crboynton’s blog

Digital technology, in the broadest of strokes, carries the possibility of making goods and services faster, smaller/bigger, cheaper and more accessible than ever before. Today we cover several devices that deliver on this promise by slicing off and optimizing the experience around just one of the core (specialized) tasks of personal computing.  When you step back and think about it, there’s almost nothing that a personal computer can’t do really, really well.  But can a personal computer, with so many uses bundled together, ever be exceptional at everything?

You might think so, until you encounter devices like the Amazon Kindle (e-books) and the CrunchPad (web browsing) and the iPod (music).  These devices have two main commonalities.  First, they’ve each isolated one aspect of personal computing and taken it beyond “really, really good”.  They’re exceptional at what they do.  Second, they’re all portable, bringing that exceptional experience with you wherever you go.

I won’t elaborate on iPods because that’s not new news.  So let’s take a look at the Amazon Kindle and CrunchPad for a moment:

The Kindle, an e-book reader that allows users to wirelessly download, read and store books does the same for magazines, newspapers and blogs.  Content is displayed on a 6″ screen and the device has page turning controls on the left and right sides.  The idea is to provide the same tactile, ergonomic experience as holding and reading a book.  Try curling up and getting comfy with your laptop and a 500 page novel like this in an airplane seat or on a train!  The Kindle can easily hold up 1500 books on the device itself (not in the cloud) so your collection is always a click or two away.  This is powerful enough to fundamentally change the way consumers buy, store and carry their books.  It’s form and function make the Kindle an exceptional device for optimized digital reading.

The CrunchPad , which is set to launch in the next 30-60 days, is a touch screen web tablet designed with single goal of an amazing and portable web browsing experience.  It’s going to have a 12″” screen for a fantastic full color view and will be thin at 18mm and light weight.  Some other basics include a single button for powering on/off, webcam, speakers and headphone jack.  It will have minimal software, featuring a basic Linux OS that will boot directly into a webkit browser on start-up.  Without all the other software and applications, the CrunchPad is going to be fast and cheap (supposedly under $300).  Excited yet?  Now think again about the touch screen control and fact that you can use this anywhere there’s WiFi.  Although it’s not in-market just yet, on paper the features and drawings appear, well, exceptional.

With bundling come trade-offs.  The iPhone is an exceptional device as a whole, but it’s  not an exceptional web browsing or typing tool.  For serious web browsing and data input I’ll choose my laptop or desktop anytime.  The  singular, laser focus of the Kindle for digital book reading and the CrunchPad for portable, yet luxurious web browsing allow the designers to add the necessary features to make these products exceptional and not just really, really good.  I think these teams should resist the inevitable temptation to bundle (except where it doesn’t detract from the devices’ utility) so they don’t have to make the really big trade-offs that make it infinitely more difficult to be exceptional.  There’s always plenty of market share available for exceptional products.

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