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iPhone Netbook Coming? Yes Says OLO

10:10 - Tuesday 14 October 2008 by Tuan Nguyen
Source: Tom's Hardware – Keywords: apple, iphone, netbook Category : Miscellaneous

Got an iPhone ? Well, a company called OLO wants to change the way you use your iPhone. If you’ve been itching to pick up a small netbook for mobility and you have an iPhone (or want one), OLO is working towards integrating the iPhone into a netbook. According to the company, its netbook shell allows an iPhone to be integrated and used as a laptop-like device, with a large LCD screen and keyboard.

Netbooks are hot and many of the top manufacturers are coming out with them. The iPhone is an extremely versatile device, so it’s no surprise that OLO is working on a netbook shell.

On OLO’s website however, the company displays a picture of a netbook with an iPhone slotted in where a trackpad would normally go. This works out well since the iPhone’s screen is touch sensitive anyway. However, the larger LCD in the picture displays a screen of Mac OS X Leopard for desktops — which is not the same user interface on the iPhone.

Apple has touted the iPhone as an OS X device, but even so, the video output on the iPhone displays what its screen displays and nothing else. It will also be interesting to see if the resolution of the OLO device will be the same as the iPhone. The iPhone has a screen resolution of 480-by-320 but its video output is capable of 576p, which isn’t actually up to standard high-def 720p yet, but it’s better than a DVD.

If OLO ships the device, it will be no bigger than an Asus EeePC.

There’s only a "Coming Soon" message on OLO’s site, but we suspect the shell isn’t difficult to develop, since all the computing hardware is on the iPhone itself.

Google’s Android platform may be suitable for something along the lines of what OLO is doing as well. We wouldn’t be surprised to see an enterprising modder come up with a similar concept for Android phones.


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