computerworld.com — Despite amazing advancements in mobile computing technology, the industry has failed to solve the oldest and most central problem of mobility: How to add a larger keyboard and screen to a tiny cell phone. Palm tried and failed with the Foleo. Will Apple get it right?
Oct 24, 2008 View in Crawl 4
garrybarkerOct 26, 2008
Look at the record number iPhones sold. Case closed.
wizzlaOct 26, 2008
A real geek or nerd would probably build their own box.
wonderchemistOct 26, 2008
"How to add a larger keyboard and screen to a tiny cell phone"Is there a market for these mid sized devices? At some point a device becomes too big to fit into your pocket. I would argue devices just above this size threshold will never find a market, as the added effort needed to carry them around will outweigh what you get out of a slightly larger device.
middleofnowhereOct 26, 2008
Yeah; this is an interesting problem.I talked to people who don't like the iPhone as a notebook/netbook replacement because they say the screen is to small, and they miss a physical keyboard. But once you add a big screen and keyboard, you essentially have a netbook and all the related problems (too big/heavy).I have been using a Nokia E70, which has a folding, "butterfly" keyboard, for two years - see <a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nokia_e70_auki.jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nokia_e70_auki. ...</a>Now I thought this would be a good compromise, but it isn't. The keys are simply to small for anything but short text messages. I finally bought an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and coupled that with the phone. It works, but it's kind of clumsy.Personally I think that if Apple got of their high horse and allowed users to couple a physical keyboard with the iPhone and iPod Touch, they'd have a killer combo. The fact that they don't do/allow this makes me wonder if we might see some kind of iPhone-ish netbook in the future. But I'm not holding my breath. I'll buy an Asus Eee PC 1000 tomorrow. :)
elranzerOct 27, 2008
i + n = m ?