Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Couple-IT concept re-invents the wheel: unfortunately pick rubbish wheel

Alloy, a UK-based industrial design firm, have seemingly reinvented the Palm Foleo, only with the added frustration of trying to get your mobile carrier to give you a duplicate SIM card.
Echoing Palm’s noble sentiments about having a compact cellphone for calls, SMS/MMS messaging and basic information access, together with a companion device for more in-depth messaging and internet browsing, the Couple-IT concept comprises a clamshell, dual-touchscreen cellphone and ultracompact-laptop-sized smartphone. Each is envisaged as having a SIM, and the information stored on both is automatically synchronised via the cellular network.


“Couple-IT shows what can be achieved when the user’s experience and network
relationship is managed in a more holistic way involving different device form
factors for different tasks and situations, with a very high level of
intelligent synchronisation of personal data across the devices” Gus Desbarats,
Chairman, Alloy


Don’t get me wrong, I quite recognise the value in having devices that suit their purpose and usage environment rather than one catch-all smartphone that never quite succeeds at anything, but right now that means either a relatively dumb companion device like the Palm Foleo was ending up looking like, or an ultraportable laptop that, well, exists in plenty of forms and doesn’t really need Alloy to concept it up. So this whole Couple-IT ends up being an exercise in preaching “intelligent synchronisation”, and if there’s anybody out there who didn’t know that current data migration tools are somewhat lacking in finesse, then perhaps you should send Alloy a dollar for educating you.

[via core77]

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