Last week I ripped on longwinded, narcissistic douchebag tech bloggers, indirectly ripping on the fandango that is (or appears to be) the JooJoo along the way. I can be a bit of a snark at times, and I take pleasure in ripping on things. But it’s a hollow pleasure, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
On the other hand, I do occasionally take the much rarer pleasure of delighting in something really cool… in Steve Jobs’ words, from the days of the original Macintosh project, something insanely great. But those “insanely great” things don’t come along very often. And along the way, there are a lot of false alarms. Many things claim to be the “next big thing” (even if big means being… “little”)… some even go so far as to claim to be… “it.” But in the end, they just turn out to be the Segway. No thanks.
Netbooks have been the “next big (little) thing” for a while now, and although I do see their appeal, they all just seem like cheap, underpowered, too-small laptops. Building a tiny device and then putting Windows XP on it is not going to change the world. Yawn.
But then a few weeks ago I heard about another next big thing, called the litl. Part of the hubbub surrounded the fact that there were some heavy hitters in the design world involved in its creation. This was not just another tiny computer made out of cheap plastic, running an 8-year-old OS from Microsoft. This was something different.
But still, it seemed kind of silly to me. Why would I want a netbook that stored all of its data in “the cloud” (especially given some of the notorious problems “the cloud” has had lately), and especially why would I want one that doubles as a digital photo frame. Yawn… maybe.
Tonight I was reading Slashdot when… of all things… a banner ad caught my attention. I’ve clicked on banner ads maybe 3 times in my entire life, but this was a banner ad for the litl, and it intrigued me. So I clicked, and began to discover that there may, in fact, be some really cool things about the litl that make it worth some serious attention. There’s a litl blog where you can read some press the litl’s been getting, along with some background info on (and from) the team, including some pretty interesting videos. My curiosity is piqued. I’d love to see one of these things in person. I think, as superficial as it may sound, whether or not I would ultimately be interested in a netbook of any kind is determined largely by how cheap the plastic it’s made out of feels. It’s kind of hard to tell from the videos, but one thing I can tell is that a lot of care and love went into creating this thing, and it’s unlike any netbook out there today. Have a look at these videos to see what I mean:
The card concept is cool. This is truly a revolutionary interface… it’s what the JooJoo dreams of being.
I’m still hesitant about having all of my data in the cloud — does this mean you have to be connected to WiFi to be able to do… well… anything with the litl? I didn’t see anything about 3G access. And what happens if there’s a catastrophic server failure? Does litl (the device) become a fancy paperweight while litl (the company) scrambles to get things back up and running? What about privacy and security? (I’d be surprised if these questions aren’t addressed somewhere on their site; I just didn’t encounter those answers yet. And they’re questions any sensible potential customer is going to want answered before they hand over their money.)
Not quite an Apple package design, but close. And this looks like it might actually be made out of post-consumer recycled materials. That’s a plus. I like the overall attention to detail. The people who made the litl love their work, and they want you to love it, too.
Will I get one? I’m not exactly itching to drop $699 on this, or anything else, at the moment. I’d like to see it priced at $499 or less. I’d also like to, you know, see it. In person, I mean. I like the money-back guarantee, but I still think they need to have some retail presence for the litl to really take off.
Consider me impressed. I think this has the potential to be something “insanely great.” I’ll be interested in seeing where this leads… and, if the long-rumored Apple foray into this niche actually happens, how the litl will affect it, or not, and vice versa.
On the other hand, maybe I’m just being seduced by decadent marketing.
I like the packaging. I still am not sold on the cloud only computer. It would need local programs when not connected. I am watching Chrome OS, Android, and Moblin for this area. It’s all interesting. Still, a little bigger laptop that costs a little more can do so much more.
Hi, thanks for covering the litl webbook – great that you see the potential. The answers to some of your queries become a bit easier if we first consider what the the litl webbook is for and what it isn’t.
Firstly – it’s not meant as a drop in replacement for a general purpose laptop or PC. It’s different to those, and we expect our buyers already own one or three regular computers. So we don’t bother replicating a lot of the stuff done by those machines, including things like large local data stores, optical media, intensive graphics or video editing etc. Most of those things you do on your “other” GP machine and these don’t help you enjoy web streams, webapps or content, but our maintenance-free interface, great LCD and HDMI output certainly do. BTW few digital photo frames, if any, have a screen that can compare to ours (the cost of that LCD is a major factor in our price) and photo management is only one of the webbook’s uses.
Instead, we focus on using the web at home as the main show. In easel mode (bent back and standing up in an inverted V-shape) it becomes watchable appliance. Yes, it does have to be connected to wifi. We can’t imagine our users don’t have a wifi network at home. If it doesn’t connect to our servers it basically doesn’t work, since we back up your settings and so on.
Why no 3G (at least not yet)? Wifi is still the best and most prevalent wireless networking technology at home where our device is intended to live (it’s not meant for road warriors). 3G has severe limitations when it comes to streaming video – wifi is superior here. Most home wifi is on all the time and the litl webbook is intended to remain on also. It’s a designer appliance for your home.
Data that you access via the litl webbook is most likely to be stored in the cloud by webapps – google docs, Flikr etc, which solves the problem of the user having to manage local storage. Cloud companies like Flikr and Google tend to be much better at securing and backing up data than are ordinary users and I for one am less likely to lose photos if I upload these to a photo service. In fact it’s so easy to lose data that you manage at home yourself that people have become very blase about losing data. “Oh my usb hard drive failed and I lost all my pics and MP3s for the last 5 years” – it’s a common lament. We think ordinary users are tired of trying to manage their data and maintain complex general purpose operating systems – endless service packs, antivirus upgrades etc etc. What a mess. A generation of new young users are now coming on who very likely have only ever used webapps. Why do they need this other stuff? We also think geeks are tired of maintaining their relatives’ machines, and that makes the litl webbook an ideal maintenance-free gift.
What can be done with the litl webbook will expand as our channels platform continues to expand – we’ll be releasing an SDK for channels in the near future.
On our design talent – we did indeed have some big hitters: Yves Behar and Fuseproject, Pentagram, Cooper etc. Our in-house designers (I know, since I’ve worked with them) are pretty cool also!
Feel free to ping us at asklitl@litl.com (attention:phil if you like) if you need to know more. We’ll have a contingent at CES if you want to hook up there also.
Phil,
Thanks for the detailed response. Your answers in some ways make me even more interested in the litl, but in other ways confirm some of my reservations about it.
The biggest issue I see is a potential conflict between the idea of the litl as a supplementary web appliance in a home that already has another computer (and WiFi), and the idea that this is something a geek will give as a gift to a family member as (apparently) an alternative to a regular computer.
Imagining for a minute that household where a regular computer is too daunting: in that case I would imagine the litl would be seen as a replacement for a regular computer. But in that case the household also seems less likely to have WiFi. I would also be concerned that those potential users would be both confused and disappointed over some of the things the litl lacks, even though those same things may be the source of their frustration with a regular computer. What if someone they know emails them a Word document, for instance? Does the litl open that attachment in Google Docs? (Well… supposing they’re using Gmail, that’s certainly a viable option. But how willing will that user be to accept it?)
I just wonder if the litl is intended to appeal to two opposite ends of the tech spectrum, and whether that’s something this or any device can really deliver on (and whether, even if successful, that’s enough to sustain a business).
In the end, though, I think we need to see this as the beginning of something, not a crowning achievement. There’s room for litl as a platform to grow, as long as it can stick around long enough for that to happen.
Hi
Re: ” ..conflict between the idea of the litl as a supplementary web appliance in a home that already has another computer (and WiFi), and the idea that this is something a geek will give as a gift to a family member..”
Certainly litl sees the first scenario – a smart web device in homes that already have conventional laptops – as the dominant case. We also think geeks (as a secondary, smaller market) might like to give a litl webbook as a gift because they get fed up with maintaining their relatives’ PCs and laptops, which of course are likely to already be in homes with wifi. Studies have indicated that the average geek spends a lot of time dealing with the unpaid maintenance requests of relatives and friends and it’s a drag. The scenario we see is that those folk tend to only need a computer for web-based tasks but are floundering trying to maintain their general purpose PC. Gifting a litl webbook will help reduce this maintenance drain on geeks. So we don’t see that much of a conflict here.
Competence with webapps such as google docs is something litl is encouraging and we’re likely to be building in more help with those in one form or another.
BTW our company is privately funded and we do have a long term view. If you have a look at the ‘philosophy’ and ’software’ sections of our website (http://litl.com/essays/philosophy.htm, http://litl.com/essays/software.htm) – two pages that received much input from our CEO John Chuang – you will I think notice a vision that is potentially bigger than just a single device. We’re not saying anything about the future just yet however :=)
-phil
Phil,
Thanks again for engaging with my questions. I think I see where you’re coming from and for the most part it makes sense. Obviously a lot of thought and research has gone into litl’s marketing strategy. I think “encouraging competence with web apps” is a good idea and an interesting positive side effect litl could have beyond its own hardware devices.
I can certainly see this being good for people who just dick around on the computer while watching TV… something that they really don’t need a $2,000 MacBook Pro to do, and something that I imagine is actually a fairly large market.
I can’t imagine, though, that anyone who already has a laptop (or two) wants an additional, less useful one.
Wait, I take that back… I can see one scenario… something for their kid to mess with that isn’t their expensive laptop. Although I still don’t see a parent letting their child run around the yard holding a $700 device over their head, as one of the promo images suggests.
The “channels” reminds me of Wii Channels and Dashboard Widgets/iPhone Apps.
This idea may have appealed to me before I switched to Mac, honestly. I’ve never enjoyed the experience of using a PC laptop, and having something that is no-fuss (like a Mac) would be a boon to the average PC user.
I think I would also have to experience one firsthand before really forming a truly solid opinion on it. I’m wary of anything with hinges like that.
The branding looks very nice.
“cards” that is, not “channels”.
JW, I’m definitely one of those people who owns a laptop, and a desktop (it’s 8 years old but still running fine, obviously had Windows installed on it several times), and sees no reason to get a 2nd laptop for that kind of money and lose functionality.
Here is my main problem, and the reason I cannot pay money to get less functionality: So I come home after work and turn on my litl, I start browsing the web, and someone mentions a movie I’d like to see. So I want to go download this movie. How do I do this? Do I turn on my original laptop? I assume an external hard drive would not work because I’d still need to have a problem to download the movie installed. If I have to turn on my original laptop, this defeats the whole purpose. Also, I have an ipod touch, and I need itunes. And so, I’d ever have to have both computers on at once, or switch back and forth. It just doesn’t make sense to me to pay $700 to have something slightly smaller on my lap. Btw, my first laptop cost me $2,000 and was a Dell XPS M1210. So it already has the 12.1 inch screen, and it weighs…5 pounds? Plus….I actually like Windows XP and it causes me no problems.
I’ve wanted a netbook for a while, but I just can’t see any reason to put down money for it because I would only get a new computer as a replacement–rather than an add-on. How many computers does one person really need? I also have 4 landline phones in my house, but if the phone ever rings, I always go to the living room to pick up that phone. Just like we have 3 tvs but only every have 1 or 2 on at the same time.
Julie,
You make some good points as someone who (I’m guessing) is an avid user of technology but not a super-geek. I think there may be a large swath of mainstream heavy tech users for whom the litl misses the mark. It seems to be targeted at the fringes — super-geeks and their technophobe relatives.
Stick with what works for you — but I would strongly encourage upgrading to Windows 7. Vista was a turd, but 7 is a worthy successor to the venerable (but worn-out) XP. (At least please tell me you’re using IE8 or Firefox!)
I’m always using Firefox.
Not sure why you think I have Vista….when I bought my Dell, they were still selling XP with it. So my laptop has XP. My work computer is Vista and believe it or not, it works seamlessly. I wanted to hate Vista-I did, but I’ve never had an issue with it while at work. Now, on home computers, it does seem to suck, but that’s not an issue that concerns me.
I’ve already accepted that netbooks in general are not geared toward me. They are the opposite of Vista-I want to like them, but I just can’t see the point (for myself)!
I never said I thought you had Vista. What I meant was, Vista was a turd, not worth upgrading to from XP, but Windows 7 is.
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