CrunchPad Crunched?
A couple of days ago I asked on Twitter about Michael Arrington’s $300 CrunchPad. The announcement of the device caught the attention of just about every tech head on the internet as he was aiming for a low cost tablet mainly for internet access back in 2008. The latest design that made the rounds was a pretty straight forward tablet. You can see it from the link above.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one wondering about it. Well, d’uh, the whole thing went into hype mode for about a year and then nothing since last summer.
John Gruber posted this story by Dan Frommer from Business Insider that says apparently Arrington couldn’t get it into production likely due to rising costs. Frommer also suggested that perhaps Arrington is working with Google to launch the device with the Chrome OS.
Previously Arrington had said he’s working with Singapore’s Fusion Garage which developed a browser-based system used for the prototypes.
Either way, the CrunchPad is looking like a vaporware right now and competitors are beginning to fill the space. Amazon’s Kindle went international, Barnes & Noble is expected to launch the Nook soon, although they’re facing a lawsuit right now, and no doubt the East Asian companies are hard at work in making Android tablets.
And of course, the 10,000 pound gorillas that are the iPhone OS devices are making a killing in the market, costing less yet with more abilities.
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