It’s better to leave it open, rather than to force people to hack the device, and risk bricking it (iPhone hacking). “If you can’t beat em’… join em’”.

@Wired Earp: Adding a stylus really takes away from the simplicity. The 90’s are over.

Hacking must be made possible, though. But while developers and advanced users should be able to acces the OS directly, I think the contraption could be made more usable for the average consumer – not a Linux user – if the most important OS features and settings were to be fronted by the browser interface. Sort of a integrated XUL operating system, exposing the features most relevant for the tablets limited scope of use, although expandable by extensions. I believe that the “integrated” look and feel is a selling point for this kind of gadget, in contrast to the open nature of a full blown OS. Having to maintain both a Firefox theme and a Gnome theme in order to look slick is not an option for the “hip” mainstream audience that this product could very well attract: I would not expect morning commuters to access the news on an iPhone once this product becomes available, but it all hangs on the simplicity of the interface.

Sure there is a need for instant messengers and stuff. I don’t use an IM myself, but I suspect that the dominant messengers on Lunux are easily portable to XUL, if not already available as Firefox extensions. Since only a single operating system is catered for with this tablet, all XUL-to-OS integration should be possible for the right technical fellow without the usual cross-platform considerations, so most “relevant” software could – in theory – be integrated directly into the browser chrome very fast.

I would definitely add a stylus to the list of hardware.

Also I think you’re missing the point by trying to make it more of a general-purpose device. He wants it for browsing the web, which will get you pretty far these days. If you start adding scope creep, you’ll fail. (Not that I think he has a great chance at success here anyway, given that he has no product design experience, and he’s asking for ideas from blog commenters…)

Besides, I’d say it was limiting to use the Firefox brand. CrunchTablet, WebTablet, HyperTablet, etc could all be better choices. Personally I’d prefer something not so web intensive, instead focusing on the hardware’s unique design.

I can see an ideal world where Mozilla gets behind this idea and have the UI gurus (azza et al) develop something fantastic for it.