After about an hour of playday with the terminal version of the squishable $ 180 Wi - Fi widget ballchumby , I need one on my desk . Is it essential gadgetry ? No . It ’s not mean to be . Until you ’re addicted to it .
My pet ( weirdly ) was a clock that apply numbers snip from Flickr photos . ( It ’s even kind of pitched as a brilliant desktop clock , ironically . ) Streaming video , like for the Letterman Top 10 is a little better than YouTube . You could teem a whole half hour political program and get through it , but I do n’t advocate it .
Best of all , it ’s not a whole unopen equipment — it ’s Linux and Flashlight 3 - based running an ARM C.P.U. , and totally hackable — they’ve even thrown up the schematic online . So it ’s easy to programme young widgets or really dig into it to do something entirely different . The arrest is that for now , you ’ve get ta employ the Chumby connection , which , as Saul point out , isn’tquite as unfastened , and some gimmick have ads .
The interface was design by Susan Kare , who did the icons and fonts for the first Mac . It ’s a great in reality — clear , bright and attractive — only hamper by the more or less fretful nature of the touchscreen . It respond well to taps w/ the back of your finger’s breadth , but some of the widgets do scrolling , which is n’t as still as it is on the iPhone . But stil , fairly dependable .
Other than the touchscreen , there ’s a button on top which sort of does everything . It ’s easy to experience through the material , though I kind of resent it being there at all . Not really used yet are the mic ( it ’s developer confect ) and the accelerometer , though I play a biz that makes use of it which could kill hours of productiveness time .
The squishability is ace , and I cogitate kind of winder to its appeal . I ’m not big on the current semblance selection — mordant ovalbumin and tan , but I was promised more were coming . I suggested green and downhearted , at a minimum , but they want to avoid giving off a kiddy vibe at launch .
The big question : Who is this for ? Well , us , you . It ’s for people with a “ rich internet lifetime ” who “ already have all those other things ” like an iPhone . It ’s theorise to sit on our kitchen counter or on our desk , bringing in minuscule digestible bit of stuff we ’re already cervix - deep in , the bite we “ really care about . ”
I ’m not certain if they ’re going to get masses to care about chumby though . If you already have one , I could see it quickly becoming embedded in your personal sphere , something you look at always and on a regular basis — but I reckon it ’s going to be a challenge to get people to add together another cyberspace widget to an already crowded screen background . [ chumby ]
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