Did Apple or OLPC make a better mobile device?

I had a lot of hope for the OLPC (also known as the $100 laptop) when it was announced. It was a visionary concept - an inexpensive computer which encouraged interaction and which used Wifi for ubiquitous networking. But when I got my hands on one, it was a huge disappointment and essentially unusable. On the other hand, I love my iPhone. One blogger asks, is the iPod Touch what the OLPC should have been? I think he may be onto something here.

And it gives me little hope for the OLPC2. Unless, of course, they wind up sub-contracting the work to Apple... or Sony... maybe Nokia in a pinch.

$100 Laptop 2.0 Revealed

I have gone thru many stages with the One-Laptop-Per-Child project: excitement, confidence, (I then bought one thru the Give-1-Get-1 program), denial, anger, depression, cynicism, and now finally acceptance that the whole thing is collapsing under the weight of Nicolas Negroponte's ego. What began as a high minded attempt to bring educational change to the world has degraded into an attempt to become the next big laptop maker. Between Negroponte's attempts to torpedo all other cheap laptops and the decision to switch to Windows XP (after having dismissed MacOS X as "not free enough"), I simply no longer have any excitement or interest in the project. I view its value as primarily having been in driving the low-cost laptop revolution exemplified by the Assus EeePCs.

But that being said, the OLPC organization has a very different opinion of itself (well, those who haven't quit), and has just released the conceptual design for the XO-2 or OLPC 2.0. The highlights are that they want to make it an eBook-type device with two touchscreens (sort of a like a Ninentdo DS). It'll be smaller, cheaper ($75 is the target price), and require less power (the goal is to make it powerable off a hand-crank, something removed from the final XO-1 design). It is due out in 2010.

Will the XO-2 thrive where the XO-1 has... well... stagnated? My guess today is "No." Especially with its major supporters leaving right and left. But you never know. Mr. Negroponte has plenty of nay-sayers the first time around who never thought he'd ship one OLPC. And he proved them wrong.

The Collapse of the OLPC

As Mod-bloggers are aware, I have been a fan of the OLPC concept and was a buyer into their Get-One-Give-One program. I also posted a scathing review of the actual laptop I received. The hardware was good, but the software was almost unusable. Since then, I have tried out the laptop several other times for "productive" uses and have found the software that ships with the unit to be buggy, slow, and hard-to-use even for simple tasks. The best software has been software I loaded outside the Sugar interface and ran from the command-line. I am now officially an OLPC skeptic. But I kept hope alive in that I am not the target audience - third-world children are - so it is possible I simply am trying to use a screw driver to hammer in a nail.

But it appears I am not alone. There have been a myriad of defections from the project, most governments are going with competitors like the Asus EeePC and Intel ClassmatePC, and Nicolas Negroponte is now pushing the OLPC toward a slimmed-down version of Windows XP... this after rejecting an offer of a free MacOS X because it was "not open enough."

The OLPC was a noble undertaking and has spawned a whole new ecosystem of "lightweight laptops", but it is time to face reality: the OLPC is dying and will not rise from its ashes.

One Laptop Per Covetous Techie

The $100 Laptop Project to provide students workwide with computers has produced a truly fascinating product. The laptop (turns out to be $188/laptop) is ruggedized, enables mesh networking and wifi, has a battery that can last for far longer than normal, and has a Linux operating system which changes the paradigm for user interface. This has lead to a near-riot of techies eager to get their hands on it. But up until now the Project refused to sell to individuals. But now, they are offering a new 2-for-1-deal, where you buy a laptop for $400 and one is given to a needy child. Very cool/