OLO promises Foleo-style iPhone-Air laptop combo
Just as doomed as Palm's product?
Is Apple's iPhone 3G about to gain a full-size screen and keyboard courtesy of a device reminiscent of Palm's ill-fated Foleo? One French company is offering a tantalising glimpse of just such a system.
Dubbed the OLO, the concept is of a laptop-style device into which the iPhone clips. The handset becomes the machine's touchpad, but it also provides - presumably - the combo's processing power and communications technologies.
OLO computer: iPhone meets air
It's a nice idea, spoiled only by the a Photoshop marriage of pictures of the iPhone, a blanched-out MacBook Air and a Mac OS X screenshot.
So far, the minds behind OLO have revealed nothing more than the name and said 'Shopped piccy. OLO is backed by French industrial design house Neovenz, which numbers frying pan combine Tefal among its clients. Neovenz is joined by Antony, France-based management consultancy Active Innovation Management. Neovenz is based in Lyon.
Will the OLO ever see light of day? It's "coming soon", says the website, but we have our doubts. Foleo's abrupt cancellation showed that pundits - and possibly punters too - aren't enamoured of such smartphone accessories. And Celio's Redfly, a Foleo-style machine for Windows Mobile devices, doesn't appear to have been a roaring success.
Assuming it's not an early poisson d'avril, of course.
COMMENTS
Neat Idea...
This is no far stretch.
The IPhone can already plug into a television.
Just give me a Bluetooth Keyboard and Bluetooth Mouse for the iPhone!
(Make sure the Bluetooth Keyboard has a button to do zoom in and zoom out!)
@Simon Painter
" that way you get extra processing power and, provided you don't buy a Mac, the option to install an operating system that lets you do stuff that Jobsworth didn't expressly permit."
You can install Windows or Linux on a Mac and run either of them as the on-the-hardware operating system (i.e. not merely through virtualisation products on top of OS X).
Given that you don't seem to know the facts, I'm not inclined to pay any attention to the rest of your post.
A Nice Concept...
If you get rid of most of the crap you get with the O/S in most PCs, what do we actually use them for, web browsing, the odd document or spreadsheet, and not much else. So why do you need Vista, Activ Sync, a core 3 duo and 4Gb of memory, why not just use your smart phone and it's arm processor, and plug it in to a docking station.
Full marks, pity it won't sell.
Oh and I like my iPhone, and I'd like it even more if it had a 3G modem, but then I hated my O2 XDA which had more functions, but not a 3G modem either, thank god I still have my T630 for those moments.
nice idea
this could stay buried in my case or back of the car, and if i need to do something that benefits larger screen, like techsupport on VNC or ssh or even just spend an hour doing emails, then I have the option, without having to worry about syncing 2 devices for documents/contacts/apps/bookmarks etc.
People touted the idea of Home folder on an iPod before and this is kinda it, only using processor/modem too.
Forget having OSX screenshot. Just dock the phone and have its display come up full screen.
Wonder when we will see openoffice or neooffice ported for iphone?
and iphone haters... if they are so bad, what are ALL phone manufacturers starting to make similar offerings? eventually most phones will go this way.
Remember the little touch pads they had in Star Trek TNG? and they were in the FUTURE!! ;-)
iPhone hate
Why do so many people hate the iPhone... I think it's because they've never had one.
I've used all kinds of other offerings over the past decade from Psions to HTCs and I seriously think the usability of the iPhone is unrivalled. Sure, this comes with a slight compromise over functionality and power but it's a compromise that I havn't had any problems living with! For example, the camera is only 2MP, lacks zoom functionality and a whole host of other tinkerings that I'm accustomed to, but I've used it way more than any other handset I've ever owned because it's a pleasure to use - as is every other feature of the phone.
I could go on forever telling you how much I love the thing (even though it suffers from a few problems due to accidental submersion in a bowl of porridge) but I won't. Get out of your hate hole, go buy one and stop your rants.
