5 ms·

Idea: An Android Tablet "Shell"

29 points by there 16y ago

bryanlarsen 16y ago
Unfortunately, phone+shell will not be significantly cheaper than phone+tablet. Taking out the CPU from the shell and replacing it with a connector sounds like a good idea, but what if the connector costs more than the CPU? The CPU is just one small portion of a single chip in a phone, and high density high speed connectors that can also carry significant power are really quite expensive. You do save some money by not needing as much flash & RAM, but the cost savings are far less than you'd expect. What you're really doing is making your phone more expensive: adding that expensive connector and the need to drive an external screen. Making everybody's phone $20 more expensive is only worthwhile if a significant fraction of the your buyers will also buy the "shell".
- ryanpetrich 16y ago
  The iPhone 4 and iPod touch fourth generation have support for VGA out via the dock connector while charging. It wouldn't be a stretch for someone in the jailbreak community to build a tablet shell.
- dkarl 16y ago
  Phone+shell would always be in sync. Two devices means constantly looking for apps, books, media, etc. and realizing, "Crap, that's on the other device. Gotta download it/sync it." For the same price, I'd rather have a phone with a tablet "dock" than have two different devices. Sounds like a great product to me!
  - adambyrtek 16y ago
    Why should we require a clumsy physical connection to keep individual devices in sync when all of them have internet connectivity? I have an Android phone and I never copy data over a cable, everything is synchronized wirelessly. (Large content like videocasts only over WiFi.) I claim that every mobile device should be completely independent and it's surprising to me that iPhones are still tied so closely to iTunes.
    - dkarl 16y ago
      I don't mean the shell will sync with the phone -- I mean the shell will be an alternative display/control peripheral for the phone. One computer, two ways of using it. Trying to keep two computers in sync is a pain in the ass whether there are wires or not.
      - wlievens 16y ago
        > Trying to keep two computers in sync is a pain in the ass whether there are wires or not. True, but you need to do it anyway regardless of this particular instance. I want my phone and my ipod and my gmail account and my GPS device to have the same address book without requiring supervision.
codehero 16y ago
What would I do with the screen when my I change my phone? I'd have to take my phone out of the case. Anyone who has a G1 knows this is a pain the ass.
glhaynes 16y ago
These sorts of things are a bad idea for a number of reasons, but one that's often forgotten: touch/tablet interfaces generally aren't great for multitasking. And that's not an OS-level problem, it's just a weakness of a platform that doesn't have a windowing GUI. I often use my iPad and my phone simultaneously.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  I can find you hundreds of people in short order who multitask on their Windows PCs entirely in full screen. There's nothing about a tablet that precludes multitasking. I bet lots of people multitask on their Android or iOS 4 devices.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    It's certainly not impossible, and I do it all the time, too. (I'm running 4.2 on my iPad.) But, still, I often find using the two together to be advantageous and wouldn't want to not have that option.
adolph 16y ago
The tablet would essentially be a big screen with no guts. This is a pretty interesting idea because it speaks to the tight integration within a Android or iOS system. For example: * The shell tablet would also need a way to pipe multi-touch input back into the core system/phone. * The core system/phone would need to support an entirely different screen size/resolution.
johngalt 16y ago
How about just a regular docking station for my phone? We already have phones with 1Ghz processors, and web apps that are reducing the need for big local resources. How soon before I can just have one single device and nothing to sync?
j_s 16y ago
similar existing product: redfly, a netbook interface for your windows mobile or blackberry phone http://www.celiocorp.com/ http://www.celiocorp.com/
Geee 16y ago
You can connect some Nokia devices on any screen with HDMI with full UI replication on both devices. There is also a quite interesting demo using the camera to track gestures and control the TV at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA4uBPn7Czw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA4uBPn7Czw
- borism 16y ago
  Indeed. Many high-end Android phones have HDMI too, but the interface is not replicated on big screen AFAIK.
num1 16y ago
I keep coming up with this idea once every month or so, and I always get stuck on the problem of compatibility. What would be great, is if there did not need to be a physical connection between the tablet and phone. I'm thinking of a protocol (using Bluetooth 3.0?) that essentially lets the tablet ssh into your phone and forwards keystrokes/audio/video across. The protocol, or course, would be open source allowing your tablet to connect to any brand of {phone,computer,home automation system}.

29 points by there 16y ago

Unfortunately, phone+shell will not be significantly cheaper than phone+tablet. Taking out the CPU from the shell and replacing it with a connector sounds like a good idea, but what if the connector costs more than the CPU? The CPU is just one small portion of a single chip in a phone, and high density high speed connectors that can also carry significant power are really quite expensive. You do save some money by not needing as much flash & RAM, but the cost savings are far less than you'd expect. What you're really doing is making your phone more expensive: adding that expensive connector and the need to drive an external screen. Making everybody's phone $20 more expensive is only worthwhile if a significant fraction of the your buyers will also buy the "shell".

ryanpetrich 16y ago
The iPhone 4 and iPod touch fourth generation have support for VGA out via the dock connector while charging. It wouldn't be a stretch for someone in the jailbreak community to build a tablet shell.
dkarl 16y ago
Phone+shell would always be in sync. Two devices means constantly looking for apps, books, media, etc. and realizing, "Crap, that's on the other device. Gotta download it/sync it." For the same price, I'd rather have a phone with a tablet "dock" than have two different devices. Sounds like a great product to me!
- adambyrtek 16y ago
  Why should we require a clumsy physical connection to keep individual devices in sync when all of them have internet connectivity? I have an Android phone and I never copy data over a cable, everything is synchronized wirelessly. (Large content like videocasts only over WiFi.) I claim that every mobile device should be completely independent and it's surprising to me that iPhones are still tied so closely to iTunes.
  - dkarl 16y ago
    I don't mean the shell will sync with the phone -- I mean the shell will be an alternative display/control peripheral for the phone. One computer, two ways of using it. Trying to keep two computers in sync is a pain in the ass whether there are wires or not.
    - wlievens 16y ago
      > Trying to keep two computers in sync is a pain in the ass whether there are wires or not. True, but you need to do it anyway regardless of this particular instance. I want my phone and my ipod and my gmail account and my GPS device to have the same address book without requiring supervision.

codehero 16y ago

What would I do with the screen when my I change my phone? I'd have to take my phone out of the case. Anyone who has a G1 knows this is a pain the ass.

glhaynes 16y ago

These sorts of things are a bad idea for a number of reasons, but one that's often forgotten: touch/tablet interfaces generally aren't great for multitasking. And that's not an OS-level problem, it's just a weakness of a platform that doesn't have a windowing GUI. I often use my iPad and my phone simultaneously.

stcredzero 16y ago
I can find you hundreds of people in short order who multitask on their Windows PCs entirely in full screen. There's nothing about a tablet that precludes multitasking. I bet lots of people multitask on their Android or iOS 4 devices.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  It's certainly not impossible, and I do it all the time, too. (I'm running 4.2 on my iPad.) But, still, I often find using the two together to be advantageous and wouldn't want to not have that option.

adolph 16y ago

The tablet would essentially be a big screen with no guts. This is a pretty interesting idea because it speaks to the tight integration within a Android or iOS system. For example: * The shell tablet would also need a way to pipe multi-touch input back into the core system/phone. * The core system/phone would need to support an entirely different screen size/resolution.

johngalt 16y ago

How about just a regular docking station for my phone? We already have phones with 1Ghz processors, and web apps that are reducing the need for big local resources. How soon before I can just have one single device and nothing to sync?

j_s 16y ago

similar existing product: redfly, a netbook interface for your windows mobile or blackberry phone http://www.celiocorp.com/ http://www.celiocorp.com/

Geee 16y ago

You can connect some Nokia devices on any screen with HDMI with full UI replication on both devices. There is also a quite interesting demo using the camera to track gestures and control the TV at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA4uBPn7Czw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA4uBPn7Czw

borism 16y ago
Indeed. Many high-end Android phones have HDMI too, but the interface is not replicated on big screen AFAIK.

num1 16y ago

I keep coming up with this idea once every month or so, and I always get stuck on the problem of compatibility. What would be great, is if there did not need to be a physical connection between the tablet and phone. I'm thinking of a protocol (using Bluetooth 3.0?) that essentially lets the tablet ssh into your phone and forwards keystrokes/audio/video across. The protocol, or course, would be open source allowing your tablet to connect to any brand of {phone,computer,home automation system}.