Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, iPhone
OLO's iPhone-powered Laptop
While you're waiting patiently for the Apple notebook event to start, here's something to look at: a laptop computer powered by an iPhone.OLO Computer is showing a concept computer that uses an iPhone as the CPU and touchpad. As you can see from the image at right, the computer is basically a dock for the iPhone. Before you start laughing too hard, think about this: many netbooks have less storage than the iPhone. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9, for example, comes in 4 GB, 8 GB, and 16 GB flavors.
The iPhone fits into a rectangular space on the OLO, becoming the touchpad for the laptop. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered about this computer -- how does it use the Universal Adapter to transfer video to the display, what's the maximum resolution that can generated on the display, do they tweak the iPhone OS to get it to display the menu bar, dock, and other Mac UI artifacts, etc...
There are no details at this time, just an interesting idea, a cool mockup, and a one-page Web site. When, or if, OLO moves forward on this product, you can read about it here on TUAW.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Ed Shull said 12:43PM on 10-14-2008
I think this is the way things will move in the future. 10 years from now I think our iPhones will be or personal computers.
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EMoShunz said 12:53PM on 10-14-2008
i totally agree. i see them as becoming modular. ie the processor(s) in the iphone cluster with whatever processor is in the dock to increase it's capabilities when docked in either a laptop, or desktop.
Sid said 12:42PM on 10-14-2008
wow!
Remember there was a rumor about a new mac laptop with a glass trackpad? The rumor about the 'brick'...what if this is something exactly what apple is presenting today?
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Jared said 12:46PM on 10-14-2008
I would so buy this if it works well. It would let me have 3G data and GPS in a laptop. This would be a product I would buy right away more than likely.
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sodapop said 3:42PM on 10-20-2008
I would totally buy one too. I was just posting in Slashdot that I wish there was an 8x6 inch iPhone/ebook reader.
Ted said 12:47PM on 10-14-2008
I am thinking that this will never happen. Is it a cool thought? Sure. Will Apple Let OLO mess with the iPhone software? NO. Will this product be very successful if it requires a software hack? NO. Would this be that much less than a MacBook? Not really, I am sure that Apple has much more buying power than OLO. Just because an iPhone runs a flavor of OS X that does not mean you will want to have that processor powering a laptop.
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TheCatastrophist said 12:48PM on 10-14-2008
this lovely piece of vapor-ware has been all over the gadget/rumours circuit the last 2 days, most sources pointing out that the iPhone does *not* have the desktop OSX GUI elements inside it, that this lovely little mockup, while rather nifty, is simply a concept that would require more cooperation from Apple than we're used to. No, this is vapor-ware. we will never see it in production unless the netbook has a cpu of its own.
-R
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Josh Wardell said 1:53PM on 10-14-2008
Spectacular idea. That is EXACTLY what I would want, perfect for couch surfing.
Too bad apple would never allow it.
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sodapop said 3:46PM on 10-20-2008
If there is no hack to the iPhone, Apple has no say in the matter. Even if there were a hack to the iPhone, Apple couldn't stop the sale of this. Apple just wouldn't support the hacked phone. This is an accessory.
Stark Ravin said 1:59PM on 10-14-2008
This product almost shipped once from Palm. It was called the Foleo...
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SubGenius said 2:45PM on 10-15-2008
That is what I was hoping the mystery $899 product was...MacBook mini
Like an 11" MacBook Air but made of plastic(black or white to match iPhone).
Robert said 2:45PM on 10-14-2008
Like I said on 9 to 5 Mac, Palm blew it with a very similar device called the Foleo.
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jonathan ober said 2:36PM on 10-14-2008
no need for this now, especially with the glass track pad update with todays models!!
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Nelson said 2:16PM on 10-14-2008
This is the sort of thing that I would buy pretty quickly... I think I'll wait until something like this comes out :)
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SkwidSpawn said 2:32PM on 10-14-2008
Price that sucker at about $300-$400 and you've got a phone, netbook, Mp3 player, and video player in 'one' device. Pretty awesome.
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Richard said 2:42PM on 10-14-2008
This is the one I want for my ipod touch. It would be incredible .... and cheap. I'll take two.
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Scott said 2:51PM on 10-14-2008
Interesting idea. But, since Apple currently does not have any way to connect an external keyboard to the iPhone (via the Dock or BT), I don't see this happening any time soon. Then there's the whole interface problem. Does the iPhone simply become a trackpad, or is the video on the laptop monitor a mirror of the phone (which the iPhone also does not support except for iPod video)?
Something like the LandWare Go Type Portable Keyboard for PalmPilot (http://www.amazon.com/LandWare-GoType-Portable-Keyboard-PalmPilot/dp/B00000K10E) is what I would absolutely go for. (Plug the iPhone into a Dock connector on a keyboard with its own batteries!) I like having the virtual keyboard when I'm out and about, but there's nothing like a real physical keyboard when you are trying to take notes during a meeting, write on the plane, etc.
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Brice said 7:36PM on 10-14-2008
I think the iPhone does have video out, look at any of the demonstrations at the keynotes. When they plug in that one cable that only they seem to have it does a full-screen display of whatever is displaying on the phone.
kingslaye505 said 7:10PM on 10-16-2008
It's possible to VNC in with veency. So video out is (not really) working perfectly.
vandil said 3:38PM on 10-14-2008
This would actually be a great way to turn an iPhone into a full Internet Appliance. I would be interested in something like that.
Alas, we will likely see a snap-around handheld video game device before we see something like this.
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