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Litl: it thinks it can

At last week's IxDA Boston meetup, we had the chance to hear John Chuang present the Litl, his webbook product that does away with most computing conventions in favor of something purportedly more family-friendly.

The device shares the qualities of many existing concepts:

• Like Zonbu, the Litl is geared to the home market and uses cloud-based backup.
• Like Apple, the Litl's software and hardware are tightly coupled and controlled by a single corporate entity.
• Like Google Chrome, the Litl is tailored to web-based computing.
• Like the 3Com Audrey, the Litl is a home-oriented Internet appliance with a wheel for selecting push-based content.
• Like the Chumby, the Litl serves Flash-based "cards" of highly stylized Internet content.

Apple's the only reasonably successful member of the lot, but its success has been in either full-fledged computing devices for niche markets (academia, design) or single-purpose devices that are married to a content ecosystem (iPod, iPhone).

Litl is neither full-fledged nor single-purpose, so the closest comparison is to Internet appliances, the turn-of-the-century class of device that failed to gain any considerable uptake. Like these devices, the Litl, at $699, is more expensive than many netbooks and desktop PCs, but can't replace them, feature for feature.

So Chuang, undeterred by previous failures, is betting on the Litl's radical design. Most obviously, it has no file system, no user logins, no configuration, no optical drive, no local storage. But I was most intrigued by their rethinking of the OS. Why should we cling to a fundamentally business-oriented interface when we compute at home? So, applications and browser sessions are all shown as a grid of cards. They're tailored for three different viewing modes: card mode (small), laptop mode (when you have a mouse and keyboard available), and easel mode (for distance viewing, with the assistance of a simple remote control).

Litl is betting on market differentiation, though I worry about the little details of everyday use. It's like a family media device, but it can't play DVDs. It's great for browsing photos, but you still need a laptop or PC to upload them to a photo service. It's got good sound for a laptop, but you can't put your existing music library on it. It's simple because it lacks user logins, but your whole family has to share the same set of cards, the same browser sessions, the same font size. The cards and photo albums scream to be touched, especially in easel mode, but they don't offer a touch screen. It's good for kids, and kids might want to do their homework on it, but it doesn't support printing.

I'd be interested to see a case study of how their research influenced these particular design tradeoffs.

That said, I love that someone's presenting an alternative to old-fashioned operating systems, and I'll be pleasantly surprised if they've chanced upon success.

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