TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Bold tech & web commentary

TechFold is technology discussion, commentary, reviews, and opinions from well outside the valley. There's no koolaid to drink here, and TechFold is not in SL, or on Twitter.

Whoops: MacBook Air is the Apple Foleo

Whoops, looks like Apple’s had one of its famous beautiful misses (see G4 cube for precedent). You can’t replace the battery. Is that completely insane? Is Apple expecting an $1800 - $3200 device to be disposable (or require an expensive battery replacement procedure) on a two year basis?

Thin in stature and in features, seems ideally suited to lightweight business computing on-the-go for short bursts (hence the built in battery), connecting via WiFi or cellphone/bluetooth - which, correct me if I’m wrong, was the use-case described for the ill-fated Palm Foleo.

UPDATE: The more I read, the more appalling this exercise in fashionista-baiting becomes.

air, apple, foleo macbook

I’m aghast at Palm

Foleo arrghhhhhhhh. I can’t help but be curmudgeonly when this sort of craziness is what’s making the news.

Looks too big to be pocketable.
Overlaps with laptop usage scenarios.
~~NO CONNECTIVITY - what are they thinking? Requires a phone = mostly expensive, slow connections.~~WiFi/Bluetooth/Cellpairing - that’s better.
Another layer of synchronization: Desktop syncs to smartphone. Smartphone syncs to Foleo. Does Foleo also sync to desktop? This cannot play out nicely.
Overlaps with UMPC but with 1/100th the functionality.
EXPENSIVE: $500 for an adjunct screen and keyboard for your smartphone.
Overlap with web email and document editing tools.
A nice big screen that can’t play movies. AWESOME.

BOTTOM LINE: There’s a vanishingly small niche of people that would find this compelling and affordable. Lame, lame, lame.

PROGNOSTICATION: Palm to struggle, cheap acquisition bait for also-lame Motorola.

BLOGOSPHERE GESTALT: Gizmodo, Business2, Webware, and others agree: this is disappointing and ill-conceived.

foleo, folio, motorola, palm, treo treocentral