When will my eSketchbook appear?
August 21st, 2008 | Published in Blog, Business, Design, Gadgets, Web, ideas | 2 Comments
18 months ago if you told someone the hottest niche in mobile computing in 2008/09 would be sub $500 mini notebooks called NETBOOKS they’d call you crazy. Subnotebooks typically cost a hefty premium over typically larger notebooks. I still remember ooohing and awwwing over those first $4000 Sony 505 notebooks in the late 90s.
Netbooks (Asus EeePC, MSI Wind, etc) are not as feature-rich as those high-end subnotebooks. But for most “typical” people netbooks will fill 80% of their needs. Plus they’re really cheap. Perfect second computers.
But my dream second computer is still yet to appear. My iPhone handles most of my comms needs, but I still would like an A5 sized, touch/wacom-digitizer screen that has a browser and an Alias Sketch like app to replace my Macbook. Oh, and it should cost less than $500.
I don’t know if there are enough people like me (who go through at least 4 sketchbooks a year) to support a device like this. So I might have to wait another 10-15 years for on-demand custom designed gadget printing to appear. Or maybe if the Techcrunch gadget takes off, enough people like me will get together and crowd-source it into existence.
August 24th, 2008 at 6:41 am (#)
Remember Palm’s Foleo? Or Apple’s Airbook(?). Where are they? Missing the great moment?
August 27th, 2008 at 8:15 am (#)
The Folio was a solution in search of a problem, and the Macbook Air is just too expensive.
I’m looking for a digital skechbook. Something with a paper-like display (I’d even go with grayscale if it meant better quality) that acts just like an endless sketchbook.
It would have a nearly-invisible OS, just endless virtual pages. I would be able to do a sketch-search by sketching shapes and having the unit pull up all instances of similar shapes. I also would like to tag my pages but that would be a nice-to-have.
No browser, no word processor, no email client. Just a device that is only a sketchbook, and is fantastic at that one thing.