March 23, 2009, 1:36 PM — In Silicon Valley's clash of innovation and ego, it's hard to remember who invented what. Oftentimes a company invents something it's not ready to ship. Another company ships something it didn't invent. Both companies jockey for the credit.
The iPhone is a perfect example. Back in 2006, it became clear that several handset makers were ready to embrace a new idea for cell phones. Instead of devices with small screens and numeric or alphabetic keypads, these companies planned to ship cell phones that were all screen and no keypad. The buttons would be mere software pressed on-screen.
Apple Inc. was one of those companies, but its product would be beat to market by handsets from Asian manufacturers. So Apple did something unusual. CEO Steve Jobs fully unveiled the iPhone in January 2007, nearly six months before it would ship. The resulting hype suffocated awareness of the Asian handsets.
Now everybody associates all-screen, touch-screen cell phones with Apple and the iPhone. Most casual observers assume Apple invented that type of device, and that everyone else is copying the iPhone.
Here comes the ultimate netbook
In the run-up to Apple's big iPhone 3.0 announcement this week, rumors about an Apple netbook reached fever pitch. Would the company ship one? If so, would it be a clamshell or a tablet? Would it run Mac OS or the iPhone operating system?
Some rumor-mongers speculated about a midyear launch, but others suggested that Apple would employ the old "one more thing" shtick to surprise the industry with its new netbook during this week's iPhone 3.0 rollout. It didn't happen, but many thought it would.
During this frenzy of speculation, photos "leaked" of a truly breathtaking netbook from Lenovo Group Ltd., the Chinese company that acquired the ThinkPad division of IBM.
Initially, the Lenovo netbook, called the Pocket Yoga, was reported as a soon-to-be-shipping product. Then it emerged (on my blog, among other places) that the Pocket Yoga was nothing more than a two-year-old concept that Lenovo had no plans to build.
Why leak this? Why now? Why after two years would detailed photos of a concept netbook be leaked just before many people thought Apple was about to launch its first netbook?
I think it's possible that Apple's netbook will be just like the Lenovo Pocket Yoga concept. I think Lenovo found out about it and wanted to assert itself as the inventor of a new form factor that otherwise would be credited to Apple.
The Lenovo Pocket Yoga
The Lenovo Pocket Yoga concept features three types of innovations. First, rather than optimize the form factor for the screen, as most netbooks do, it optimized for the keyboard. Most netbooks have keyboards that are too narrow and have wasted real-estate below the keyboard because the screen is conventional in its dimensions. Like the Sony Vaio P, which would ship nearly two years after Lenovo claims to have conceptualized its Pocket Yoga, the Yoga's keyboard was wide enough for comfortable and fast touch-typing, and the screen was equally wide, but short. The resulting device would fit width-wise into a pocket, although its length would cause it to stick out quite a bit.
Second, a tricky lid hinge enabled the Pocket Yoga to convert into a tablet device. Lenovo envisioned pen-based input, making the Pocket Yoga similar in concept to many convertible tablet laptops on the market, just smaller.
Third, the Pocket Yoga had a weird strap that doubled as a wireless mouse.
The Apple netbook
It's almost certain that Lenovo never shipped the Pocket Yoga because such a device would be too small to run Windows Vista, or because it would be too expensive to manufacture -- or both. Other similarly tiny Vista-based devices have failed in the market, in part, because of bad performance and high price.
But such a device running the iPhone 3.0 operating system, rather than a full-fledged desktop operating system, would offer acceptable performance and price. And it would be an extremely desirable gadget.
Imagine the Pocket Yoga, but thinner. No USB ports, but supporting Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The keys would be little rounded squares like the keys on MacBooks. The screen would flip around, and you'd use it exactly like an iPhone or iPod Touch -- no pen, but multitouch and all the rest. The device wouldn't run desktop Mac apps, but instead would run iPhone apps from the iTunes App Store. It would connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi or it could be tethered to an iPhone for mobile broadband.
The netbook I'm describing would make perfect sense for Apple. It would thrill the devoted Apple fanboys and iPhone enthusiasts, sure. But it would also open up entirely new markets -- including the one made up of people who can't be on AT&T (and therefore can't use an unlocked iPhone).
Compared to any PC on the market, the iPhone is spectacularly easy to use. So an iPhone-like netbook would be ideal for children, seniors, traveling executives, Hollywood types, cheapskates, students -- OK, just about everybody. It would steal netbook business away from Microsoft, HP, Dell and others. It would drive App Store sales and iPhone App development. It would be the ideal platform for Apple's new HD movies and other Apple content.
Companies like Apple and Lenovo know what their competitors are doing before the rest of us do. They share suppliers and manufacturers. They hire their competitors' former employees, and those employees have friends and contacts across company lines.
I think there's a good chance that Lenovo knows exactly what Apple plans to ship, and therefore asserted its innovation in the netbook arena. Will there be patent lawsuits? Charges of intellectual property theft? Or is Lenovo just establishing its ideas in advance of actually shipping some variant of the Pocket Yoga that will compete with Apple's netbook?
Time will tell. But I think Lenovo's Pocket Yoga leaks could be giving us a preview of a big Apple announcement this summer.
I hope so. Because I already want one.
Mike Elgan writes about technology and global tech culture. He blogs about the technology needs, desires and successes of mobile warriors in his Computerworld blog, "The World Is My Office." You can contact him at mike.elgan@elgan.com, follow him on Twitter or read his blog "The Raw Feed."
