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Speculation About An Apple Tablet
worm eater writes "The Register reports that Apple has filed for a European design trademark on a tablet computer. El Reg speculates that this could may make Apple Expo Paris more exciting that previously thought. Could this be the tech that finally brings the Mac desktop, iPod, and AirPort Express (and let's not forget the iPhone) together into the media household of The Future? (Of course, we've heard speculation about this before.)"
$8499 MSRP.
I would LOVE to have a wall mounted tablet running iTunes for my home stereo.
First they put apples in tablets...
next we'll be eating all our food from tubes!
This is the resurrection of the Newton, rumor has it.
P.S. I started the rumor and I want royalties if i'm right.
If you think
Will they release a version with the 30'' Apple Cinema display? That would be cool for riding the subway.
OTOH, they have bought a shitload of 60GB microdrives while stating that a 60GB iPod isn't in the works...
Its not for a tablet Mac or a Videoplayer Mac.
Its for the new iMac!
Here is a great article speculating that the new iMac to be released in 19 days in Paris, is to be a miniature iMac, sort of like the old color Classic Macintosh.
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=-750
Its small screen will conect wirelessly to the Internet, the Ethernet, via the new mini Apple wireless hub. It will also likely have a small keyboard and mouse to go with it.
Since its supposed to be with an aluminum body, perhaps it will come in mini iPod colors too.
Roger Born
writing.borngraphics.com
Sorry, no refunds.
Actually, I think the big question would be "features". Tablets are pricey because they don't have very wide acceptance; people who buy them really, really want them.
Apple's stock-in-trade has always been innovative, functional, attractive designs that make people feel comfortable. People pay a $50 premium for the iPod because its design just works for them. They like using it.
Apple has always charged a bit more for its products, though some of that has been staying away from the most bottom level. You can pick up a bottom-of-the-line Dell for half the price of a bottom-of-the-line Mac, but a comparable Dell is usually only slightly less than the equivalent Mac. (Much of that, of course, depends on what you consider "comparable", since the systems use resources in very different ways.)
The question for me is, does Apple have enough clever ideas to make a tablet computer really work? Can they make a tablet that pushes some laptops out of the market? Perhaps they can make the bridge between the power of a laptop and the convenience of a PDA that it becomes an indispensible item.
Or they may end up with a cumbersome PDA/underpowered laptop combination that nobody wants. It'll all depend on the features. If they can get them right, they'll probably charge twice as much as a laptop and sell as many as they can make. Either way, I bet it'll be higher than the price you're comfortable paying, like the iPod, which has managed to be a breakout hit despite its high price by being exactly the right combination of features for people.
About two weeks after I bought my G3 iBook, my brother dropped it down a short flight of stairs, and hit a wall and tile floor before coming to rest. I guess that virtually bullet-proof, white plastic enclosure is up to snuff, because not only does the iBook still work well today, it barely has a scratch. In case you're wondering, it faired better than my brother's "enclosure." He received a wrist fracture and a strained ligament when I dropped *him* down the stairs shortly thereafter.
Not quite! I'm a big fan of PDAs and portable computing. I've owned many PDAs, including Newton Messagepad 110 (which Apple gave me when I was working at Adobe), but before that I had a Tandy 100 and an HP 100 both of which pre-dated the Newton by quite a bit.
Best Buy can have you arrested
I honestly don't understand why it would be that much more expensive than a regular laptop. The only things different are a hinge that flips around and an overlay which goes on the screen. The flip-around hinge is really just a redesign, that should be a trivial cost, and the overlay is proven technology that has been in use for years. I can't see the overlay costing much more than an extra hundred bucks. That doesn't add too much to the cost when you are talking about a $1000+ machine.
I could easily see Apple taking a 12" iBook, changing the hinge and putting on a touch-sensitive overlay. They already have most of the software to use the tablet in place with Inkwell.
Sapere aude!
They're slightly more expensive than a Dell, but not by any great amount. When you consider how much faster they run, and their performance, it is hard to recommend a non-apple laptop to anyone who isn't an MS addict. Their desktop hardware is a little insane, but their laptops are well priced IMO.
This coming from a person who has never owned an apple (aside from my ipod) and who spent last year working tech help for my university and repaired hundreds of laptops from all brands (but apple) for people.
Jobs takes a month off on medical leave and they try to sneak the Newton back in while he's gone. :)
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
If this is a tablet computer equipped to do a network boot of OS X through 802.11g, would it be possible to have the unit work as some sort of a thin client without a hard drive? Perhaps rather than a unit working independently of a computer, it would be a thin-client supplement for a desktop or laptop. I've always wondered if this could be done, because I presume that it would lengthen battery life and could be very thin in design. I would love to see a tablet computer that simply looked like a detached screen of a powerbook without all the buttons and extraneous shapes the Tablet PCs have. That may be possible by excluding a hard drive, CD/DVD drive, and keyboard from the unit.
I recall reading something that may have been a hint about this alleged product. Here's a quote from AppleInsider...