The biggest problem with the Redfly is..

[jwebb56]

Just to be clear -- we are talking about an add-on device and not an OEM solution, right? I do remember hearing about the auto solution but remember it talked about as an in-dash solution. I'm wanting a 3rd party add on that can be moved between cars, cabled or BT connected to your phone, an output jack to connect to the car stereo aux input, a microphone for the phone, and an 8" touchscreen to control the interface.

Shouldn't be that hard for an innovative company like Celio. So perhaps a Q3 or Q4 2009 launch to catch the Christmas buying season?

 

[wodin]

Just to be clear -- we are talking about an add-on device and not an OEM solution, right? I do remember hearing about the auto solution but remember it talked about as an in-dash solution. I'm wanting a 3rd party add on that can be moved between cars, cabled or BT connected to your phone, an output jack to connect to the car stereo aux input, a microphone for the phone, and an 8" touchscreen to control the interface.

Shouldn't be that hard for an innovative company like Celio. So perhaps a Q3 or Q4 2009 launch to catch the Christmas buying season?

As I see it, that would be doable, but I think a separate model that is installable (or the ability to run it either installed or portable) could be done too.

I for one paid $300 for a Parrot 3002 handsfree kit, installed. If I could have gotten one with touchscreen and REDFLY like functionality I?d have doubled down for a couple hundred more without hesitation.

I really like getting into my car, and not having to worry about the hands free kit; it just connects! That?s what the ?FLY should do too.

 

[ckj]

We're exploring all of those options but we're still early in the game. A lot of it boils down to what types of partnerships we can find. For example, it would be really cheap for an auto manufacturer to license our graphics engine and embed a small chip set into new car models' in-dash touchscreen/nav devices. Same type of thing could happen with a Tom-Tom type standalone nav unit. Or we could make our own "dumb" stand-alone, portable device that looks like a Tom-Tom, but just has a touchscreen and REDFLY guts - that way everything would run off the smartphone including the nav software. Or, we could run a REDFLY emulator program on any device using embedded WinCE so no extra hardware is involved. There's a zillion different things you can think of.

 

[wodin]

Or we could make our own "dumb" stand-alone, portable device that looks like a Tom-Tom, but just has a touchscreen and REDFLY guts - that way everything would run off the smartphone including the nav software.

That's sort of what I had in mind, but make it portable/installable and add a mic and sound and muting channel to the radio, and wallah! you have a super handsfree, REDFLY, NAV, etc. etc. etc. Whatever third party app you can think of to load on the phone.

As phones get beefier, the sky's the limit.

 

[mknollman]

I like the idea of the touch screen, and the audio wouldn't be hard to add. They could even do it as a separate BT device in the same physical case using A2DP.

I currently connect my phone to my car stereo directly for audio features (calls, music, gps notifications, podcasts) and then just connect the RF via BT. I do this on any trip more than about 20 miles that I plan on using mapping for. The 8 inch screen is NICE for mapping purposes. I charge both off of the car, altho few of my trips are long enough to drain the battery. It is nice to arrive with a full battery on both devices.

Altho not as sexy as the touch screen - this setup coupled with voice command for interface is very usable and tends to impress the heck out of the people riding with me ( as well as once again prove my unending geekiness to them ). I agree the touch screen would be nice, but I am a fan of hardcore convergence and I want as few devices as possible. My C8 and Touch Pro do it all - maybe not perfectly, but definitely functionally.

 

[c1oudrs]

The checkout the new e-reader http://i.gizmodo.com/5173090/fujitsu-flepia-color-ebook-reader-has-finally-arrived-yours-for-1000
A thousand bucks for a color touch e-reader? Our phones will read everything this thing does. Celio could do something like this--a color touch for half the price ($400-500 bucks) surely? It wouldn't have to be as thin or light. If mimo monitors http://www.mimomonitors.com/ can do a 7" touchscreen for 200 bucks US$ then it seems to me that the geniuses at Celio could 'Redfly' something like that/w a battery and Redfly capability for $499 . . . It would be a lot more functional than the fujitsu flepia color ebook reader . . .

 

[Aware]

I don't see what these e readers give me that I cannot achieve with my phone with a lot more portability ... and far more features and functions.

Maybe if I was over 60 with deep pockets and awful eyesight I might see it differently.

 

[wodin]

Maybe if I was over 60 with deep pockets and awful eyesight I might see it differently.

I'm all of that, and have recently bought a Sony 505 eBook reader.

I love it, the e-ink is even easier to read that the 'FLY because there's no back light, but you have to hack the books in order to read them on both the eReader and the phone without having to buy two copies.

When I'm out and about, and have a few minutes to kill ... well the eReader is a little to big to carry around in my shirt pocket.

 

[c1oudrs]

I just wish I could put the dim screen to 'always' or turn down my redfly screen one more notch as I read a lot at night. Also the keyboard can be intrusive. With that said, I read a lot of ebooks on the redfly. Hundreds of dollars in ebooks. And I'm with you Wodin, except maybe a lot more so. The drm support in the ereaders is too much. The kindle has features the book publishers turn off (Excuse me while I froth at the mouth and go into conniptions.) So even though the redfly lacks as an ereader, I'm not ready to make the jump to anything else. At least celio doesn't start telling me what formats I can read nor do they start turning off options. Sony isn't quite so bad. I half expect Amazon to start turning out their lawyer-police on a regular basis. Im really glad I didn't buy a kindle now.

The worst thing about a redfly is that I want the next generation redfly and I want it now.

 

[flyemhighrockets]

I agree I will not answer most of my e-mails and texts unless plugged in to the redfly. There is no better way I too cannot live without my redfly. Thanks redfly please keep up the great work.

 

[SPFiredrake]

Mobile Widgets in WinMo 6.5

For those wishing that WinMo improves in the future, it seems that developing applications will be a lot easier with release of 6.5. Not only that, it also means that RedFly compatibility with these new applications should be a lot easier to implement.

Microsoft is finally realizing their mistake with current WinMo application development using their SDK, and they are even implementing the W3C standard for mobile widget applications.

I'm hopeful for the future of WinMo... more so than I have been in recent months (although I'm still waiting on 7.0 before breathing a sigh of relief).

 

[MDCT]

Yeah I also am horribly addicted. I am about to buy a few more for our sales team.

Great product!