From another post:

We have no intention of hosting MP3s, any more than we intend to host photos, or other media types besides the widgets.  There are already really good sites out there that do all that already and there's no point in us trying to do yet-another-one even if we had the development bandwidth.  People already have their content on other sites - let's use that!  The goal is to partner to integrate access to services into ours.

For instance, there's MP3tunes that seems ideally suited to this sort of use.

We've already been approached by a number of important content companies interested in offering their content through our device, just since FOO.

Well, so far, we've had people insist that we "need" more SDRAM, more NAND Flash, an ethernet port, Bluetooth, Firewire, a larger display, a keyboard, batteries, bigger speakers, a faster processor, video acceleration, more USB ports, etc.

All of these are "just a little bit more cost" - but they all add up, and some of them aren't actually small at all.  Considering our current BOM is quite a bit larger than our target price, it's unlikely that a lot of new features will be added directly to the device unless they're killer.

As bunnie mentioned in another post, we're in the mode of shaving pennies - adding hardware that adds dollars or tens of dollars to the BOM pushes our retail price out to the point where its no longer a viable product.

The way I add storage to my chumby is by adding a USB dongle.

I think you're right - the problem we're apparently having is that this is a fundamentally *new* device, and it doesn't fit in any existing product category.

People seem to feel the need to assign it to one anyway, and then note the reasons why it fails to meet the requirements of that category.

What's interesting is that there's very little consensus about what existing category it should be in - some folks thinks it's a computer, some people think it's a cellphone, some people think it's a PDA, some people think it's a videogame console.

I see it as a blank canvas device, the iPod without any default software. If I had it the way I wanted it, what would happen is you would build a bunch of different "stations" for it to "dock" with and fall into that mode of usage. Plug it into the default station and it's an alarm clock. Undock it and plug it into a car's dashboard and it becomes ChumbyNav. Unplug it and plug it into the kitchen docking station (built into a coffee maker no doubt) and it becomes ChumbyCooks, the Chumby Cookbook. Take it into the hall and plug it into the thermostat docking station and it becomes your house monitoring station.

Each "station" could have a different set of hardware built into it to allow for the Chumby to have different capabilities when used in that role. A digital compass built from an accelerometer and gyroscope for the car (along with a small extra flash chip to allow for it to store downloaded maps), a thermocouple for the hallway computer, a digitial I/O interface for the kitchen (for turning on and off the coffee maker, etc), or nothing in the case of the alarm clock. Each dock has the capability of charging Chumby (if you use a rechargeable battery with it).

Because the hardware module itself is small and because the platform is so open, you could build a generic "ChumbyConnector" and allow it to connect up with anything you choose, including an iPod, digital camera, whatever. It allows for the device to be as flexible as you want it to be.

Or at least, that's how I intend to modify my Chumby once I get one. I'm working on a lithium ion battery charger based on the schematics I downloaded from the site, and I intend to modify my Chumby (when I get it) to run off 1 or 2 1800mAh batteries from iPod battery replacement kits.

The point of it is, you don't have to add modifications to the base unit. Build it as cheaply and generically as possible, and let the users build modifications for it, and possibly resell them if they choose to. This allows the device to literally become as flexible as possible, while still being cheap enough that people will want to buy them.