Software starts at the operating system.

On offer we have the following:

• Symbian S60 and S90
• MS Win CE and Tablet PC.
• Linux

I have a feeling that S60 and S90 spec aren’t going to support the screen requiments and considering the processors we have at hand (Basically the Xscale, Epia, Transmeta bracket) we’re going to be mainly looking at WinCE and Linux. Even Nokia themselves used linux in their 770 – a carrypad type device.

Apart from GPS navigation on Linux, they both look like having similar capabilities.
Linux has the advantage of a mass of developers, WinCE has the advantage of money and access to processor designs and specifications.

My first conclusion is that if Xscale is the most suited processor (considering power requirements) then WinCE is going to have the performance advantage because of MS-Intel relationships. With Xscale/WinCE, the USB and Bluetooth support could also be more stable.

Some users are going to want to use their Digital Rights Managed media too and there again, you have to be looking at MS.

Linux however could keep the cost down. With no licensing costs, more money can be spent on hardware. Its also arguable that there’s a wider range of software for the user too.

One family of operating system I havent mentioned yet is Apple. These guys could be extremely well positioned to make a Carrytop PC. They have access to Intel processors now and buiding a lounge product could fit very well into their portfolio. Given their current marketing and brand power, they could also reach the economies of scale to push multi-million Xscale processor based carrytops out the door at the right price.

As far as applications go, well we’ve pretty much listed all that before.
It ranges from email clients to media players. In fact, if you take the average pocket PC, add navigation, voice over IP, an RSS reader and you have pretty much all the software elements you need.

From what I posted earlier, lets summarise the carrypad:

Its a device for these locations:
Sofa, Bed, Coffee Shop, Car, Train, Plane etc.

Its indentifying features are:
Advanded-intermediate output – (5″-7″ screen, min 800×480, total size – DVD cover.)
Advanced-intermediate input – (mini qwerty keyboard)

It is the parent of the smartphone (although a potential user of the smartphone long-range data capabilities)

It is the offspring of the pc.

It performs video well (min 320×240, 24fps, 1000kbps, full screen – Approx 620mhz advanced processor (Xscale seems well suited at this stage)

It needs to be a standalone device. If you dont have your phone with you (unlikely) or its battery is flat, you need many of the functions of the smartphone (except long-range radio services like GSM, GPRS, UMTS)
The camera doesnt fit here but a videoconferencing camera would.
Storage should be a step up from the mobile. Minimum 10GB I would say as it needs to be a media playback device and possibly a photo upload and basic editing tool.
Wifi is a must here as its target locations would all potentialy contain wifi as the primary broadband connectivity option.
Bluetooth is a must as it would be use to communicate with a number of local devices (headphones, data gateways, printers etc.)
Battery longevity is also a must here although we’re not concerned with 5+ hours. More the 2-3 hours mark.
Docking/Wall mounting is needed for the cool-factor in the lounge/bedroom.
Price – above high-level pocket pc and below mid-level laptops. Puts it at the 800 Euro mark at the moment but when the pocket pc market crashes, they will drop into the 400-600 range.
Normal wired connectivity options will include USB2.0, SPDIF out, Headphones. mic in and SDIO.
Consumer IR should provide device control capability.
I’m not sure about GPS but given that this device could be a CE or S60 operating system, a GPS device would make good sense. I dont see a linux-based system needing a GPS. Nvagation data will never be public domain. (Think about traffic data.)
Touch-screen or programmable touch-pad areas are needed for in-car and photo editing.

and next, the software…..

Bed, sofa, car, toilet, plane, train, and ship.

This is where the carrypad comes in then. Its not a belt or pocket device. In fact, the pocket device has pretty much died. All the ground that it covered (apart from video) has gone to mobile phones. However, becuase of that, its opened up that middle ground for the carrypad.

Of course, i’m not the first to think about this am i.

Here’s a few examples of devices nearing the carrypad mark.

• OQO
• Nokia 770
• Flybook
• Dualcor PC
• Sony Vaio U-Series
  
• Pepperpad
  

These range in price from 350 to over 2000 Euro and only a couple of them have proper keyboards. This is dissapointing.

Before we look further at mini-micro tablets/pc’s lets think about some places we use our mobile devices:

Walking
Bus
Car
Bed
Sofa
Coffee shop
Meeting room
Office

If I analyse the places I use my devices – i find that bed and sofa are recent additions and are becoming very popular, enjoyable and easy places to do a lot of everyday technology activities. Think about it. SMS, TV, Browsing. I have a pocket PC and these things are actually possible. Howver, that same pocketPC is extremely inneficient for the reasons i’ve talked about before (input constrictions mainly.) I rarely use my laptop at home. its just too big and takes too long to power up and well, its very expensive to keep a laptop knocking round just to read emails and check the TV listings. If I leave it on the sofa, someone is going to knick it too.

I’ve got ‘walking, bus’ covered by my mobile.
I’ve got ‘Meeting rooms and Office’ covered by a laptop

There’s the third device requirement popping out now – Sofa, Bed, Car.
I tell you – this is mini-tablet/micro laptop territory. The proudct group with no definition. We need a new definition here:

sofapod, stylepod, stylepad, lifepad, lifepod, midipod, midipad, intermidi. Mmm. Those names are all to obvious.
Lets try Carrypad. Yeah we’ll call it the carry-pad.

Take a look at that list of devices again.

You have a pocketPC and a Mini tablet/micro laptop.
You could go for the pocket PC as the next step. It would certainly handle the video side of things (with a 3.5″ screen and a video output.) But remember that the mobilephone device is missing advanced-intermediate input (emails, docs, blogs, real-time IM) so, with the pocket PC, you’re only going to satisfy one more requirement.

We’re also missing a device with Advanced output – (long-term video, browsing, doc creation) – 5-7″ (say 800×480) and advanced input.

Think think think again. A pocket PC isnt really going to cut it here. The overlap with the mobile device is too great. The only extra functionality you get is: 3.5″ screen but you get no extra input mechanism.

So, take the next step up – what do you get? We’re talking about needing a 5-7″ screen for long-term video and a mini qwerty keyboard. We’re into Mini Tablet and mini laptop territory. This is a blurred category of devices. Lets take a deeper look.

A nice venn diagram would show us exactly where we can put all our technologies.
I’ve done that here at home but the results are simpler to show in text form.

We start with our mobile device. We want everything possible on this device and we have a device no bigger than 3″ with a numeric or thumb keypad so you can forget video and decent input mechanisms. Efficient browsing is also out of the question.

You can put the following on your mobile phone device:
Mobile phone voice
Mobile phone non real-time Instant Messaging (SMS/MMS)
Calendar
Contacts
Reminders/To-do
Digital Camera (2mp with good optics is the entry point for useable photos)
Document storage (local, up to 4gb today.)
Music playing/recording.
Simple video clip recording/playback.
GPS navigation.
Device control – (Consumer infra red) (although I havent seen this on many phones)
Data gateway. (Bluetooth with GPRS/UMTS is the most sensible choice but wifi is also bossible.)

Before we migrate all our technologies on to the mobile phone, i’m going to put another parameter in the mix – Physical constraints.
That is, for each function, are there any physical contraints to be applied. The simple example is – input. Its the holy grail of mobile devices, getting an efficient input mechanism to work on a small scale. And up to now, no one has achieved it.
Thats why we now have a range of input mechanisms. From voice to thumb. Lets list the physical constraints here:

Basic input (SMS and short emails – non real-time) = numberpad
Intermediate input (emails, blogs, notes, tasks, calendar, IM) = thumbpad
Advanced-intermediate (emails, docs, blogs, IM) – mini qwerty keyboard for two-finger typing on stable surface.
Advanced input – (everything) Normal qwerty keyboard.
Other inputs – voice, projected keyboard – not yet proved useable.

Basic output – (SMS, notifiers, small emails, WAP) = basic 2″ screen
intermediate output – (emails, notes, vid clips, small pics, simple navigation) = hi-def 2″ screen (say, 176×208 pixels)
Advanced-intermediate output – (video, document reading, low-level browsing, advanced navigation) = hi-def 3.5″ screen (say 320×240)
Advanced output – (long-term video, browsing, doc creation) – 5-7″ (say 800×480)
Best output – (all methods) – Normal PC screen.

Interesting to note that advanced browsing requires more screen size than video despite videos containg many more times more information. (A picture is really worth a thousand words)

As for physical contraints, i think thats about it. Lets assume we dont have to carry aerials, spare batteries and cables with us.

The functions mentioned before need to sit on a device. Ideally just one device.
Buit today, we use many different devices.
Here’s a list of portable device categories we have in use today along with a guideline size (smallest first) and an example device.

Mobile Phone (3″) – E.g. Nokia 6280
Smartphone (3″) – e.g. Nokia N70, HTC Tornado
Pocket PC (4″) – E.g. DELL Axim
Mini Tablet (5-9″) – E.g. Nokia 770
Mini laptop (10-12″) – E.g. OQO
Tablet (8-15″) – E.g. Pepperpad + Windows tablets
Laptop (12-17″) – Many variants from 1kg-3kg. Many examples.
Desktop PC – All sizes!

One of those devices is becoming the ‘always-there’ device and a lot of technologies are migrating towards it. The mobile phone. (including the smartphone)

What we want is to put the most functionality on the ‘always-there’ device. By doing that we get the most functionality with us as much of the time as possible. That makes sense to me.

I want to make a short note about the smartphone/pocketpc combo device. Its a sub-segment of phones that have bigger screens and often thumboards. I’m not ignoring these devices, I just see them as a specialist device aimed at the business user. Besides, you’ll see in my later posts that even these devices cant really offer complete convergence.