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- Could A Dockable iPhone Be A Better Netbook?
PowerBook Duo: A hint of things to come?
PC Mag’s Sascha Segan posed an intriguing question the other day: “If you put a smartphone in a dock, it could replace a netbook. So why hasn’t anyone succeeded at doing that?”
Good question.
Now that I’ve been thinking about it, the idea of a dock into which you could pop an iPhone or an iPod touch, thereby quickly connecting it to a decent-sized external display, keyboard and mouse, some USB ports, Ethernet, and maybe an SD Card slot, you would have, if not best of both worlds, at least an attractive hybrid.
A dockable smartphone/internet computer would no doubt cost more than a PC netbook, but it could also be much more versatile, and arguably a better overall value.
Indeed, external input device support over Bluetooth alone would make handhelds much more appealing to me. As Segan observes, with “65,000 apps for the iPhone alone, it’s hard to believe that there aren’t thousands of people who would want to use those apps with a nice big keyboard and screen.”
Of course, to make a docked iPhone or iPod touch truly competitive with the netbook segment, it would require driver tweaking and some re-engineering to support the necessary hardware inputs and outputs. There’s also the issue of what Segan refers to as “the OS problem,” specifically: The iPhone OS as presently configured is not really up to the job of supporting the kind of robust productivity apps that can run on a netbook under Linux, Windows, or OS X.
I’ve long been a fan and admirer of the Apple PowerBook Duo concept from the early-to-mid ’90s. It combined a subcompact laptop module that could be used as a freestanding notebook, and a Duo Dock with a full-size CRT monitor, a full set contemporary of I/O ports, and internal expansion slots for desktop power with few compromises.
Toward the end of the ’90s, laptop computers became powerful, versatile, and gained improved connectivity and display options. Many of the the Duo’s advantages were negated, but it seems to me quite logical that the PowerBook Duo concept could be successfully updated, using a handheld instead as its “core module.”
Indeed, it’s so logical that it seems a wonder no one has yet acted on the idea. Segan thinks the reason is that Apple and the wireless carriers don’t want it to happen. Presently, folks who have both a smartphone and a netbook need two wireless service subscriptions, whereas our proposed dockable handheld hybrid device would theoretically only require one. As for keyboard-supporting iPhones, he thinks that won’t happen because Apple doesn’t want to erode MacBook sales.
All that sounds a bit conspiratorial, but also lamentably plausible. Even so, look at the issue from the angle of a similar new product category. While Microsoft has a complicated relationship with the netbook phenomenon, and Apple is downright contemptuous, consumers voted with their wallets and made the netbook the hottest-selling category in computers. Now that the dam has burst as it were, Microsoft is playing ball with the netbook-optimized edition of Windows 7.
I think platform convergence and rationalization between the smartphone and netbook spaces could likewise catch the consumer imagination and take on a life of its own. It seems just too good an idea to be able to keep suppressed indefinitely.
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Переслать - RIM Buys Torch Mobile: Closing the Gap on Mobile Safari?
Canadian company Research In Motion, maker of the ubiquitous BlackBerry, has bought software developers (and webkit aficionados) Torch Mobile, according to a report today over on Engadget.No, I’ve never heard of Torch Mobile, either.
But according to the company’s web site, it is "excited to announce" that the company has been acquired by RIM, “one of the most renowned mobile technology companies in the world." It looks like a play by RIM to improve the Internet side of its mobile devices.
Torch Mobile is the developer of, among other things, the Iris browser, which, like Safari, is based on the webkit rendering engine. Torch describes Iris as:
"…an advanced, high-performance and versatile application that is specifically designed to function in resource-constrained environments. It brings the full Web experience to mobile phones, set-top boxes, mobile Internet devices, portable media players, Ultra-Mobile PCs and other embedded devices — in a fast and user-friendly manner."
This is great news for BlackBerry owners. That smartphone might be great at handling email (well, that's a matter of opinion — I've owned two BlackBerry devices in my time and still think email is better on my iPhone) but the browser RIM has been pushing on its customers is horrible, just horrible.
Since Iris is based on the same core engine as mobile Safari, if it is ultimately subsumed into upcoming BlackBerry models, we can expect those diminutive email machines to become a bit more capable as all-round mobile Internet devices. Plus, RIM gets to add a new string to its bow, which should please Bono.
Iris is currently limited to Windows Mobile and devices running the Nokia-owned Qt Extended (formally Qtopia) operating system (a flavor of Embedded Linux).
Closing the gap on the iPhone’s superb web browser is surely the aim of every mobile device maker; after all, the iPhone is unarguably the king of the mobile Internet. In its April report, AdMob revealed that a full 43 percent of worldwide smartphone web requests were made on the iPhone and iPod Touch. In North America, the figure was as high as 59 percent. By June, those figures had grown to 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively.
For any mobile device manufacturer, it’s difficult to honestly claim an elegant and worthwhile browsing experience without at least matching the power and usability of mobile Safari. So perhaps next year, when Apple is announcing its latest and greatest iPhone, RIM will be in a position to (finally!) offer its customers an experience similar to the one iPhone users first had three years earlier. Coming to the party late is better than not coming at all, right?
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