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Handtops as consumer electronics.
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Due to the enthusiast nature of this forum, and the obviously high level of technical know-how of the individual members, we all sometimes miss the point, just as the industry generally has been missing the point from day one. The success of the Handtop form factor, and its very existence, is dependant not on the size and type of keyboard, or the screen resolution, or the CPU, RAM , HDD, OS, or any other technical detail. Those are simply components. The success of the Handtop form factor is dependant on producing a device or devices that meet the perceived requirements of a whole lot of people at a reasonable cost.
So far, no Handtop computer manufacturer has managed to achieve anything close to this.
The simple reason for this failure is that they are constrained by the limitations of technology, finances, and an understanding of what is really needed to fire the public imagination and come up with a “must have” concept.
Before we have a mass of emotional “it needs a touch type keyboard” type of responses, lets look at this dispassionately. The reason no Handtop has as yet become a consumer item (a fridge or VCR or DVD Player or microwave oven) is that there has never as yet been a computer, far less a Handtop computer, that fits so naturally into our lives that it could be considered to be practically indispensable.
The closest things we have to this type of device that could be compared to Handtop computers are the cell phone and the iPod. Conceptually, they are small, simple to operate (with reference to their core functionality) devices that perform a useful function at a affordable price, and can be kept with us all the time.
So what is it that would be needed to make the Handtop a consumer item? Forget for a moment the hardware and OS, they are simply the means of achieving the goal. What is the conceptual basis of a consumer Handtop?
Obviously, the first factor is size and weight. To be universally successful, the Handtop would need to be small enough an light enough to be carried everywhere, as are cell phones today.
The second major factor must be battery life. The Handtop needs a battery life of at least eight hours on the go.
The third factor must be instant availability. To succeed, the Handtop must be available when needed without a waiting period.
The forth factor would be the interface. The operation must be simple and intuitive and shield the user from the complexities of the computer OS, but at the same time be open ended and infinitely configurable. The input must be simple and fast and easy to use, and the output must be simple and easy to interact with.
The fifth factor must be connectivity. For the Handtop to succeed, it must have universal fast connectivity that does not require user intervention.
The sixth factor needs to be storage. The Handtop must possess sufficient storage in a structured environment.
The seventh factor is performance. For the Handtop to succeed, it must have a reasonable level of performance when used for average tasks.
And the eighth and last major factor, but by no means the least important, is cost. The Handtop must be affordable to the average consumer, as is the cell phone at present.
While the above might at present look like science fiction and in today's technological environment it is as yet not completely achievable, we can probably go a long way towards achieving such a design already, if we are prepared to think outside the box, and leave our current preconceptions behind.
The first preconception that we might have to abandon is the concept of a unitary design. Who says that the Handtop has to be one single unit? The iPod is not, it is a player and separate earphones. Why could the same principle not be applied to the Handtop. Input and output devices separate from the main unit, perhaps even interchangeable with other types depending on situation? Like the bluetooth headset on a cell phone, this concept only seems strange until people start using it.
The second preconception to get rid of is to do with interface. Why view things on a screen limited by the size of the unit. Roll out screens will be here soon, but we already have projectors and monitor glasses. Do we need a keyboard as part of the unit? Could we not use a separate, folding keyboard and never have to take the unit out of a pocket? What about virtual keyboards projected from a watch, or voice input for simpler tasks?
The third concept to abandon is functionality. Why should a Handtop function like a traditional computer? Why not pre-program the most commonly used features to be accessed like on a cell phone, or better still a TV remote? If one wanted the traditional OS interface, it would still be available, but should it be the primary interface, and should it determine functionality, as it does today?
Battery life, availability and performance are related and can not be dealt with separately. Would sacrificing CPU performance not lead to better battery life, which in turn would lead to better availability? What about lots of separate, low powered general purpose micro cores on a CPU that perform individual operations and shut down when not in use?
Storage and communications also go hand in hand. SSD's can provide enough low power consumption storage to make the unit work, but are expensive and prohibit high capacities in a low cost unit. But if one had a small SSD in the unit, remote storage could be used for larger volumes of data, presuming inexpensive, high speed pervasive communications. This could also permit the access to increased computing power where needed by handing off tasks to powerful base stations attached to the Handtop via the communications net.
Price could be dealt with by volume sales, sponsorships from cell phone carriers or providers of communications, and the use of less expensive, standardised components.
The only factor that we do not have an available or potentially available solution for at present is battery life, and that will come.
These are just some ideas on how to approach the problem, and there are probably a great number of better ones out there. But one thing is for sure, we need to approach the problem, as it is real and at present limiting the Handtop to a niche, high price market.
Finally, the above conceptual approach does not do away with the Handtop as it is at present. Just as lightweight laptops have not killed gaming laptops, so this conceptual Handtop would not do away with Handtops as we know them. What it would do is popularize the Handtop concept, and turn the Handtop into a consumer electronic device, ensuring the survival and prospering of the traditional Handtop at the top end of the market for those that need it.
*EDIT - Just a week or so after this blog was written, we have a release from Intel in a similar vein. link
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04/11/07
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GreatDane
Hi primaz,
The touch type design you describe will probably arrive sooner or later. Unfortunately, as a mass consumer electronics device, it is going to be too large. For the device to really take of as a consumer electronics device, rather than a micro laptop or conventional Handtop, one needs to look at something smaller than even the current batch of Handtops. Unless this entails a fold out keyboard like the Samsung P9000, one will have to rethink the entire input concept.
I defy anyone to place a conventional touch type keyboard on a device as small as a cell phone, and you can bet every penny you have that anything larger than a cell phone is not going to be a success in the consumer electronics arena. So one needs to think outside the box, possibly way outside the box.
04/11/07
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primaz
I would disagree that "one needs to look at something smaller than even the current batch of Handtops". People have created watch PDA's and there are many small pocket pc and similar computers. It is not the size it is how functional it will be. Cell phones got so small that now many are going back to designs where when opened they are much larger than the tiny ones that were more prevalent because people found the other phones too small and uncomfortable. I do agree that something way outside could be a hit if it were to incorporate a touch type keyboard like the Samsung SPHP900 as I could see that type of unique trifold design reduced yet still offer good keyboard input. For a mainstream consumer device it must be functional to the majority and thus need a touch type keyboard. Making say an OQO or pocket pc any smaller is not going to drive it to a consumer popularity.
04/12/07
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GreatDane
Hi primaz,
And there in lies the problem: How to make it small enough to be practical to carry for the man in the street, and still give it useful I/O. That is why one needs to start thinking about a whole new set of approaches to the problem.
edited: Apr 12 2007
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GreatDane
Hi primaz,
Perhaps we need to look back at the original post? The premise is that Handtops as they exist today will continue at the top end of the market, and in that I include the as yet hypothetical touch type keyboard Handtop. However, the Handtop as it exists at present is not now, nor will it ever be a consumer electronics device for several reasons, listed in point form here below:
They are too large to be carried around in a pocket like a cell phone (Even the OQO is too large to just slip into any pocket).
They are too powerful, and hence use too much battery power, leading to short battery usage times.
They are way too expensive.
They do not have an intuitive user interface.
They as yet do not offer the communications possibilities that are needed to make them universally acceptable.
They are too delicate to take the type of battering that the average cell phone must endure.
The current crop of Handtops are derivatives of the laptop design. They are meant to be, and in effect are micro laptop computers, with all the good and bad points of a laptop computer. They are, even if all other problems were to be solved, too complex for the non-computer literate man in the street to take to. (Please note that I said take to, not use)
I maintain that in order to make the Handtop a consumer electronic device (in other words, to make it a universally accepted commodity item like a cell phone, not a specialist item like a laptop) one will have to throw away one's preconceptions about what a very small laptop computer must be, and instead look to what a successful consumer based device needs to be.
Tnkgrl's new cell phone "toy" (no offense intended there, toy in the sense of something with which to play and enjoy) is an example of a successful consumer electronics device, and in some ways at least points to a direction that at least the lower end of the Handtop market should be progressing. It does not even have a QWERTY keyboard, far less a touch type keyboard. It is too small. This does not mean that, with certain fundamental changes to the CPU and the OS, it could not be the basis for a very successful consumer electronics device Handtop.
If this "phone" was fitted with a very low power x86 CPU (Sorry tnkgrl, but that is a requirement), more RAM and ROM, and a subset of the windows OS optimized for very small devices, it could form the basis for a distributed Handtop computer. A separate QWERTY keyboard for those who want it (projector, Bluetooth, touch type, whatever suits your fancy), a fold out or projector screen for more monitor real estate when required, a docking station and possibly a distributed computing mode using the built in communications for more CPU intensive tasks, and you have a capable Handtop that can be used like a cell phone is today, and added to when the need arises.
This is but one of a number of possible options that can be explored for a future consumer electronics device Handtop. There are many others, some already mentioned here.
A future consumer electronics device based Handtop does not in my opinion for one second replace Handtops based on the "conventional" Handtop designs being produced at present, or in the pipeline. It is also not a feature packed cell phone, it is a true mobile "Windows" computer, but looked at from another point of view. As such, it will probably not be of great interest to a number of the members of this forum, yourself included by the sounds of it. The more "geeky" users will still want the micro laptop experience, and the top end of the Handtop market will still cater for this. That is where you are likely to find your touch type Handtop,when it is finally introduced.
For Handtops to fully succeed, there will have to be consumer electronic device based Handtops eventually, appealing to the man in the street. For this to happen, they will have to incorporate all the functionality of current cell phones, have a similar battery life and size, and be priced in the same range as top line cell phones. The success of such devices will encourage and stimulate the grow of the "real" Handtop designs, ensuring a health market for all. The emergence and success of such devices is the best bet you have for seeing the development of your touch type Handtop device.
04/12/07
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GenM
One other issue has not been addressed - what do most non-business/non-geek computer users ("consumers") do with their computers?
The ones I know browse the web, download files, buy stuff, edit pictures, design and build calenders and christmas cards to share with friends and relatives, e-mail and IM, and play games. There is some music and movie playing, but most of that is offloaded to other devices (the computer is used to aquire the material, but not consume it - I expect this to change with emerging technology).
Not much use of the keyboard other than for navigation and e-mail/IM.
For some users a computer will primarily be used while sitting with a flat surface where they can use a traditional "touch typing" keyboard.
Others need/want to use a computer while in other positions. For these users there is the Twiddler for "touch" typists, and a multitude of other alternatives (tablet pen, thumbpad, Frogpad, etc.) with the option of a keyboard when required. This is demonstrated by the rapid adoption of Blackberry and SMS messaging.
As has been said here and several other places, a keyboard is not a functional requirement for most users, but it is a perceptual one.
There is a large segment that will use their device for work and non-work. But we are talking about the Consumer market, not Business.
Business needs flexibility in input and output for devices to be used away from the desk.
04/12/07
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GreatDane
Hi GenM,
Spot on! In one sentence, what are the requirements of a Handtop for non-business users?
04/13/07
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SomeName
For most users, a touchtype keyboard and an adequate display with normal applications and adequate CPU performance are the key requirements, whether or not business is involved.
Then there's the degenerate end of the consumer electronics market, but let's not go there.
edited: Apr 13 2007
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GreatDane
Hi SomeName,
I think this whole discussion has degenerated into another one of these "should it have a touch type keyboard, should it not" discussions, which was decidedly not the intention, or the point.
Once more for the record:
I have stated clearly on a number of occasions that I am fully behind the development of a Handtop with a touch type keyboard, if that is possible. I may even be a potential buyer of such a device if it meets my requirements.
When I talk about a consumer electronics device type Handtop, I am not looking to replace the existing Handtops with such a device, as I have clearly stated. I am not looking at the same target market at all. So the requirements of the people in the existing Handtop market are irrelevant with regards to this particular discussion. They won't be buying such a device, and such a device will probably never meet their needs.
Handtops as we know them at present are a niche market product, and will remain such unless additional devices are developed that meet the general publics needs.
The vast majority of the general public who would be the market for such devices are not computer literate. Many have never even used a computer, far less can touch type. On the other hand, a huge number of the people in the target market own or use cell phones, and can thumb type if need be. It is a fact that an entire generation of young people world wide have grown up with cell phones and SMS's, and are more comfortable thumb typing than typing on a touch type keyboard (and thumb type faster than they type on a touch type keyboard). This is not an opinion, it is a fact. Like it or not, this will affect the type of input preferred by a vastly larger number of people than at present are in the Handtop market. Into the future, just about everyone on the planet who is not suffering from a disability in that regard can talk, and I see that as the eventual preferred input type for the consumer electronics device type Handtop.
For a consumer electronics device type Handtop to succeed, it must take on and beat the current generation of cell phones at their own game, as well as being capable of performing tasks that at present can only be done on a PC. It must not only be able to perform the above, but it must do so at a cost that is not much higher if any higher at all than the cost of the current generation of cell phones, and with a size and weight no greater than a cell phone, and a battery life at least as good.
With the greatest respect to all the many people who would like a touch type keyboard on a Handtop, and who endlessly remind us all of that fact, the basic requirements for a consumer electronics device type Handtop that will take over at least a portion of the cell phone market and will be in direct competition with cell phones excludes the possibility of such a keyboard unless it is of the fold out type or an add on unit. That has already been discussed here.
The same size, weight and cost criterion mentioned above limit the size of the screen on such a unit, if it will indeed have a screen at all. Battery life requirements and size limit the possible CPU's that could be used.
I have already suggested that a hand off scenario might be possible for more CPU intensive tasks, if required. The reality is that if people who are quite prepared to work on the confines of a cell phone at present are the likely target market for the envisaged device, then a low powered CPU like the AMD unit used in the Raon Vega should probably meet their needs adequately.
It is sad that almost every discussion regarding the form and future of Handtops degenerates into this "they must have a touch type keyboard" discussion. I am the first to admit that I look forward to the day when such a device exists, not only because I personally might find it attractive, but because it will fill a gap in the market that has a very vocal set of proponents. But a touch type keyboard based device is not the only option, and indeed is sometimes not an option at all. This is one of those cases, where it is not possible to fit a touch type keyboard, large screen and powerful CPU into a device that can at most measure about 125 mm x 80 mm x 25 mm. This is about the maximum size that one could expect a consumer electronics device based Handtop to be.
As for the proposed target market for such a device, you can be pretty sure that having an affordable pocket sized unit that permits watching TV, playing games, listening to music, sending SMS's, viewing photo's, making phone calls and having enough battery life to get one through an entire day all rate higher than having even a QWERTY keyboard, far less a keyboard that it is possible to touch type on.
04/13/07
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SomeName
What you seem to be intent on asking is, if I might adumbrate, "what sort of very small keyboardless device might conceivably be foisted upon retards, perhaps separating them from some cash in the bargain?"
That's just not a very interesting question unless perhaps the idea of making money is itself regarded as interesting. Generally speaking, I'd imagine that if you want to attract intelligent people to a conversation of how to sell crippled devices to an impaired group that will suffer from the imposition, you'd have to pay for the privilege.
04/13/07
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GreatDane
Hi SomeName,
What I am asking is how to move Handtops out of their current niche high priced market into a more main stream position.
In order to have the variety of devices in the market that will suit all users, that also means having some devices that suit the average consumer.
I am sorry that you think of the average consumer as retarded. I would have rather thought that they simply have different needs to yours.
I would have doubted that all the intelligent people in this forum are of the attitude that all Handtops must remain elitist, high priced niche market items forever, with the concomitant lack of funding for research and development etc.
04/13/07
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SomeName
Au contraire, I really think that the way forward is to build the most capable devices possible for a variety of applications, thence riding down the cost curve to serve ever more people. Targeting crippled devices at people is treating them as...well, mentally crippled.
Thing is, there are so many applications that benefit from efficacious text input that keyboardless or crippled-keyboard devices for the English-speaking world are best left as niche devices for a few years unless we'd like to see a much larger impaired population. We really need everyman's multipurpose portable PC: one that's still capable, but more portable thus allowing wider application...and the price can come down as volume ramps up. We can figure out how smart wristwatches/clothing/toothbrushes/what-have-you might want to relate to the central device one we have it.
04/13/07
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jamesmobile
I agree with " 4:54am + PM | QUOTE | PERMALINK | REPORT SomeName
For most users, a touchtype keyboard and an adequate display with normal applications and adequate CPU performance are the key requirements, whether or not business is involved. "
To me a modified handtop that is slim and with a touch type keyboard would be what is needed to become a consumer product most would buy. It does not need to be a cell phone, but rather just a good pocket computer that is it.
For it to be able to do this without a touch type keyboard is at least 10 years away or more when the technology has advanced where most people input into computers some other way than touch type. Maybe then voice technology could do it but I have used virtually all of them and they are many years away at best. I think the handtops like OQO etc. are filling a niche group of users whom want desktop OS in their pocket whom are willing to sacrafice the keyboard. That is not the majority of people. Pocket size devices like PDA's which can do most basic computer things are not ideal due to lack of keyboard and not having ability to run desktop OS softwares. Thus I really do not see handtops ever becomming mainstream consumer devices unless they change their input type and then maybe they are not really handtops to all here?
edited: Apr 14 2007
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GreatDane
Hi SomeName, jamesmobile,
Again I say to both of you, the device that you describe is one that I for one support, but as a UMPC or micro sub-notebook or hand top, not a consumer electronics device. As one of the former, it no doubt has its place, and an enthusiastic if more limited following. As the latter, it would be a failure, for a number of reasons.
To start of with, the device you describe as a jacket pocket device is hampered by just that: not everyone wears jackets. In the warmer climbs, it has become acceptable and the norm not to wear jackets during the summer months for the vast majority of the people. No jacket = no jacket pocket = nowhere to put such a device unless one carries it in a bag. Then it might as well be a laptop.
Touch typing is not a widespread skill, particularly in the target group of people. This does not make that group mentally crippled! One of my best friends is a double PhD in pure and applied mathematics, and can not touch type to save his life, but thumb types SMS's with the best of them. I am sure he for one would find the concept of not being able to touch type as a sign of being mentally crippled a vastly amusing concept. He is by the way also a chess grand master, and has another degree in quantum physics.
When you describe a device "with an adequate display" implying a certain minimum resolution/size etc, you are looking at it from the point of view of PC type computer users. Large amounts of screen real estate is a requirement only where the usage paradigm is the same as that of a desktop computer. The mentally crippled masses who have no use for and no desire to learn how to use a conventional PC type computer get along quite nicely thank you with a smaller screen such as is found on a cell phone. The problems found using such a small screen can be overcome by re-thinking the visual UI, and by incorporating items such as projectors, roll out screens etc for when more screen real estate is required.
SomeName, you have the concept the wrong way around - the idea is not to as you put it "target crippled devices at people", but to find innovative methods to produce useful devices while still taking the very real constraints of what the man in the street will be prepared to carry around into consideration. To insist that the only method of doing so is to have a larger device with touch type keyboard etc is to fly in the face of what is happening in the real world, and ignore the obvious trends as they exist regarding current and possible consumer electronic devices. You can try to tell the whole world that a horse and buggy are the best means of transportation around, and eloquently argue the facts with proof on air pollution, accident rates, free manure and so forth, but the man on the street is still going to buy a car.
The battle to foist a large, touch type enabled device of on the man in the street is a lost cause before it is commenced. It is the height of arrogance to attempt to tell people what it is they want. Many have tried this misguided approch, and even in the old USSR it failed. What chance does it have in a free market society?
Whether or not the man in the street is lacking in intelligence, mentally crippled, or just plain stupid is irrelevant, they are going to buy the device that they feel will best suit their needs, and neither you not I can dictate to them what that device will be. One has to look at the trends, and attempt to design a device that will meet their needs and perceived requirements, and still perform the required functions.
jamesmobile, I agree with you that some of the technology described here is not as yet available, or is years away from being mature enough to use. I also agree that Handtops as they are will never be anything but niche market products, the reasons for this I have stated previously. Where we differ is on the "willing to sacrifice the keyboard" bit. For most people in the mass market, particularly in light of what they are likely to want to do with such a device, leaving out a full touch type keyboard is no sacrifice at all, even today.
One must be careful to differentiate between the needs of the Handtop/portable computer fraternity and the needs of the man in the street. The man in the street does not need a touch type keyboard. Aside from the fact that most do not touch type, they also do not generally enter enough text to require it even if they did. Hand writing input, voice input and others will eventually meet their needs, and should they for whatever reason require a touch type keyboard, it can be available as an add on.
Once again, I am not against the concept of a portable unit with a touch type keyboard, I am simply realistic enough to recognize that such a device will not be the basis for the consumer electronics Handtop as described in the blog.
In the final analysis, the market will decide with its wallets. In many ways it already has. The Sony U series, the Fujitsu P1510 and 1610, the JVC, the Toshiba Libretto and others all had touch type keyboards, comparatively powerful CPU's, larger screens and so forth. They all were failures as far as becoming a consumer electronics device. Smart phones which have none of the above have proved to be a huge success. Where does the market spend its money? You decide!
04/14/07
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SomeName
Q406 computer sales were about 67 million units: link
Q206 smartphone unit sales were a bit less than 20 million units. link
Computers cost more than smartphones on average. Smartphone sales have been growing faster, as they're new and computers aren't. Smartphones tend to fall in the category of cheap ephemera, though...impulse purchases that are soon discarded, as were PDAs, due to their limited functionality.
Depending on how you count, laptops are outselling desktops: link
This trend has correlated with the increased portability of portable computers; it's a causative association...as computers have become more portable, their utility relative to desktops has increased. As computers continue to become more truly portable without sacrificing substantial utility, this trend will be reinforced. A large-pocketable real computer is truly "new" as smartphones were once "new", and some growth surge in the computer market can be expected once they hit, but since of course most people have computers, there's a high base of penetration and growth rates thus won't be that of a completely alien technology. A true portable computer enables many new and useful activities, if we don't mind counting older activities performed in new places to the benefit of productivity.
The price trend has also been firmly downwards on portable computers, and after Comdex failed, CES became one of the biggest computer shows, which is admittedly not a completely natural fit. Many computers are arguably consumer electronics, and as prices fall more of them probably are, but if you decide to define them as not, you may, despite them being electronic devices consumed by consumers....but let's not quibble about it. Televisions, MP3 players, ghetto blasters, pornography, and servers don't necessarily go together all that well, but they're all there at CES. Computers, however, relative to many other technological artifacts, represent an ennobling influence, inasmuch as they enable continuance of the great tradition of literacy and creativity...as opposed to contrivances directed more exclusively at titillation for a post-literate decadence.
Perhaps the decadent side of consumer electronics can be induced to further grow. Those of us who care about human potential, however, should be dismayed if most people were to prefer that to the increased functionality that could be theirs through enhanced portable computing technology. Even if some should be slower to seize this potential than we would wish and expect, we should still hold out hope for them and not regard them as unworthy of a workable touchtype keyboard, for they too deserve to communicate.
edited: Apr 14 2007
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GreatDane
Q4 2006 cell phone sales are estimated to be well in excess of 175 million units, and if you are going to compare to all computer sales, then it should be to this figure (67 million v/s 175 million or more). It is estimated that cell phone sales in 2007 and 2008 will as much as triple due to expansion in markets such as China and India, with some estimates of 1.5 billion or more cell phones to be sold in 2008. Compared to a best estimate 18% growth across the board in PC sales.
If you want to compare smart phones only, then that would have to be done against Handtops and sub-notebooks. This class of PC's represents an estimated 5% or less of the total notebook market, by your estimate about 50% of all sales, or less than 2 million units. 2 million v/s 20 million in one quarter by your own account.
I am talking about the reality of the situation, and conceptualizing a product that will enhance the lives of potentially tens or hundreds of millions of people. You write this off in a derogatory manner as pandering to the intellectually crippled, and throw in references to pornography, titillation and a decline in literacy. It beggars the imagination how you have made the connection between the lack of a touch type keyboard on a consumer electronics device and undesirable and unsocial behavior.
If we are to talk of pornography and the like, computers have had a far from ennobling effect, and the noblest of all artifacts, the book, was responsible for the majority of pornography prior to the arrival of computers. I would suggest that you need a reality check.
Your argument about some low cost computers being consumer electronics is also flawed in this context, as you are talking about desk top units, and we are all talking about hand held portable units.
For "those of you who care about human potential", perhaps you should have a close look at what it is that humans want to use, and try to enhance and expand those objects that stand a chance of working, instead of attempting to foist of on us poor intellectually challenged immoral creatures devices that suit your view of things, but that in the real world are neither widely required or wanted. If the Apple iPod can be used as a teaching device, think of the potential of something with real scope that is portable enought to always be with one. Check out Intel's latest promotional video on UMPC's if you would like a glimpse of how the "weak minded intellectually inferior" view the future of hand top type devices.
By the way, how did you come to equate not wanting a touch type keyboard to post-literate decadence? That makes even less sense than most of your other arguments.
On the point of people deserving to communicate, we have been doing so quite effectively since the beginning of time. Touch typing has nothing what so ever to do with that, speaking has, and cell phones have been the instruments that have most enhanced this ability for us.
If you look at the facts as they really are, rather than as you would like them to be, you will see that the opportunity for immense good coming out of a consumer electronics device type Handtop far outweighs any controversy over its form factor. As such we should all embrace this concept whatever the form factor, even if personally it will not suit our needs. I for one would probably still use a conventional Handtop.
I hope you get your touch type Handtop. It is obviously a burning need in your life. If such a unit is produced, those who need or want it will buy it. Just don't try and force it onto the hundreds of millions of people out there who neither require nor desire it.
I am afraid that this whole line of discussion has now degenerated to a point of meaninglessness. Apples compared to pears, allegations of social decline and moral delinquency attached to the form factor of a computer. The fall of Western civilization and the moral bankruptcy of the world hanging on the ability to touch type. You need to get your facts and the interpretation of your facts right, and separate your technical and social ambitions and preconceptions from your analysis of reality.
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