The Palm Foleo is catching a lot of heat. Some of it is well deserved. (Just what the hell is this device supposed to "assist" a smartphone with? Shouldn't it be the other way around?) But most of it is feeding-frenzy pileon by people who got burned in the first try at thin clients, ten years ago.
Which is to say that AFAIAC most of the most strident critics of the Foleo don't want to admit that they've gotten the point -- they pretend not to understand what the device really is, which is plainly and simply a thin client for web 2.0 applications. But it's a thin client that could actually work: It's got a real web browser to access the real web applications that have sprung up in the interim via the near-ubiquitous broadband that we weren't even close to having the last time around.
Sour grapes like this prevents people from seeing the two real reasons that it will fail: It's not fast enough, and its being sold by idiots. Really, again, that whole 'smartphone assistant' thing: The Foleo should be (and will more likely be) "assisting" the phone, rather than vice versa. It's the thing with the network connectivity, not the phone. It's the thing with the USB connection, not the phone.
Semi-surprisingly, Jakob Nielsen has joined in the fray with a decidedly mainstream take on the specs:
Much too big and fat for a mobile device. At that size, you might as well buy a small laptop, which would run all the software you are already used to. For example Sony's Vaio TZ90 is 10% lighter and thinner...
Palm Foleo – A Failed Mobile Device (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
... and 150% more expensive than the Foleo. Though it does have similar battery life. But that's still kind of a pathetic excuse for a pile-on. Criticize it for something real, why don't you, like, say, what you could do with it, instead of demanding that the device embrace all the weaknesses it's clearly designed to overcome:
The product website is miserable and doesn't provide any concrete info. Luckily the New York Times wrote about the Foleo (paid access) and gave us some facts:
- weight: 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg)
- thickness: 1 inch (2.4 cm)
- size: 11x6 inches (28x15 cm) - estimated from photo
Much too big and fat for a mobile device. At that size, you might as well buy a small laptop, which would run all the software you are already used to. For example Sony's Vaio TZ90 is 10% lighter and thinner than the Foleo.
A mobile information appliance should be thinner than 1 cm (0.4 in), weigh less than 1 pound (.45 kg), and be about 6x4 inches (15x10 cm) big. Something with these specs makes sense because it would fit the ecological niche between the laptop and the phone.
So let's get this straight: A mobile device should be too small to easily read on, too small to type on, but still too big to fit easily in slacks pockets? Where's the text entry? Where's the user interface? Seems like a rather strange set of requirements. Let's restate them so they make more sense, in functional terms. A mobile device must:
- Be small enough to carry easily. "Easily" is a value-laden term. It's going to be determined largely by the market, but we could distinguish between "packability" (trade paperback) and "pocketability" (mass-market paperback). Foleo is very packable; smart-phones range from pocketable to awkwardly-pocketable, like the Sidekick, and like the larger Palm OS and Windows Mobile devices.
- Be easy to operate while stanting or walking. Foleo clearly fails here, but so does Jakob, since he doesn't specify that. For that matter, though, most mobile devices fail on this, since you have to pay far too much attention to them while using them in order to avoid making errors.
- Run for long enough without recharging to allow its target user to make their full circuit -- to office, complete a work day, come home. Foleo falls down here, too, as do many of the current wave of handheld devices. Battery life on these things sucks. Nielsen misses this one, too.
- Switch on more or less instantly. Nielsen misses this, but it's really important. I can't think of a single market-sucessful hand-held that doesn't hit this point.
Conspicuously missing, but important:
- Afford text entry with a single hand and minimal distraction from other tasks. (Nothing really meets this criterion, though kids seem to do alright with tactile-feedback numeric pads and a lot of experience.)
In addition, we can make some other generalizations about what a device in the Foleo's class should do:
- Connect to 802.11 networks. I think Foleo doesn't do as well as it should, here, since as far as I can tell it's only a "b" (802.11b) device. An 802.11n interface would really be ideal, since one of the "ecologically" competetive characteristics of a successful mobile device is liable to be its ability to easily make VOIP calls. This was a true failure of vision at Palm, who should have bit the bullet on weight and given it whatever battery load they needed to in order to allow up to 802.11n speed and hit 7 hours of run time.
So the specs that Nielsen (and so many others) have seen as so ripe for critcism are not at all the ones that are important. The ones that are important, and the ones that will end up being technically critical for this device, are:
- Battery life: 5 hours
- Networking: 802.11b [I could be wrong about this]
- Peripheral connection: USB 1.2 [I could be wrong about this]
So at a technical level, I'm actually positive it fails on only one point, and that's run-time. Nielsen does raise a valid point, though:
Palm seems ashamed of its own specs since they are nowhere to be found on the product pages.
This is a blatant violation of all guidelines for e-commerce. I can't believe even the worst designer would suggest making a site where you can't find out how big the product is (especially for a mobile device). It must be a deliberate decision to hide the facts.
I think he's actually right about that. I think the product managers and marketers at Palm were so gun-shy about identifying Foleo as a thin client that they invented this whole "smart-phone companion" nonsense to cover it up. They basically threw the game -- decided the product was a bust before they even started, and concocted a marketing plan that, while it couldn't possibly succeed, at least had good graphics.
But come on -- a "smart phone accessory" that's ten times the size of the phone? Idiots.
Technorati Tags: marketing, foleo, product design, thin client
