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CrunchPad – R.I.P.
By Dave Peterson | November 30, 2009
Many days, the tech world gives us something to cheer about and eagerly anticipate. Some days, though, the news is just sad. Today Michael Arrington announced the death of a project to produce a device I was eagerly anticipating, the CrunchPad. Envisioned as an inexpensive web-browsing tablet, the CrunchPad could have made a very nice color eReader, given a way to get content onto it (it may have required hosting PDF files somewhere web accessible). There were certainly signs of trouble along the way, such as a teased July event that was to relate to the device’s premiere. The event never happened. As recently as this past month there were signs of life, though. In his post, Arrington says that the plan was to roll out the CrunchPad at an event set for November 20. That clearly didn’t happen, and Arrington says the reason was FusionGarage (the company with whom TechCrunch was working to develop the release version of the device) was trying to edge out the concept originators and bring it to market themselves. We haven’t heard FusionGarage’s side of the story yet, and Arrington indicates lawsuits are the likely next step. The CrunchPad seemed like the nearest likely competitor to the still-unannounced Apple Tablet. With today’s announced implosion, it seems the field is that much clearer for whatever Apple chooses to bring to market.
Via TechCrunch
Topics: Gadgets, ereaders | 1 Comment »
January 9th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Damn! Why did this not happen?