In the past few days, as the entire world seemed to be commenting on the new Apple iPad, one 13-person group from Singapore was missing. It would have been a very interesting set of comments, because that group is the same one behind the JooJoo/CrunchPad, a tablet conceived by Mike Arrington and built by Fusion Garage that’s currently in a set of serious litigation woes.

If you remember correctly, after the two groups had their split up, Fusion Garage vowed to sell the tablet by themselves, subsequently re-naming it the JooJoo. Pre-orders were taken in December and promised within 8-10 weeks. Ever since the iPad’s release, numerous technology blogs (minus TechCrunch possibly) tried to reach out to Fusion Garage and get a statement. One, VentureBeat, finally succeeded in getting an interview with Chandra Rathakrishnan, the CEO of FusionGarage. Interesting tidbits below:

• - When asked about how many pre-orders they got, Chandra refused to release numbers, which is fine. I, along with many others, have a feeling it’s not much, even if it apparently “exceeded [FusionGarage's] expectations”
• - The article’s title seems a bit deceptive. Or perhaps I missed something. The title, “JooJoo CEO pledges to ship this month, claims deal with leading phone maker”, really seemed to suggest they were in talks with a major phone maker for some 3G connection. In the interview, however, all Chandra does is “not rule out” the possibility of 3G.
• - On having an App Store, Chandra strongly said No, citing his belief that with the Internet, no one needs Apps. Moreover, he also suggested that iPhone Apps are merely copies of what’s available online. I will not criticize that, because honestly I wouldn’t know where to start. But, it sure does sound like a cop-out to me especially with the amount of success behind the iPhone that can be directly attributed to the 140,000+ applications available on the device.

  If the JooJoo did offer an App Store clone anyways, would developers really jump on? Probably not. So, even though this is a clear cop-out, even if he had major plans for an JooJoo Apps, it’s highly unlikely he could get that off the ground. I suppose it’s easier to just bash the iPhone App Store and claim the Internet as your savior.

• - Lastly, when asked about perhaps the most interesting question – what differentiates the JooJoo from the iPad or why the JooJoo is better – Chandra cited two things: bigger size and flash.

  Two things. First, it’s tough seeing an educated critic asking for an unstable, albeit very popular, web application known for causing a horrendous amount of system crashes. I still don’t understand why no Flash on the iPhone is a problem. Adobe has to wake up and fix things; otherwise, HTML5 will very soon replace it. Good riddance. Now, regarding the bigger size. Besides the fact that it seems very immature to use ‘bigger size’ as your top feature, it’s also interesting to me just how dismal it makes their situation look. “What’s your top feature over the iPad?” “Well, we’re, like, an inch bigger.”

JooJoo is an interesting product and it’s definitely one I would love to get my hands on, at least for a quick demo. It’s just a really sad situation now. A company embroidered in a nasty and strong litigation problem over ownership, coupled with the fact that their device sells at the exact same price as the iPad while offering nothing more than a crashing web-plugin and an extra inch, is trying to take on Apple’s latest creation. How sad.

I got a lot of negative feedback on my latest blog post, Criticizing Apple. In it, I shared my opinion on how the amount of unrealistic expectations that people had for the device were only bound to cause mass disappointment when the device was released. I ended the post by asking people politely (I even said please) to just shut up with their criticisms until they tried out the device for themselves. I still stand strongly by those words, but I feel like I should just make a quick elaboration.

After thinking about it for awhile, I believe I finally understand why many of these criticisms are being brought up. It finally hit me – people view the iPad as much more than just simply an iPad. For the record, the iPad never claimed to be a computer, nor will it ever be labelled as such. That’s the real problem. The iPad isn’t a computer. Don’t think of it as one and more importantly, don’t compare it to one.

Apple making a computer closed would be a morally reprehensible act. A computer can only be open – it should never be okay for a company to limit the amount of applications I can install on my MacBook Pro to a list of 140,000 carefully curtailed applications. It’s not okay for Apple to ban me from installing Chrome or Firefox on my Mac.

The iPhone, however, is another story. It’s understandably closed and controlled, two traits that I will admit sound quite awful but only lead to the device’s reliability and top quality. The iPad is much closer to an iPhone than a computer. It’s a mobile media consumption machine that is targeted at the masses. Being more controlled and closed, unlike a professional computer, will only cause it to have greater reliability and quality.

It’s barely been a day since Apple released their much anticipated Apple tablet and the amount of negative criticism is already quite overwhelming.

That’s one of the staple characteristics of the Internet – give me any amazing feat or impressive product and I can easily find more than enough criticism. It is, almost always, over the top.

The amount of words that have been written both for and against the Tablet for the past few months could likely fill up entire libraries. The sheer amount of rumors that seem to have appeared out of nothing is more than a bit overwhelming.

In some sense, it’s no surprise that the iPad, when compared to the rumored iPad, is a bit unimpressive. Even if some of these apparent downfalls have merit, you still end up sounding ridiculous as you go down a list of your grievances with the device.

…what!?!?!? It doesn’t have a camera! How dare they.

No camera is fine, but it only has iPhone OS on it? How can they possibly put the popular reliable highly-rated operating system with 140,000 curtailed professional apps on this new tablet? That makes no sense to my genius mind.

It’s only 1.5 pounds and 0.5 inches thick. How huge! How can I possibly put this in my pocket or even carry it around? It will probably hurt my back. A lot.

Only 10 hours of battery life with direct use and 30 days with standby mode!? How can I possibly get anything done with those restrictions!

I can’t play WoW on this thing?! This is worthless.

What do you mean it doesn’t fly?

…and, after all this crap, you’re telling me this “oh so mighty” Tablet will not work under water? What if I feel like editing a spreadsheet while taking a dip in my pool?

Let’s attempt to put some things in perspective here. We’ve seen tablets being released for a bit over a decade now and nothing seems to have come close to what Apple released yesterday. It seems responsive, fast, sleek, clean, and professional. That by no means indicates that it’s a perfect device – it is the iTab 1.0. It’s been shown to journalists who absolutely loved it and investors who are astounded by its low price. Keep in mind that the Amazon Kindle DX, whose release hasn’t been marred by one percent of the accusations currently flying at Apple, is only ten dollars cheaper. And the Kindle DX is black/white and only an eBook reader. The iPad’s iBooks app is an even better interface than the Kindle and lucky for us, iBooks isn’t the only thing offered on the iPad.

In the end, you really have to try it out to have a real opinion of it. As impressed as I am with what I have seen and heard, I will not be content until the I get a chance to hold one and use it. So do the sensible thing: wait sixty days until we get to see the iPad and go and try it out. Then and only then can you be allowed to have a qualified and informed opinion on it, contrary to your baseless insensible illogical criticisms today.

And in the meantime, until you’ve seen and tried out the device, please just shut up.

I am really excited right now, as the Internet has been swirling for a few months now on rumors about a new Tablet computer to be designed, manufactured, and released by Apple.

That’s actually nothing new. It’s common knowledge that Apple has been trying to release a Tablet since the early 1990s. What is special about these rumors today is that there is wide speculation that the Tablet will be released really soon. Say, in a few days on January 27th in San Francisco.

This is, understandably, epic. The Apple Tablet is supposed to transform the computing world as we know it. When you look at the categories of our computers, you see three main ones: huge extremely capable workstation desktops, laptops serving as a more mobile workhorse, and smaller extremely mobile smartphones for computing on the go.

The Tablet will comfortably fit in between the huge desktops and the mobile laptops, representing this new category of “couch computing”. It’s going to be simply splendid.

The idea itself is nothing new and a few notable Tablets have been introduced already but are either limited, like the Amazon Kindles that only serve as an eReader, or have been marred with bad publicity due to legal implications like the TechCrunch CrunchPad device.

What’s obvious, however, is that neither of those extremely capable devices that were launched by well-established technological pioneers even came close to scratching the surface of this space that has yet to be named, released, or discussed but will inevitably come to be both invented and dominated by Apple.

Numerous bloggers and columnists have talked about supposed tablet specifications. But of course, as fun as predictions are to write and to read, how much value and insight we gain from them is debatable. As capable and talented as my brain might be, I can’t even begin to fathom the world that Steve Jobs sees. And I am hardly the only one. Across the tens of thousands of magazines, newspapers, and blogs, enough words have probably been written about this yet unannounced tablet to fill up every volume in Thompson Library. However, how accurate or meaningful those insights and predictions is very debatable.

As anticlimactic as this ending might be, the only thing I am one-hundred percent sure about is that Steve Jobs has something extraordinary in his mind and once he works with his Apple team to unleash this product onto the world, we will be dazzled and shocked.

The Apple Tablet might incorporate some of the things we have read about in predictions, but of course done in a completely new better manner. Or, more likely, it will be something completely new, the likes of which have never been seen by our humble yet ignorant eyes.

It will be something astonishing that will completely amaze us beyond our wildest dreams. Why? Because it’s designed by Steve Jobs.

And that’s enough for me, and tens of millions of other people, to run out there and buy this device as soon as it’s made. I can’t wait.

Due to how shaky and quick-changing this situation is, I have to make a few points before I get into the details of my argument. As I write this post, we’re experiencing a debacle of sorts with the late night situation on NBC, as Conan and Jay seem to be fighting for the future ownership of the Tonight Show. Analysts and users alike are truly unsure whether it’s even possible for both to remain at the network in some capacity as they both seem to want the same thing at this moment. On top of that, NBC is more likely to stick with Jay than Conan at this point as he established himself as the number one late night host for years.

Like with any huge conflict, what I am starting to see is that people are quickly picking sides. The two supporter groups are assembling, with Team Coco on one side and Team Jay on the other. Truth be told, however, that just saddens me. The problem here isn’t with either host – I truly doubt that neither of them committed a fault. Of course, it was very unfair for NBC to kick Jay out of the Tonight Show after he established himself as the late night king. On the other hand, uprooting Conan, his family, his staff, and his staff’s families from New York to California and then kicking them out after a mere seven months is nothing short of inhuman, indecent, and immoral, three characteristics that ironically describe the new vision and goal of NBC.

That’s the real problem behind all this, NBC’s complete lack of any common sense, an interesting topic that deserves an entire post (perhaps even a small book) on it. That, however, is not what I find interesting about this topic. Last week hasn’t been about a problem in late night or the latest idiotic NBC decision.

It was, without exaggeration, concerning the very future of television. As dimwitted as NBC executives might be, the biggest reason behind why this problem existed is because of our limited resources, namely that there’s only 24 hours in a day. Networks have to sacrifice so many great shows simply because there isn’t any time to air them all. The only solution they have to solve that problem is to simply make a new channel. That doesn’t make sense.

In our Internet age, shows shouldn’t be limited by the hours in a day or how many slots a certain channel has. It’s truly deplorable when shows really need to have great lead-in ratings; that just goes to show how weak your show is since you need a stronger show to attract people that you then hope will just lounge around and catch your show.

An online television company, Revision3, sent an open letter yesterday to Conan offering him a job at their network. Though it was most definitely a joke more than anything, it truly represented some very compelling points. The future of television has got to be one where we watch shows that interest us at the time that attracts us. I watch the Daily Show every day but it’s seldom at 11 PM and thanks to their technically savvy vision I can easily do that online. That’s how it should be with every show, including The Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno & The Tonight Show w/Conan.

I am in no means suggesting that this is going to happen soon, but I really think that we can’t go that much longer with this broken system. Conan, if he leaves NBC, will most likely go to another network like FOX rather than try and embrace the future of television. Yet, a small part of me, is going to be really disappointed watching him jump to yet another network leading more credibility to such a jumbled ineffective system.

My good friend and fellow Buckeye, Eric Kerr, recently wrote a great lengthy post outlining his 2010 predictions for the tech world. Some of the predictions are obvious. Others require a better market (economically) before they happen, which I am very hopeful for. Some of the predictions are so out there, showing me a perspective I hadn’t even pondered or thought of.

This is a must-read, I greatly urge you to click and read the predictions as soon as you can.

As always, I agree with many of his points and disagree with some. So, I thought I should just write my response to these predictions. Keep in mind I am not going to be re-copying the exact text of each prediction as I want you to go and read each one of them on his site.

Mobile / Hardware

1. iPhone AppStore backlash continues and Apple does nothing about it.

The biggest reason the iPhone is so successful for Apple is its App Store. That is the true secret recipe behind the device. In order for Android to gain footing in this industry and for old players like RIM and Palm to secure their place, they must develop their own successful App Store. That requires significant wooing on their part regarding developers.

As great as iPhone apps are, I hear it’s a pain to develop the apps. This is just from a developer perspective and doesn’t even mention Apple’s administrative policies.

Android is slowly gathering momentum and has thousands of apps in its App Market now, while Palm is doing all it can to woo developers. Apple will be Apple and I feel that that will only hurt them in the long run.

2. Mobile CPA monetization in games gets hot.

3. E-Reader device popularity continues to rise. Amazon polishes its Kindle and B&N struggles to create comparable demand for Nook.

I am a huge advocate for Amazon in this race. I am a proud Kindle owner. This is really similar to Apple owing much of the success of the iPhone to the fantastic Apple Store. I agree with this prediction 100%. In this race, Amazon is Apple and B&N is Nokia or Motorola.

4. TechCrunch effectively loses CrunchPad lawsuit, but JooJoo fails anyway.

I wrote a post shortly after this occurred on why Michael is the real winner in this situation.

There is no chance in hell that the JooJoo will have any success, especially in the year when the rumored iSlate is released. Fusion Garage was and will remain a company layered in obscurity, now shrouded in a dark cloud of legal uncertainty. Not good.

I am a big fan of Mike and strongly believe that there’s a space in the market for an entry level tablet. If Apple comes out with the iSlate, it will still be at a certainly high level. We need an entry level tablet and I want the CrunchPad to be it.

Mike should just start over…everyone will be there to support him.

5. Verizon doesn’t land with iPhone.

I have no idea. This is one of the greatest wonderings today in the tech world. I have no idea what will happen but I strongly disagree with AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity. Ironically, I think their network’s performance with the iPhone (the reason behind the many complaints) will only get better once they lose their exclusivity.

6. Microsoft struggles with Windows 7 Mobile and remains irrelevant in the mobile space.

Ha.

7. Apple Tablet launches with pseudo-iPhone OS complete with AppStore.

iWant.

8. Android proves itself as a formidable competitor to Apple and becomes second overall to iPhone by year’s end.

I disagree with the Droid being the best Android phone. I really love HTC and their Sense UI.

I strongly agree with the prediction that Android will only become stronger, but I disagree with it being a formidable opponent and competitor to Apple.

Simply put, they serve very different roles. Android will kill WinMo. But there’s enough market space for Blackberry, iPhone, and Android to happily coexist together.

9. Palm continues to push out mobile devices with little demand.

Ugh. I hate to say this, but this will probably happen.

I still have my fingers crossed though. Palm always had horrible hardware; webOS is a beauty. Hopefully someone there can realize that in time.

But, sadly, knowing their history, they probably wont.

10. Square realizes its bottleneck is additional hardware, so it gives card reader away for free.

Interesting.

I remember PayPal facing a similar decision a loooong time ago.

Acquisitions

11. DropBox gets acquired.

Okay, but for how much and to whom?

12. GitHub gets acquired.

Again, sure…but value and buyer are really important.

13. “Spray and pray” investment model becomes validated as a few players have significant exists.

Let’s hope so.

Geo
14. Facebook will not enter the geo space in 2010. If it does, it won’t be through an acquisition.

I feel like Twitter is more poised to make this move.

15. Foursquare has breakout year. Gowalla grows but is labeled “cute”.

Browsers / Software
16. Firefox hits peak in 2010 and will slowly be replaced by faster browsers.

Agree. Firefox has done a lot. After giving it all it had, it led to the release of Chrome.

17. Google Chrome hits double digit market share as extensions and mac availability catapult adoption.

Let’s just hope IE dies a similar death to WinMo.

18. Jolicloud project does not gain significant traction as Chrome OS steals its thunder.

Eh. Keep in mind that Chrome OS is a very limited system. It’s great but not for every role. Again, I feel like there’s plenty of space for both to be there. They do serve two very different roles.

19. Rockment, despite the prowess of its investors, does not gain significant traction as its competition can leverage significant real-estate space.

Haha, I haven’t heard of it. Doesn’t this just strengthen your point?

20. Adobe CS5 makes biggest splash in the “Objective-C is hard, here’s another way to make iPhone applications” space.

I haven’t heard of this either, but this is huge if it happens.

Web Services

21. MySpace moves away from being an identity hub, integrates FaceBook Connect, strengthens focus on digital media, but sees traffic continue to drop.

…surely.

22. Wave slowly insinuates itself in to your work and personal life after assets and talent from the EtherPad help with interface and performance improvements.

Too far into the future. 2010 is way too soon for anything significant to happen.

23. Twitter releases analytics product for businesses.

I am sick and tired of the seemingly lazy company that does nothing but raise money based on astronomical valuations. I want to see revenue already…and I am not the only one.

They are forced to do this. They have no other choice.

24. Twitter continues to grow, but not at the same rate it did in 2009.

I feel like user signups might stagnate…but business accounts should boom, especially if Twitter decides to focus on them and give them additional resources.

25. Tumblr more than doubles traffic and breaks in to Alexa top 150.

26. Facebook introduces redesign, users protest, Facebook doesn’t do anything about it.

lol

27. Facebook makes major push to get people to organize friends in to lists.

28. Facebook Connect moves closer to being De facto login.

Definitely. Will strongly compete with Google.

Search

29. News Corp continues to threaten removing itself from Google’s index, but it wont.

As much fun as it is making fun of Rupert, he does have a point and has done a lot. Hulu and Fox have truly been innovators and everyone knows that something innovative needs to happen before the much-needed news industry falls over.

30. Bing beats Google to integrating innovative features.

Google falls asleep on the wheel. I really want to compare it to Yahoo! but I wont. I just wont. I refuse to do so.

I just love Google too much to make that claim. But…I easily can if I try.

31. Bing passes 15 percent search market share.

I feel like 15% is too low. I feel it will be higher, especially with the Yahoo! search deal.

Tech Trends

32. “Netscape IPO moment” begins tech IPO eruption.

Oh yea! And boy, am I excited.

33. Founders Visa movement generates a lot of talk, but unfortunately no action.

I am slightly more optimistic.

34. Augmented Reality shows a few cool use cases, but has slow consumer adoption.

Yup, still really far into the future.

35. The online music website “convection oven” pattern continues.

Music is hard and because of the technologically retarded music labels it will largely stay the same.

36. Privacy and data integrity issues force enterprise customers towards “private cloud” solutions.

Which is great for them.

37. CPA offer providers will try to appear to be consumer friendly, but will continue to do use shady tactics to make money.

Regular CPC advertisements can be so extremely shady on their own. How many ducks can you shoot? I feel like advertisments themselves are a shady industry and CPA are the most shady.

Nothing will change here.

38. Aol.’s rebranding efforts don’t have desired effect by turning the company around.

I still can’t believe they chose a goldfish with white font as their logo. Makes me feel just great about their rebranding.

I will compare this to Yahoo. Slow death and decline. Goodbye AOL, we will not miss you.

39. Microsoft’s online Office products fail to win any fanatics.

Microsoft has a few great stars online. Bing is the flagship product online. Office online is and will always remain a failed product.

Google has already created and established themselves strongly within this industry.

40. HTML5 video support has slow adoption as most large vendors find flash good enough for now.

Yup. We’re still years away.

I dream of a world where HTML5 and Chrome-esque browsers replace gargantuan ancient services like Flash and IE. It will happen.

I have attempted to restrain myself from mentioning or talking about Vevo, albeit jokingly wishing you a Happy Vevo Eve the night before the big launch. That’s not necessarily because I had nothing to say – I am actually filled to the brim with thoughts – but rather because I wanted to give Vevo a chance.

Because I thought Vevo would suck.

Just like I thought with Hulu when it launched.

It’s too easy to be critical of things – criticisms are easy to write and fun to read. What is hard is being that one blogger who correctly believed Hulu would be a hit before any of us were even willing to acknowledge that possibility.

So, whenever I attempt to talk about Vevo, I am reminded of my false criticism of Hulu which then causes me to shy away from criticizing it. I thought joint ventures don’t work – Hulu proved me wrong. Not only did Fox and NBC work terrifically together, they also later added ABC to the team. I thought people would perceive Hulu as just another paltry selection of legal video – Hulu proved me wrong. Not only is the selection anything but paltry, Hulu has also managed to balloon up into the second most popular video site, only behind the behemoth of a video site that’s called YouTube. Moreover, according to some rumors, Hulu might even be making more money than YouTube.

You can see why I would shy away from dismissing Vevo. I have been at that stage with Hulu and my criticisms clearly came back to bite me. And if Vevo’s being touted as the “Hulu For Music”, perhaps it’s destined to go down that same path, right?

And here lies my basic problem with Vevo. It’s not the “Hulu For Music” or even close to that. Clearly, they are trying to ride some sort of momentum by calling it that but the service falls short.

That’s nothing against the service – it’s just the truth. When Hulu came out, you literally couldn’t find any legal professional video content online. Your only alternative was torrenting and Hulu owes a great part of its success to that simple fact. With Vevo, you have so many other online alternatives.

But that’s a difference that should be very strongly noted. Minus a few added features, what does Vevo really bring to the table that we haven’t seen before?

I can’t think of anything.

I realize that this does help several companies. With the music companies, they’re desperately trying to make money online and this is a nice foray into that. As for Google, and this is much more interesting, it shows a shift in their thinking. Google helped build the service, acquired a minority stake in it, and then took a back seat. That’s important. It showed that Google can be invested in the success of others and doesn’t have to take control of everything, a revelation that should comfort those that might mistrust or misunderstand Google, like these music companies.

But for the consumer, for you or me, Vevo’s nice but nothing groundbreaking. It’s nothing we have been anxiously waiting for. It might make money or let the music companies feel better about the Internet…but for now all I have to say on the website can be summed up in one word.

Meh.

The first time I discovered Craigslist, I looked at it with sadness, anger, and mild dismay. There’s just something about sites that are outdated and seem to have been built in the 90s and then never updated that just irks me. Quite simply, I find it to be insulting to every major technological innovation in the last decade. And to me, that’s a big deal.

I remember building websites in the 90s. My first website was a simple text-based collection of pages on the now defunct Geocities. It was a time of static content, where pages filled with text simply linked to yet more pages filled with text. There were also all the weird images; do you remember seeing the flashing ‘under construction’ and ‘welcome to my site’ animated GIFs? Or, the fad with having an online “guest book” that people were invited to sign? I have been there and like every other web developer in the 90s I have built similar websites.

But the thing is, and this represents my greatest pet peeve with these websites today, is that I don’t still design websites like it’s the 90s. It’s insulting to HTML5, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, and all the dynamic scripting languages out there that some people still design these disgustingly planned services.

By no means am I attacking “simple” websites. Simple designs are beautiful and ironically are very challenging to implement perfectly. When a company hits that perfect stroke of simple design genius, it shows and is the talk of the Internet.

The problem I have with Craigslist is that it’s not a simple service. They haven’t built a simple website. That’s a common misconception that I have the distinct displeasure of too commonly seeing.

Craigslist isn’t simple. It’s lazy. The company, in its approach and philosophy towards building a website, is inherently lazy. There’s really no other way to describe it.

With its current Alexa rank of 36, Craigslist serves over twenty billion a month. Make no mistake, this isn’t because users love the website’s 90s retro look or its simplicity.

The real reason Craigslist can be a success with its mediocre philosophies is because of competition. Or, rather the lack of any. Can you name another classifieds site? I only know of Kijiji and every time I go there, I stumble upon half a dozen parked domains as I struggle my way through that wacky spelling.

The only reason Craigslist is still on top because its only competition is a site called Kijiji. Stop saying that it’s because Craigslist is simple, nice, or has a really cool hip owner.

The mere fact that Craigslist is successful should be damn scary and terrifying to all of us. It means no one’s innovating in the online Classifieds field and that’s not a great fact. Simply put, the state of the online classifieds field today is eerily reminiscent of the mobile field a few years ago before Apple’s iPhone caused everyone else to get up and start innovating.

That’s all I want. That’s all I desperately wish for – some website that rises up and knocks Craigslist off, or at the very least gives it a good fight and a run for its money. Is that too much to ask for?

I don’t know what the website is, how it will look or work, or any other details. I only know it’s not going to be called Kijijijiji, or whatever that site is called.

I’m sorry, but who cares…

Am I the only that finds the Nook’s dual-screen thing lame? If you’re reading a book, there’s this interrupted space at the bottom instead of the book filling up the screen. Unless the entire screen can go color for the store and black/white for the works, then it’s not worth it. I don’t like this at all.

Thanks but no thanks. I will just stick with my good Kindle DX.