A week and a half ago, I published a piece titled “ AMD-Powered Mac Clones? Give Me a Break” in response to an article by Austin Leeds speculating Apple could benefit from building Mac clones in partnership with AMD.
I got some interesting feedback on my article. Several readers were upset about me “attacking another blogger.” I want to be clear — I wasn’t attacking Mr. Leeds. I was simply breaking down his argument, piece by piece, to show just how wrong it was.
Another reader sent me a link to some more work by Leeds. One particular article, titled “ iPad’s Greatest Threat May Come from Left Field” jumped out at me. Here’s a snippet:
I find it ironic that the device that stands to compete most with the iPad might not even have to face off against it in the same market. Anybody remember One Laptop Per Child XO-1? You know, the quaint little laptop that kind of started the netbook fad?
Well, the roadmap for OLPC calls for a device known as the XO-31, a thin, flexible tablet to be available by 2012. And they’re working on it, too.
Compared to such cut-and-paste solutions as the new Windows 7 MSi Slatebook tablet or the Linux-based JooJoo, the XO-3 is a completely revolutionary design. It’s gotta be tough, light, cheap, and capable. It has to have a long battery life. It must withstand the rigors of use by children in developing countries.
Obviously, if and when this thing becomes a reality, it is going to be a tablet to end all tablets.
The XO–31 is just a dream. The company has yet to show a prototype, and if history teaches us anything, it’s that the “one laptop per child” notion is great on paper, but hard to pull off. Wired’s Charlie Sorrel:
One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, or the XO, was a flop however you look at it. Instead of just making a cheap, basic machine that could tough it out in its target third-world market, Nicholas Negroponte’s supposedly $100 laptop instead chose to both patronize and confuse with an over-simplified interface. At the same time, as the price rose and dates slipped by, the Rise of the Atom put cheap netbooks within reach of anyone with a few hundred bucks.
The simple truth is this: XO products are far from being nice enough or powerful enough to engage or excite the average consumer. The iPad is expensive, but it is a great, full-featured product. Between now and the time the XO–31 ships, the iPad will only have improved. The XO tablet will never be able to catch up.
A tablet made for school children in 3rd world countries isn’t going to make one iota of difference to Apple. No matter how great a product it is, or how low the price may be.
As a side note, it saddens me to see this kind of stuff at Low End Mac. I love LEM. Without a doubt, they are the go-to site when it comes to running aging Apple hardware, but stuff like this just makes me cringe.
