 5.5 x <1 inch with a 10 inch 1280 x 720 screen and normal OS X. It may not be jacket pocket size, but it will be almost MacBook usable with the benefit of more mobility. If priced right, it shouldn't cannibalize MacBook sales and it should serve a market of its own (ultra-mobile & secondary / complimentary computer). If a price can't be found, it'll suffer the same fate as Psion / Jornada.
The UMPC's fail because they are not pocket size and they are trying to push pen input which the mainstream does not really want. If a modern Jornada or Psion was designed that could run desktop software that would easily sell well. The Psion and Jornada were perfect hardware wise but hardware must have software support which is what MS did to the clamshells.
Picture of the device:
Um, that's not a mass market device. It may not even be a niche device. It's a novelty. At least in America, I think it is at best a novelty. Perhaps in Korea / Japan it has an actual niche market. It's got too many folds and mechanisms for my taste. I don't think it'll even be that portable as I think it would be 1.5" thick folded up. That ain't jacket pocket sized.
Actually when folded it is 4.25" x 1.3" so it does fit into a coat or jacket pocket. It does not allow easy input as the Psion and Jornada did while holding in your hands but this device does offer a keyboard close to desktop and is pocket size. It is a WIMAX device and Korea is already using that wireless and we are barely on 3g in the US.
McCaslin is already in use in some UMPCs. It's just an ULV Pentium M with the usual support chipsets, and uses too much juice for UMPCs really. It's just odd that hardly any UMPCs have the Psion clamshell form factor. That should tell you they think UMPC = tablet functionality, not nano-laptop. Menlow on the other hand, which has a "new" x86 architecture (Silverthorne) specifically designed for ultra-mobile devices, is much more suitable for UMPCs.
Either the existing UMPC technology or devicing using the new Intel chips have the potential to make a popular pocket laptop but so far they have gotton the form factor all wrong. The Forbes article said only 350K umpc's sold in 07' and the issues are mainly form factor and also price and pen input only. Tablets and all pen input only devices have never caught on. What is needed is for a good clamshell or out of the box form factor that provides a screen and keyboard as large as possible yet when folded still is jacket pocket size.
This entire discussion, which I've been following (very good guys!) is that it all comes back to the "Newton-like" device I'd like to see.
Yeah I guess that is about right. In concept anyways, hopefully the years will have been good to Newton and he will be a bit thinner and a bit more colorful.
Talkative too. Communications is a big part of the future of Mobil computing. Thus Newton will have hopefully matured a bit and have grown big boy antennas to suck up the various signals flying about him. If we are real lucky these will be well educated antennas that can grok the newer methods of RF communications like LTE or WiMax.
I used and owned both and they were easy to touch type once you practiced. I could type about 85% of desktop speeds easily. They actually had strong growth and sales of over 2.3 million per year. The real problem was Microsoft being too greedy and wanting to crush Palm so they dropped the OS. Once they did that hardware companies and software companies stopped the clamshell; it was all due to MS. I found the Psion the best as the design of the hardware was easy to carry in a jacket pocket and the typing was a breeze. Their problem was they were trying to convince the world to use their proprietary OS and fight the hardware market at the same time. A modern clamshell if it ran full windows would be the perfect device for most executives, marketing, project managers.
Your explanation isn't resonating with me. Sony also tried pretty hard with its Palm OS Clies as well. Note the iBook in background.
This was for the consumer multimedia market, and Sony couldn't make it work in Japan, let alone in the USA. The Psion and Jornada were business devices, and if there was a 2.3m unit market, I really don't understand how such a device / form factor doesn't survive. 1+ million units is a lot and Psion left money at the door, 0.5 to 1 billion USD in fact. That's just crazy for a company to abandon or for another company to not take advantage of. Or perhaps the real explanation is that this tweener device doesn't really work as a mass market device.
And I don't understand at all why it would be the perfect device for executives, marketing, and project managers, either. What do they do that'll make this a better device than the laptop and QWERTY phone combination?
One other scenario where I could see it work is with Cloud computing and automagic synchronization of the tweener clamshell with one's laptop / desktop and the Cloud. That's probably 5 years away where 32 nm devices will provide as much power as todays C2D laptops.
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Actually when folded it is 4.25" x 1.3" so it does fit into a coat or jacket pocket. It does not allow easy input as the Psion and Jornada did while holding in your hands but this device does offer a keyboard close to desktop and is pocket size. It is a WIMAX device and Korea is already using that wireless and we are barely on 3g in the US.
Umm, 1.3" thick aint thin. Apple doesn't even sell a laptop that thick anymore.
Your explanation isn't resonating with me. Sony also tried pretty hard with its Palm OS Clies as well. Note the iBook in background.
This was for the consumer multimedia market, and Sony couldn't make it work in Japan, let alone in the USA. The Psion and Jornada were business devices, and if there was a 2.3m unit market, I really don't understand how such a device / form factor doesn't survive. 1+ million units is a lot and Psion left money at the door, 0.5 to 1 billion USD in fact. That's just crazy for a company to abandon or for another company to not take advantage of. Or perhaps the real explanation is that this tweener device doesn't really work as a mass market device.
The Sony pics you listed are palm devices with to the biggest band aid ever created, "thumb keyboards". Nobody wants a thumb keyboard. They are not even ideal on a palm pda device where you do not need to input much. They are definately not what people would want in a pocket size device that has the ability to be a full laptop.
Hardware can never work without the software and vise versa. When MS dropped the OS for HPC's that ended the clamshell devices.
"The global handheld computer market enjoyed 61.4% growth in 1998, as shipments rose to just under four million, according to the latest sector survey by analysts at Dataquest.
World handheld shipments 1998
1997 units 1998 units Growth 1998 share
(thousands) (thousands) (%) (%)
Sharp 495 828 67.4 20.8
Psion 397 519 30.9 13.0
Hewlett-Packard 241 270 12.1 6.8
Philips Mobile 71 177 150.4 4.4
NEC 15 170 1004.5 4.3"
And I don't understand at all why it would be the perfect device for executives, marketing, and project managers, either. What do they do that'll make this a better device than the laptop and QWERTY phone combination?
Most of us would rather not carry a laptop. So if we could have a pocket laptop to be our primary mobile computer that would be ideal for many mobile buisness people.
One other scenario where I could see it work is with Cloud computing and automagic synchronization of the tweener clamshell with one's laptop / desktop and the Cloud. That's probably 5 years away where 32 nm devices will provide as much power as todays C2D laptops.
Umm, 1.3" thick aint thin. Apple doesn't even sell a laptop that thick anymore.
1.3 is not that thin but it would be acceptable. Ideally a form factor that is as thin as possible yet provides as large of a length and depth that still fits in a jacket pocket would be the best. For most mobile business people we do not need the most powerful laptop so the ability to carry it in a jacket pocket is much more important.
The Sony pics you listed are palm devices with to the biggest band aid ever created, "thumb keyboards". Nobody wants a thumb keyboard. They are not even ideal on a palm pda device where you do not need to input much. They are definately not what people would want in a pocket size device that has the ability to be a full laptop.
My vision of future computing is in fact something like this, where thumb-boards proliferate. RIM may be the dominate cell phone manufacturer in North America because of this (and the fact that MS has broken Blackberry exchange server compatibility yet. Handhelds will be powerful enough to run today's operating systems, so all that's needed is the handheld, a docking station with large screen, full keyboard/mouse, backup HDD, and legacy crap like opticals. The handheld is one's computer. This is where I think Apple will go too.
In this situation, a nano-laptop would have a market, but it's still a tough market as it'll be too big for the ubiquitous portability of a cell phone sized device, or the full functionality of laptop.
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Hardware can never work without the software and vise versa. When MS dropped the OS for HPC's that ended the clamshell devices.
I'm repeating my point. I'm finding it hard to believe that Microsoft, Psion, or Palm would leave 1m units/year at ~$500 on the table. Not to mention the large services and application monies either. If the market was there and this significant, I don't think it would be a big deal for a company to capitalize on. If MS, Psion and Sony/Palm gave up you have to start to wonder about it being a human problem rather than a marketing one.
Yeah I guess that is about right. In concept anyways, hopefully the years will have been good to Newton and he will be a bit thinner and a bit more colorful.
Talkative too. Communications is a big part of the future of Mobil computing. Thus Newton will have hopefully matured a bit and have grown big boy antennas to suck up the various signals flying about him. If we are real lucky these will be well educated antennas that can grok the newer methods of RF communications like LTE or WiMax.
Dave
If Apple made such a device with a good built in touch type keyboard that would put a crushing blow to MS as I and many would switch to those as our primary mobile computers.
My vision of future computing is in fact something like this, where thumb-boards proliferate. RIM may be the dominate cell phone manufacturer in North America because of this (and the fact that MS has broken Blackberry exchange server compatibility yet. Handhelds will be powerful enough to run today's operating systems, so all that's needed is the handheld, a docking station with large screen, full keyboard/mouse, backup HDD, and legacy crap like opticals. The handheld is one's computer. This is where I think Apple will go too.
In this situation, a nano-laptop would have a market, but it's still a tough market as it'll be too big for the ubiquitous portability of a cell phone sized device, or the full functionality of laptop.
I'm repeating my point. I'm finding it hard to believe that Microsoft, Psion, or Palm would leave 1m units/year at ~$500 on the table. Not to mention the large services and application monies either. If the market was there and this significant, I don't think it would be a big deal for a company to capitalize on. If MS, Psion and Sony/Palm gave up you have to start to wonder about it being a human problem rather than a marketing one.
RIM licenses the compatibility. Apple could as well, if they wanted to.
RIM licenses the compatibility. Apple could as well, if they wanted to.
Well, yes, they could if they want to. Strategically, which enemy would Apple want to deal with? My 8-ball was thinking Microsoft would be the better choice as RIM is ascending and will be competing in iPhone territory while WM phones are only incrementally improving.
I still can't believe MS hasn't created difficulties for RIM's BES...
Well, yes, they could if they want to. Strategically, which enemy would Apple want to deal with? My 8-ball was thinking Microsoft would be the better choice as RIM is ascending and will be competing in iPhone territory while WM phones are only incrementally improving.
I still can't believe MS hasn't created difficulties for RIM's BES...
If they have two products, which one is more strategic?
Would it be their Win Mobile software, or their Exchange server?
It's hard to tell, but Exchange is so integrated in business that I would think that MS would be afraid to not license it properly. If they did, perhaps something would, of necessity , come out to replace it.
"I'm repeating my point. I'm finding it hard to believe that Microsoft, Psion, or Palm would leave 1m units/year at ~$500 on the table. Not to mention the large services and application monies either. If the market was there and this significant, I don't think it would be a big deal for a company to capitalize on. If MS, Psion and Sony/Palm gave up you have to start to wonder about it being a human problem rather than a marketing one."
Remember Microsoft controls the operating systems which prevents most companies other than Apple to have a snowball in hells chance of competiting against them. Psion and Palm tried to compete with MS on simulataneous fronts, hardware and OS and look they both could not do it in the mainstream market.
What I think is different now is that technology has now enabled these small form factors to actually run full blown desktop OS and programs without relying on MS to build a special OS. Also with Apple in these last years being able to run MS applications they could go against MS in this same form factor especially when MS had the market all wrong with their hardware umpc visions of 7" devices. If you think about all laptop users and think what percent really need a super fast computer with the most power or a huge screen. I think that percentage is small as those types of people (designers, engineers, scientists) are more often at a fixed location with a desktop and are a smaller population in general.
I think the larger percentage of users are business people (marketing/sales, mobile managers, executives, etc.) whom would rather have a pocket computer for mobility but still one that can be a functional computer with touch type input. Since MS has failed at their umpc and now with Intels new chips, it is a perfect time for Apple to take advantage of the situation before MS finally realizes they were wrong with their hardware umpc spec.
I'd rather see it as a narrower clamshell so that it could be easily carried in a jacket pocket but I do like the keyboard, wide screen and the sleek modern look. If it could be 7.25" x 3.75" x under .75" when closed that would be so amazing.
I think the larger percentage of users are business people (marketing/sales, mobile managers, executives, etc.) whom would rather have a pocket computer for mobility but still one that can be a functional computer with touch type input. Since MS has failed at their umpc and now with Intels new chips, it is a perfect time for Apple to take advantage of the situation before MS finally realizes they were wrong with their hardware umpc spec.
Well mobilesalesman, HP is getting close to Jornada 2.0:
I saw that prototype and was disappointed as it looks much like their old larger size windows CE HPC, the Jornada 820 which was the size of a laptop and did not sell very well compared to the more compact jacket size Jornada 720. Computer companies must have pretty poor product development managers not to realize that when HP made mobile devices other than laptops that the one that sold millions was not the large 820 but rather the 720 Jornada
I guess this is their cheap umpc laptop as I heard rumors it would sell for $199 to 599?
Comments
If Apple used a keyboard like the old Psion's that would easily enable it to be jacket pocket size. The Psion was only 6.9" x 3.6" x .9".
Too small of a keyboard. Too small of a screen. There were some serious attempts at creating this nano-sized laptop market (Psion's and HP Jornada), and they failed to catch on. One can attribute the implementation failing because of economic reasons or company mismanagement, but there were a lot of clamshell devices like the Psion floating around and they couldn't survive. That tells me there was and is a usability / market issue. (The fact there isn't a company willing to produce such a niche product at a profitable price today is also interesting. Perhaps there are non-trivial OS expenditures to make the device work.)
The yet to be successful UMPC class devices also seem to indicate market conditions haven't arrived for such a device yet. Like I said with Dave, my clamshell device is really an ultraportable laptop, the smallest that can be made yet maintain the size of the keyboard. Something on the order of 10 x 5.5 x <1 inch with a 10 inch 1280 x 720 screen and normal OS X. It may not be jacket pocket size, but it will be almost MacBook usable with the benefit of more mobility. If priced right, it shouldn't cannibalize MacBook sales and it should serve a market of its own (ultra-mobile & secondary / complimentary computer). If a price can't be found, it'll suffer the same fate as Psion / Jornada.
An even more creative device that provides almost a desktop keyboard yet is just barely jacket pocket size is the Samsung SPH P9200 only available in Korea http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9795471-1.html
Picture of the device:
Um, that's not a mass market device. It may not even be a niche device. It's a novelty. At least in America, I think it is at best a novelty. Perhaps in Korea / Japan it has an actual niche market. It's got too many folds and mechanisms for my taste. I don't think it'll even be that portable as I think it would be 1.5" thick folded up. That ain't jacket pocket sized.
From reading other postings here I believe it would be McCaslin Intel chips? that could enable a more true laptop type jacket pocket computer? Either way I think the market is ripe for Apple to capitalize and be the first to fill the jacket pocket laptop market. For business users that type of device would be a steal at $500-700. I would pay double that but right now there is nothing to buy that provides a touch type keyboard and fits into your jacket pocket.
McCaslin is already in use in some UMPCs. It's just an ULV Pentium M with the usual support chipsets, and uses too much juice for UMPCs really. It's just odd that hardly any UMPCs have the Psion clamshell form factor. That should tell you they think UMPC = tablet functionality, not nano-laptop. Menlow on the other hand, which has a "new" x86 architecture (Silverthorne) specifically designed for ultra-mobile devices, is much more suitable for UMPCs.
No way in hell, way to big, that would leave a bulge in your jacket bigger than a 1911! Remember we are looking for something to carry on our person. The other problem is that clam shell or laptop emulating machines suck in the hand held on the go arena. These aren't devices for writing war and peace on, it is a different user and a different problem set then the heavy laptop user.
Well, like has been said, anything else is a tweener device that doesn't seem to have mass market appeal. It either has to be small enough to fit in your hand or big enough to be as usable as a laptop. I went for the smallest possible laptop with a full laptop keyboard idea. If it is UMPC sized, I'm not sure what it would do better than a handheld or a laptop.
Now, it seems the Nokia N800/810 is popular, so there may be a market now for such a device, but lets wait and see. The market where internet access and a web browser is all that is wanted.
Actually I believe that Flash will be a requirement. There is the issue of performance from the small HDD and there is also an issue with Power. Sure Flash has mixed performance issues but it can be shown to be more power efficient.
Power isn't a big deal. If Apple can cram 5 hours of video life into an 80 GB iPod classic at 0.41" thick, I don't think they'll have a problem with a bigger device. Not sure what you mean by performance.
Now are we going to get 160GB of flash from Apple? I doubt it. The question is how much do we need and how economical is it for Apple to reach that value. But like I've said I trust Apple not to screw up like Nokia did. 32GB would be to low in my estimation.
Well, which device are we talking about? My MacBook thin? That should have a HDD. A UMPC? That should have a HDD. Heck, I think the iPhone should have an HDD version. The only suitable flash only device is nano and shuffle sized devices. Everything above it can accommodate HDD. There really shouldn't be a flash versus HDD battle for Apple, they should just know that both are viable markets.
Disk drives will have a 5 to 10x $/GB advantage to flash for the foreseeable future. What would make flash more attractive are users not needing the storage capacity and being happy with <20 GB (number pulled out of the air). It may be true, especially with our broadband kind of stuck at 1 to 3 MBit/s and out wired peripheral connection stuck at <500 MBit/s. It's really too bad Firewire 800 is not common, DVD is DRMed to all heck, and storage write/read speeds have been relatively stagnant, as I can see those issues preventing users from needing more storage, so flash is all that is needed. It appears that for music, <10 MB is all that is needed. The iPod nano has on doubled in storage (from 4 GB mini to 8 GB nano) over the last 4 years. That should tell us something.
Having all of your music & audio, all of your 5+ MP photos, and all of your videos (home videos, DVDs) in an iPhone, iPod or Intel's Moorestown mockup should be just as convenient and useful as iPods and music. It just seems that the content and infrastructure aren't there yet. So, I guess I argued myself out of it. Sigh...
Yep some interesting approaches. Some that stand out include dual core SoC's. What I really find interesting though is that many of the devices are slated to hit 1GHz or so.
What that means is that we will have hand held devices in the near future that are significantly faster than more that half the computers I've ever owned.
I was just thinking ARM will be in handhelds for a long long while and Intel really doesn't have a chance until 32 nm and a good x86 SoC for handhelds can be made.
Well, like has been said, anything else is a tweener device that doesn't seem to have mass market appeal. It either has to be small enough to fit in your hand or big enough to be as usable as a laptop. I went for the smallest possible laptop with a full laptop keyboard idea. If it is UMPC sized, I'm not sure what it would do better than a handheld or a laptop.
Well that is really what we seem to be debating. I just see a need for something larger than the iPod Touch / iPhone that is still very portable. There are a number of things that drive that need. One is movies and other visual media, where a higher pixel density can make a huge difference. It is really a matter of how seriously Apple is going to take on the multimedia market.
The second issue driving demand for a larger iPhone is that it makes for a much more capable device when used as a personal computing device. In either case we aren't talking about a huge increase in size. About a half inch in width and maybe tweaking length is all that is needed to bring a lot more capability to the iPhone. Neither of these devices could really be considered competition for the laptop market. In fact a discussion of laptops in this context really doesn't make sense.
Where it would make sense is in a discussion about a tablet PC that is significantly larger than an iPhone. This again is a different market but in part it wold be a machine designed to replace laptops. It certainly isn't the platform for heavy text entry, but frankly many laptops aren't used in that manner anymore. The market is more consumerish than commercial though I could see the platform getting heavy up take in the industrial sector. As far as what it does better, well that is simple really it delivers a bigger screen than the iPhone type devices! Along with that it offers up a form factor that is much more useful than the traditional clamshell laptop approach for people on the go.
Now, it seems the Nokia N800/810 is popular, so there may be a market now for such a device, but lets wait and see. The market where internet access and a web browser is all that is wanted.
See this is where I see positive evidence that there is demand for something more powerful than the current iPhone. The N8** series is popular even though there are significant hardware trade off in the design. As the software has firmed up on the devices they have been getting more and more interest too.
Frankly I see that market, where internet and web access are wanted, as significant drivers for future hardware. The iPhone in combination with the Nokias are already proving that to be the case. But the machine has to be perceived as a general purpose computing device also. Right now the ability to access cellular networks is very important and frankly one place the Nokias come up short.
Power isn't a big deal. If Apple can cram 5 hours of video life into an 80 GB iPod classic at 0.41" thick, I don't think they'll have a problem with a bigger device. Not sure what you mean by performance.
Well power is always significant in the portable market even if it is a few milliwatts difference. The issue with performance is that many of the disk drives in these media players where not optimized for computing usage but rather media streaming. For some applications Flash would produce a fairly significant boost in performance even though it would lower power usage. granted at the potable level there might not be a huge difference but it is real and any advantage that can be had power free is worth considering.
Well, which device are we talking about? My MacBook thin? That should have a HDD. A UMPC? That should have a HDD. Heck, I think the iPhone should have an HDD version. The only suitable flash only device is nano and shuffle sized devices. Everything above it can accommodate HDD. There really shouldn't be a flash versus HDD battle for Apple, they should just know that both are viable markets.
Well if Apple does do an UMPC, one of the best things they could do for themselves is to leave out any rotating media. It just makes for a more reliable machine. But then again maybe I've not had good luck with laptop harddrives so am biased.
Disk drives will have a 5 to 10x $/GB advantage to flash for the foreseeable future. What would make flash more attractive are users not needing the storage capacity and being happy with <20 GB (number pulled out of the air). It may be true, especially with our broadband kind of stuck at 1 to 3 MBit/s and out wired peripheral connection stuck at <500 MBit/s.
See the thing is when I see people start talking about how much memory a UMPC or even a tablet needs and complain about the lack of space, I realize that we aren't even on the same page as to how the devices would be used. I look at these devices as platforms for people who don't want of need a full blown laptop. In the case of people needing web access and other communications features, it is a consumption model of computing. You don't buy any of these devices to write War & Peace or to program the space shuttle.
It's really too bad Firewire 800 is not common, DVD is DRMed to all heck, and storage write/read speeds have been relatively stagnant, as I can see those issues preventing users from needing more storage, so flash is all that is needed. It appears that for music, <10 MB is all that is needed. The iPod nano has on doubled in storage (from 4 GB mini to 8 GB nano) over the last 4 years. That should tell us something.
DRM sucks and frankly I haven't purchased a DVD, with a commercial movie on it, in years. I don't disagree with your numbers all that much except to say that Apple may change the equation a bit with respect to large files.
But lets face it it never hurts to have more storage. It should be very easy for Apple to put 32GBs into one of these come the start of the new year and possibly much more. For many this would be OK. I think the key here though is expansion through a compact flash slot or similar. You at least need to leave people with the impression that the thing can grow with their needs.
Having all of your music & audio, all of your 5+ MP photos, and all of your videos (home videos, DVDs) in an iPhone, iPod or Intel's Moorestown mockup should be just as convenient and useful as iPods and music. It just seems that the content and infrastructure aren't there yet. So, I guess I argued myself out of it. Sigh...
Actually I believe this is a very big draw for the devices. Maybe not all your media but I'd certainly want all my better pics in the unit. While I'm not into home movies at the moment I could see where that would be attractive too.
Lets put it this way it wouldn't take much to chew up whatever amount of storage Apple throws into one of these devices no matter the technology. The trick is that the storage on these devices needs to be rugged. That is why I support flash so much.
I was just thinking ARM will be in handhelds for a long long while and Intel really doesn't have a chance until 32 nm and a good x86 SoC for handhelds can be made.
If Intel really wanted to they could produce a SOC for the larger devices today. I saw a pic of the latest form Intel and their UMPC chip is extremely small sitting next to one of their production chips. Frankly I'm not sure why they just didn't go whole hog and produce the SOC. Part of that might be customer demand where the ability to hook up alternative I/O may be appealing or the ability to spread heat around the mother boards is useful. Or maybe Intel just isn't feeling real confident about SOC right now
UMPCs will be an interesting battleground. It just seems everyone is assuming that these tweener devices are the next big thing, a market as big as handhelds (including phones here) or PCs. It's not clear to me yet that this is the case, but there is a lot of money going into it alright.
The only thing that is really clear to me is that the market for traditional UMPC's simply isn't there at the price they are charging. Can Apple hit a feature and price point where the units actually sell? Possibly, but I really believe the market is in the so called tweener device that is based on a tablet design. There is simply more opportunity for innovation and getting things right. Calm shell UMPC's are just an attempt to move a concept into a niche where it just doesn't work.
Dave
Too small of a keyboard. Too small of a screen. There were some serious attempts at creating this nano-sized laptop market (Psion's and HP Jornada), and they failed to catch on. One can attribute the implementation failing because of economic reasons or company mismanagement, but there were a lot of clamshell devices like the Psion floating around and they couldn't survive. That tells me there was and is a usability / market issue. (The fact there isn't a company willing to produce such a niche product at a profitable price today is also interesting. Perhaps there are non-trivial OS expenditures to make the device work.)
I used and owned both and they were easy to touch type once you practiced. I could type about 85% of desktop speeds easily. They actually had strong growth and sales of over 2.3 million per year. The real problem was Microsoft being too greedy and wanting to crush Palm so they dropped the OS. Once they did that hardware companies and software companies stopped the clamshell; it was all due to MS. I found the Psion the best as the design of the hardware was easy to carry in a jacket pocket and the typing was a breeze. Their problem was they were trying to convince the world to use their proprietary OS and fight the hardware market at the same time. A modern clamshell if it ran full windows would be the perfect device for most executives, marketing, project managers.
The yet to be successful UMPC class devices also seem to indicate market conditions haven't arrived for such a device yet. Like I said with Dave, my clamshell device is really an ultraportable laptop, the smallest that can be made yet maintain the size of the keyboard. Something on the order of 10 x 5.5 x <1 inch with a 10 inch 1280 x 720 screen and normal OS X. It may not be jacket pocket size, but it will be almost MacBook usable with the benefit of more mobility. If priced right, it shouldn't cannibalize MacBook sales and it should serve a market of its own (ultra-mobile & secondary / complimentary computer). If a price can't be found, it'll suffer the same fate as Psion / Jornada.
The UMPC's fail because they are not pocket size and they are trying to push pen input which the mainstream does not really want. If a modern Jornada or Psion was designed that could run desktop software that would easily sell well. The Psion and Jornada were perfect hardware wise but hardware must have software support which is what MS did to the clamshells.
Picture of the device:
Um, that's not a mass market device. It may not even be a niche device. It's a novelty. At least in America, I think it is at best a novelty. Perhaps in Korea / Japan it has an actual niche market. It's got too many folds and mechanisms for my taste. I don't think it'll even be that portable as I think it would be 1.5" thick folded up. That ain't jacket pocket sized.
Actually when folded it is 4.25" x 1.3" so it does fit into a coat or jacket pocket. It does not allow easy input as the Psion and Jornada did while holding in your hands but this device does offer a keyboard close to desktop and is pocket size. It is a WIMAX device and Korea is already using that wireless and we are barely on 3g in the US.
McCaslin is already in use in some UMPCs. It's just an ULV Pentium M with the usual support chipsets, and uses too much juice for UMPCs really. It's just odd that hardly any UMPCs have the Psion clamshell form factor. That should tell you they think UMPC = tablet functionality, not nano-laptop. Menlow on the other hand, which has a "new" x86 architecture (Silverthorne) specifically designed for ultra-mobile devices, is much more suitable for UMPCs.
Either the existing UMPC technology or devicing using the new Intel chips have the potential to make a popular pocket laptop but so far they have gotton the form factor all wrong. The Forbes article said only 350K umpc's sold in 07' and the issues are mainly form factor and also price and pen input only. Tablets and all pen input only devices have never caught on. What is needed is for a good clamshell or out of the box form factor that provides a screen and keyboard as large as possible yet when folded still is jacket pocket size.
This entire discussion, which I've been following (very good guys!) is that it all comes back to the "Newton-like" device I'd like to see.
Yeah I guess that is about right. In concept anyways, hopefully the years will have been good to Newton and he will be a bit thinner and a bit more colorful.
Talkative too. Communications is a big part of the future of Mobil computing. Thus Newton will have hopefully matured a bit and have grown big boy antennas to suck up the various signals flying about him. If we are real lucky these will be well educated antennas that can grok the newer methods of RF communications like LTE or WiMax.
Dave
I used and owned both and they were easy to touch type once you practiced. I could type about 85% of desktop speeds easily. They actually had strong growth and sales of over 2.3 million per year. The real problem was Microsoft being too greedy and wanting to crush Palm so they dropped the OS. Once they did that hardware companies and software companies stopped the clamshell; it was all due to MS. I found the Psion the best as the design of the hardware was easy to carry in a jacket pocket and the typing was a breeze. Their problem was they were trying to convince the world to use their proprietary OS and fight the hardware market at the same time. A modern clamshell if it ran full windows would be the perfect device for most executives, marketing, project managers.
Your explanation isn't resonating with me. Sony also tried pretty hard with its Palm OS Clies as well. Note the iBook in background.
This was for the consumer multimedia market, and Sony couldn't make it work in Japan, let alone in the USA. The Psion and Jornada were business devices, and if there was a 2.3m unit market, I really don't understand how such a device / form factor doesn't survive. 1+ million units is a lot and Psion left money at the door, 0.5 to 1 billion USD in fact. That's just crazy for a company to abandon or for another company to not take advantage of. Or perhaps the real explanation is that this tweener device doesn't really work as a mass market device.
And I don't understand at all why it would be the perfect device for executives, marketing, and project managers, either. What do they do that'll make this a better device than the laptop and QWERTY phone combination?
One other scenario where I could see it work is with Cloud computing and automagic synchronization of the tweener clamshell with one's laptop / desktop and the Cloud. That's probably 5 years away where 32 nm devices will provide as much power as todays C2D laptops.
Actually when folded it is 4.25" x 1.3" so it does fit into a coat or jacket pocket. It does not allow easy input as the Psion and Jornada did while holding in your hands but this device does offer a keyboard close to desktop and is pocket size. It is a WIMAX device and Korea is already using that wireless and we are barely on 3g in the US.
Umm, 1.3" thick aint thin. Apple doesn't even sell a laptop that thick anymore.
Your explanation isn't resonating with me. Sony also tried pretty hard with its Palm OS Clies as well. Note the iBook in background.
This was for the consumer multimedia market, and Sony couldn't make it work in Japan, let alone in the USA. The Psion and Jornada were business devices, and if there was a 2.3m unit market, I really don't understand how such a device / form factor doesn't survive. 1+ million units is a lot and Psion left money at the door, 0.5 to 1 billion USD in fact. That's just crazy for a company to abandon or for another company to not take advantage of. Or perhaps the real explanation is that this tweener device doesn't really work as a mass market device.
The Sony pics you listed are palm devices with to the biggest band aid ever created, "thumb keyboards". Nobody wants a thumb keyboard. They are not even ideal on a palm pda device where you do not need to input much. They are definately not what people would want in a pocket size device that has the ability to be a full laptop.
Hardware can never work without the software and vise versa. When MS dropped the OS for HPC's that ended the clamshell devices.
"The global handheld computer market enjoyed 61.4% growth in 1998, as shipments rose to just under four million, according to the latest sector survey by analysts at Dataquest.
World handheld shipments 1998
1997 units 1998 units Growth 1998 share
(thousands) (thousands) (%) (%)
Sharp 495 828 67.4 20.8
Psion 397 519 30.9 13.0
Hewlett-Packard 241 270 12.1 6.8
Philips Mobile 71 177 150.4 4.4
NEC 15 170 1004.5 4.3"
And I don't understand at all why it would be the perfect device for executives, marketing, and project managers, either. What do they do that'll make this a better device than the laptop and QWERTY phone combination?
Most of us would rather not carry a laptop. So if we could have a pocket laptop to be our primary mobile computer that would be ideal for many mobile buisness people.
One other scenario where I could see it work is with Cloud computing and automagic synchronization of the tweener clamshell with one's laptop / desktop and the Cloud. That's probably 5 years away where 32 nm devices will provide as much power as todays C2D laptops.
Umm, 1.3" thick aint thin. Apple doesn't even sell a laptop that thick anymore.
1.3 is not that thin but it would be acceptable. Ideally a form factor that is as thin as possible yet provides as large of a length and depth that still fits in a jacket pocket would be the best. For most mobile business people we do not need the most powerful laptop so the ability to carry it in a jacket pocket is much more important.
The Sony pics you listed are palm devices with to the biggest band aid ever created, "thumb keyboards". Nobody wants a thumb keyboard. They are not even ideal on a palm pda device where you do not need to input much. They are definately not what people would want in a pocket size device that has the ability to be a full laptop.
My vision of future computing is in fact something like this, where thumb-boards proliferate. RIM may be the dominate cell phone manufacturer in North America because of this (and the fact that MS has broken Blackberry exchange server compatibility yet.
In this situation, a nano-laptop would have a market, but it's still a tough market as it'll be too big for the ubiquitous portability of a cell phone sized device, or the full functionality of laptop.
Hardware can never work without the software and vise versa. When MS dropped the OS for HPC's that ended the clamshell devices.
I'm repeating my point. I'm finding it hard to believe that Microsoft, Psion, or Palm would leave 1m units/year at ~$500 on the table. Not to mention the large services and application monies either. If the market was there and this significant, I don't think it would be a big deal for a company to capitalize on. If MS, Psion and Sony/Palm gave up you have to start to wonder about it being a human problem rather than a marketing one.
Yeah I guess that is about right. In concept anyways, hopefully the years will have been good to Newton and he will be a bit thinner and a bit more colorful.
Talkative too. Communications is a big part of the future of Mobil computing. Thus Newton will have hopefully matured a bit and have grown big boy antennas to suck up the various signals flying about him. If we are real lucky these will be well educated antennas that can grok the newer methods of RF communications like LTE or WiMax.
Dave
If Apple made such a device with a good built in touch type keyboard that would put a crushing blow to MS as I and many would switch to those as our primary mobile computers.
My vision of future computing is in fact something like this, where thumb-boards proliferate. RIM may be the dominate cell phone manufacturer in North America because of this (and the fact that MS has broken Blackberry exchange server compatibility yet.
In this situation, a nano-laptop would have a market, but it's still a tough market as it'll be too big for the ubiquitous portability of a cell phone sized device, or the full functionality of laptop.
I'm repeating my point. I'm finding it hard to believe that Microsoft, Psion, or Palm would leave 1m units/year at ~$500 on the table. Not to mention the large services and application monies either. If the market was there and this significant, I don't think it would be a big deal for a company to capitalize on. If MS, Psion and Sony/Palm gave up you have to start to wonder about it being a human problem rather than a marketing one.
RIM licenses the compatibility. Apple could as well, if they wanted to.
RIM licenses the compatibility. Apple could as well, if they wanted to.
Well, yes, they could if they want to. Strategically, which enemy would Apple want to deal with? My 8-ball was thinking Microsoft would be the better choice as RIM is ascending and will be competing in iPhone territory while WM phones are only incrementally improving.
I still can't believe MS hasn't created difficulties for RIM's BES...
Well, yes, they could if they want to. Strategically, which enemy would Apple want to deal with? My 8-ball was thinking Microsoft would be the better choice as RIM is ascending and will be competing in iPhone territory while WM phones are only incrementally improving.
I still can't believe MS hasn't created difficulties for RIM's BES...
If they have two products, which one is more strategic?
Would it be their Win Mobile software, or their Exchange server?
It's hard to tell, but Exchange is so integrated in business that I would think that MS would be afraid to not license it properly. If they did, perhaps something would, of necessity , come out to replace it.
Remember Microsoft controls the operating systems which prevents most companies other than Apple to have a snowball in hells chance of competiting against them. Psion and Palm tried to compete with MS on simulataneous fronts, hardware and OS and look they both could not do it in the mainstream market.
What I think is different now is that technology has now enabled these small form factors to actually run full blown desktop OS and programs without relying on MS to build a special OS. Also with Apple in these last years being able to run MS applications they could go against MS in this same form factor especially when MS had the market all wrong with their hardware umpc visions of 7" devices. If you think about all laptop users and think what percent really need a super fast computer with the most power or a huge screen. I think that percentage is small as those types of people (designers, engineers, scientists) are more often at a fixed location with a desktop and are a smaller population in general.
I think the larger percentage of users are business people (marketing/sales, mobile managers, executives, etc.) whom would rather have a pocket computer for mobility but still one that can be a functional computer with touch type input. Since MS has failed at their umpc and now with Intels new chips, it is a perfect time for Apple to take advantage of the situation before MS finally realizes they were wrong with their hardware umpc spec.
Image above
That is the slickest mockup I've seen. Still unrealistic, but very nice.
I think the larger percentage of users are business people (marketing/sales, mobile managers, executives, etc.) whom would rather have a pocket computer for mobility but still one that can be a functional computer with touch type input. Since MS has failed at their umpc and now with Intels new chips, it is a perfect time for Apple to take advantage of the situation before MS finally realizes they were wrong with their hardware umpc spec.
Well mobilesalesman, HP is getting close to Jornada 2.0:
HP UMPC