Wow. Tough crowd. This is a first product from a new company going up against the established leader with a track record of putting out amazing products. Maybe cut FusionGarage some slack, eh?
The review itself is a little strange:
Where the JooJoo does score is in the picture quality of its gorgeous touchscreen. Scrolling is pretty smooth (although not quite as fluid as the iPad) and videos play beautifully, thanks to the included Flash support.
[... a little later ...]
Watching video on JooJoo comes with its own set of quirks and glitches. Bring up YouTube or Hulu clips and they look fine in a small window, but click into the full-screen mode and you'll get more stalls and sputtering than a health care bill moving through Congress.
So, which one is it... is the video beautiful or stally and sputtery?
Anyway, I hope they sell a few of these or raise more money to iterate and make it a worthy competitor to the iPad.
Why should I, a consumer willing to spend $500 on a good product, cut FusionGarage slack?
Also, Notion Ink seem to be doing just fine with their Android based tablet. The reviews so far have been positive and, even if the actual device turns out to be a POS, you can just slap Linux on it and use it for something else.
I'm somewhat conflicted about the claim that there's no apps. It seems that the JooJoo was meant to be one of the first devices to think of the browser as the only necessary gateway to your apps. If we take the browser and web apps into consideration the JooJoo has access to thousands of apps.
I personally think it's wrong to suggest that a "native" app is the only form of app for a device. We were moving forward so nicely until the iPhone and iPad showed up. It feels that we're moving backwards, back into the land of the fat clients and desktop. Sad.
That's an extraordinary claim, given that it's more likely that the secretive & perfectionist Apple might have merely been quietly finishing and documenting the SDK, only using the web apps story to placate developers and buy time.
Misdirection is a part of their secretive nature. They don't telegraph their punches. Instead, we hear Jobs say that they can't think of what one would do with a tablet beyond reading on the toilet and that people don't read anymore.
Web apps, in my opinion and experience, don't compare to the native apps of the iPad/iPhone. Native apps look better, feel better, and perform better than web apps on the iPhone/iPad.
This idea that the browser will be the window to all apps is silly and unfortunate. If it does work out, people are forced to write applications with three parts:
* HTML
* CSS
* Javascript
* Any serverside language
Instead of a single language that they're very familiar with. While I don't agree with Apple's choice to choke the amount of languages I really dislike this idea that the future of applications is 4 languages, 3 of which you don't have a choice with.
I agree, if you had to write in 4 languages that would be terrible. Fortunately there are frameworks like NOLOH, http://www.noloh.com that allow you to develop in ONE language for the web, instead of the 4 you mention.
Being forced into 1 language (PHP) is not the answer. I find it also quite disingenuous to say "allow you to develop in ONE language for the web" when you really mean "develop in a PHP framework".
It is ONE language. NOLOH extends PHP, and you only develop in NOLOH. NOLOH has it's own syntax that's different than PHP. We accomplish this through the use of extensive syntactical sugars. You can read a little bit about this in our developer zone at http://dev.noloh.com.
You don't code any HTML, JavaScript, or deal with the client as you would with any other framework, whether it's PHP or not.
You only write code in NOLOH on the server and don't have to worry about anything else. In this regard it operates very much like it's own language, but to appeal to search engines we have to phrase it as a PHP Framework.
Clearly our phrasing and presentation was confusing to you as I'm sure you simply took a cursory glance, rather than create a sandbox, or watch our numerous videos on our YouTube channel. This is clearly something we need to work on since most people will only take cursory glances.
How do you feel about Javascript? Objective-J? Why not try using Node.js for the server and Cappuccino for the client? That's a webapp with need of only one-ish(does Javascript and Objective-J count as one language?) language.
From what I remember the iphone was originally not intended to have an SDK or an app store. Thanks to everyone demanding an SDK and jailbreakers (possibly) you now have the monster that is the app store and a lot of bellyaching going on. :P
Luckily you can still develop for the web and the browser will be happy to access your app. No app store needed. :)
(in all seriousness I suspect if the exact same device had come out in a blaze of glory from Arrington then the press would have delighted in cutting it down to size)
Why would they? It's a second rate tablet with a bunch of bugs priced to compete against the iPad no matter what it's called. I think the reviews might be different if had been released at the price they originally announced. It's probably not a terrible product, but they priced themselves into a category they can't compete in.
I doubt it would have come out in this state if it were still the CrunchPad, Arrington and co aren't stupid, they would have known they are onto a loser in this current state judging by the reviews.
Interesting that the major problems with the JooJoo can be fixed by a better linux, whereas the major problems with the iPad... can be fixed by a better linux. ;)
I have to wonder if Arrington saw that the product wasn't turning out like he had hoped and quietly decided that he didn't want the TechCrunch name on it. Maybe that's why he didn't commit to a contract because he wanted the relationship to dissolve while also making it appear that he was the good guy by being pushed out of the relationship.
In any case, you can be sure that Arrington is at least a little happy that the CrunchPad is not going up against the iPad.
"Commenters will likely tear into this review, accusing Wired of being biased toward Apple (we're not) and unfairly bashing a perfectly good product (which this isn't)."
Its funny that the author exactly captures the spirit of his review in one sentence. It really feels like - "the iPad, despite its many flaws, is wonderful. The JooJoo, despite its many strengths, is awful."
The reviewer points out five things which shape her verdict:
- too heavy
- too slow
- short battery life
- limited usefulness beyond browsing the web
- awful UI
Those seem like rather basic requirements to me. Most if not all people simply won’t buy a device with those kinds of drawbacks. Make no mistake, the iPad has very real drawbacks – I don’t see how this review ignores those – they just might not be the same category of drawback. Lacking a USB port is hardly the same as having a awful UI.
Your point being? I don’t see how that could change the review – it seems pretty impossible to me to review software based on what’s possible, not on what’s there.
Really? I've seen plenty of reviews that contain some variation of the line "...but X should be easy to fix in the next firmware/software update, and if they do that then..."
You can write that in a review (’coz it’s true), I just don’t think you would be a very good reviewer if it influenced your verdict.
I just looked at Engadget’s iPad review again and they heavily scold the iPad for lacking multitasking – mentioning that the fix should be easy sounds much more like a criticism than a defense. If the iPad doesn’t get any leeway for lacking software features the Joojoo shouldn’t get any leeway for its lacking UI.
The amount of leeway one gives should be related to how easy the problem is to fix. Fundamental problems with the hardware should not be judged equal to easily fixed software bugs when counting pros and cons.
And I have very little faith that any company shipping a crappy UI will get their act together and ship an upgrade that "fixes" it. Microsoft needed more than a decade.
Choppy video, maybe that can be fixed. But the crappy UI is probably forever.
Where you may run into problems is finding drivers for pieces of the JooJoo hardware. JooJoo claims to be running a "custom operating system", which Wired reported is actually linux-based.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/first-look-joojoo-is-...
If it is truly custom, you likely would have substantial hurdles making it run linux/android. If it is a customized linux port, you would have a hope of finding drivers. Given the short and ugly history of the JooJoo, I would not expect cooperation from Fusion Garage.
Honestly, nothing I've seen about the operating system leads me to think it is actually very custom (insofar as you would call the EeePC's Linux "custom"). It probably just ships with a kernel compiled with the touchscreen drivers, and other drivers. Seeing as how the touchscreen drivers apparently aren't the greatest, I'd like to see someone write better ones, and then just write a replacement OS for the JooJoo.
"Given the short and ugly history of the JooJoo, I would not expect cooperation from Fusion Garage."
Which is entirely the wrong direction for them, imho. Given that history (and the fact they are competing with Apple now), being entirely open and friendly with the linux hacking world would probably be the best move for them.
I can't trust a Wired review of an iPad competitor. This whole thing of magazines and newspapers clearly championing what they think is their next meal ticket isn't ethically sound.
Guy says the choppy flash is due to "not having hardware acceleration for flash," which is flat out wrong.
Choppy flash video is well known to anyone who's tried to watch Hulu on a Linux machine that isn't, say, a quad cpu dual core 4ghz with 16gb of ram. (and even then, it only hits about 22 fps) </slight exaggeration>
A thread around here recently said that to get HW acceleration for Flash, you either need to talk Adobe in to writing it for you, or you need to pony up $$$ for their SDK and do it yourself. Except, the SDK is two major versions old, v.7 instead of v.9.
So for many platforms, you're SOL for hardware acceleration. Do I have it completely wrong?
I read Wired for their in-depth articles about cool things. I have recently stopped reading most of their articles reviewing Apple products and sports cars as I find most of them to be border-line fanboyish and contain very little infromation that I could not find elsewhere without the fanboy tint.
Their review stayed relatively factual. There's only one or two "feeling" type criticisms. The headline is probably the most biased bit. I'd actually be shocked given the drama surrounding this device if it had come out as a thoroughly polished competitor.
Besides, isn't their next meal ticket much more about the form factor than the actual iPad? I mean, isn't the JooJoo pad or any other small enough to be mobile, but big enough to read on device just as good for Wired or any other company to build on?
I really hope it's the form factor that becomes popular and not just the iPad.
