Three huge tech developments this week

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Bruce Keener

This has been one of the most interesting weeks I can remember as regards tech product releases (or promised releases):

  • Palm’s introduction of the Foleo intrigues me very much. At first read, it sounds like not much than a keyboard connection to a smartphone, with the exception of its widescreen display. However, it is also a computing device itself, and is based on a Linux platform. Jason Dunn of Smartphone Thoughts has a good writeup of it as does James Kendrick of jkOnTheRun. If I were doing much traveling, I would consider one of these. Not sure I would actually get one, but it does look like it could replace a laptop for a lot of situations.
  • Microsoft’s introduction of surface computing is a major development. James Kendrick has an interesting write-up on it. As with the other two new developments, there are a ton of write-ups available on the web.
  • Apple iTunes Plus with DRM free tracks is now available. See 43folders, for example. There are write-ups all over the web on it.


Back to the Palm Foleo, I am not entirely convinced that I would need one. March Orchant gives a great discussion over at ZDNet on his use of a Stowaway Portable Keyboard with his Nokia phones. For some reason, I have gotten away from using a portable keyboard, although I can testify to how productive one can be with one: I wrote the entire original draft of my Keen PDA site using a Palm Portable Keyboard and a Palm m505, writing from various locations. (This was before I had a laptop.) And, last year I used a portable bluetooth enabled keyboard a lot with my Dell x51v. They are powerful, and you can almost get along without a laptop using them. I may dig out my portable keyboard today and tinker with it again.

The innovation of Apple with DRM is no great surprise, as we have come to expect Apple to innovate. I must say I was a bit surprised at the innovations of Palm and Microsoft, though. My view of these companies regarding innovation has been that Palm didn’t have the capital to innovate and Microsoft had become so large that its enormous talent resources are hindered by bureaucracy. I personally think MS would benefit from new leadership, but we all know that is not going to happen. Those of you who are regular readers here know that waste of talent frustrates me enormously, and I feel for all the talented people at MS who seem to have their talents hindered. This new development is a good sign, though.

What are your thoughts on these developments?

Share


 

This entry was posted in In The News and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.
  • Marc Orchant

    Bruce – I tend to agree with your assessment and, as someone who has been traveling a lot this past year, I’m quite excited about Foleo. Having an instant-on, lightweight, long-life device that does the things I need to do most when OTR (On The Run of course!) is very compelling.

    The “new mobile office” as I’ve dubbed my Nokia-powered kit is a viable solution. But Foleo provides so much more screen real estate and the promise of easy smartphone sync (especially with my Treo) which in turn means sync to my conventional PC environments.

    At $500, this is only $100 more than the N800 and far less than I’d spend on a laptop. Yes I know there are bargain basement laptops in $5-600 range but I’d never buy one. I currently have a MacBook (~ $1700 with the upgrades I’ve done) and a Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet PC (~ $2300 as configured) in my collection. They both suit my full-blown needs very nicely. But there are any number of occasions when I find them cumbersome or difficult to use (like on a plane, at a conference, or in a small hotel room).

    I see Foleo having appeal to four niches – OTR execs tired of hassling with a conventional laptop, students looking for an all-day lightweight device, high-end consumers looking for something simpler, and gadget freaks like me. ;^)

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Marc,

    Great of you to stop by and share your thoughts on this. You make a great case for getting one, and once I start traveling a bit (which will probably coincide with the release of Foleo), I may just get one.

    I have always valued your insights immensely … if anyone could talk me into buying a device it would be you (well, James could too, and so could Thomas, but that is pretty much it … I’ve become a cheapster in my old age ;^) )