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Larger iPod Touch In Apple's Future?
Ender_Stonebender writes "TechCrunch is reporting that three independent sources have mentioned to them a large form factor version of the iPod Touch, with either a 7- or 9-inch screen, to be released fall of 2009. The device is expected to have access to the iTunes App Store. Beyond that, everything about it appears to be pure speculation."
Does this mean we'll also see people talking on 9" iPhones?
Seriously though Apple recently stopped producing the 160 gig iPod I've come to rely on. My music collection (and videos) takes up far more than the 120 they've left me with, and I fear to god everytime I pull out my ipod for fear of breaking it.
Would it be so hard to allow you to pay a fee for Apple to fit your iPod classic with a bigger hard drive? It can't be harder than refurbishing one, no? With the increased sales of videos and movies, I imagine more people will run into the problem of "space".
Sounds to me like it has the potential to take up the name iBook. At that size of screen, it may be marginally useful as an ebook reader.
PDF reader, please.
Let's speculate further. It's not an iPod Touch. It's a combination between a Tablet PC (or more correctly a Tablet Mac) and a n*tbook, but without a hinge or mechanical keyboard.
> The device is expected to have access to the iTunes App Store. Another source stated that the device is likely to have the Apple Logo on it.
We are all packets in the Internet of life!
When I think about how Jobs operates, I think maybe yeah. Here's the reasoning:
Jobs hears people cry out for the 'xMac', and we get the Mac mini, way too small to be what people wanted (ridiculous expansion, so small in requires more expensive laptop-class components, etc.)
Jobs hears people cry out for the return of the 12-inch Macbook Pro form factor, and we get the MacBook Air, so slim and badly-realized that it lacks essential ports on the back (even though it's big enough to fit them).
Jobs hears people cry out for a netbook-class machine, and we get a MID.
So I'm thinkin' yeah, because it's exactly what people aren't asking for. That's my 2009 prediction! :)
As another poster said, this formfactor would be great to take up the iBook name. Either that or the return of the Newton. Well, the iNewton. Or i(of)Newt. Something along those lines, I'm sure.
Hey Taco, I heard Jobs will be coming out with a new rectal implant phone that shoots fire out your ass when you receive a call. It'll be out in Summer 2010. I promise. You should definitely post this to the front page so you don't get scooped!
Sweet! Will we be able to run a Zune leap year simulation on it?
The tablet form factor never worked out well for the PC, and the rising netbook segment is more about cost than anything. Possibly some form of netbook that also offered a touch screen, that I could possibly see...
One stumbling block though is that even with access to the App Store, apps would have to be re-tooled to be able to take advantage of a larger screen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Would this mean that iPhone (iTablet?) would also come out with a 9" model? If it could be plugged in, ran MacOS X, MS Office, and other apps, I would buy it in an iBlink (okay, mod me down, I couldn't help myself ;).
It would be a true ultraportable for a road warrior. No, it wouldn't replace a laptop, but for many quick trips and presentations, it would be totally sufficient. For some presentations where two machines are required, it could save the need for the second laptop. It would make a difference when traveling.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
To worry about if OSNews and Gizmodo are right. The company has built up the "cult of Jobs" over the years to almost mythic status, and if they are right and Steve Jobs is dying and isn't long for this world the stock price is going down the crapper.
While you,I,and the guys here at Slashdot know that one guys does not a company make, too many of the press and public have built up the "Steve=Apple" mythos and it will slaughter their stock price. They should have been diffusing this for years instead of milking it to add to the "Apple Cool" branding. The only way I can see them not getting blasted all to hell in the market if Steve is really dying is to bring back the Woz to keep the mythos lovers happy while they have him "groom" a successor to the throne. Otherwise 2009 could mean some seriously bad times for Apple ahead.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Once these come out, I hope there will be an application that makes it look like the Data Pads they have in Star Trek.
i would buy one if it was larger and a kindle-done-right device assuming the battery life wasn't stupid.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Let me introduce you to the cool iPod Touch/iPhone keyboard: It's here. Any questions?
I asked my 15 y.o. son, is your iPod Touch a computer? His answer: yeah, but it needs a thing to type on that I can take with me and the batteries burn out too fast. Well, here you go son: a solution to half your problem. For the other half let me suggest you don't geek so much? (I know... but I'm allowed to be hypocritical. He's my kid.)
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Half of the people I saw were talking on cellular phones. Half. Try a sample in your supermarket and see for yourself. It looks like we're all distracted.
Voip: My son's iPod Touch has the hardware to make a voip call to the other side of the world. I'm going to try the facility tomorrow. That would be cool.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Times are changing faster than they used to. Many things are becoming possible that once weren't.
It's an exciting time. Enjoy it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"The difference now is the iTunes app store, which has thousands of games and other applications that are perfect for a touch screen device with an accelerometer."
No. The app has thousands of games and other applications that display 480x320 which looks great on a 3.5 inch screen.
At 163ppi, they look great.
Run those same resolutions on a screen with 2x (7 inch) or 2.5x (9 inch) resolution and you're looking at 60-80ppi of massively pixelated crap.
A 9 inch touchscreen with iPhone/iPod touch style OS-X and the same 163ppi resolution makes for a really interesting alternative to the netbook market. Stop hobbling the bluetooth so you can use their bluetooth keyboard when you want to type a lot and it's a fascinating package.
But the app store's catalog remains completely useless unless they come up with a way for resolution to upscale. Granted, I've not written anything for it, but I'm guessing most apps are written with a 480x320 assumption and no scaling, no multi-resolution icons, graphics, etc. bundled in to the downloads, etc. Apple would need to get the means for updating apps to support that out to developers way in advance of a larger Touch release if they wanted the app store to carry any value beyond to show off how bad apps could look... something that would harm the reputation of the device far more than help it.
Speculation is not news and should not be on /.. The are enough Apple-centered websites with discussions like this.
-- Cheers!
The reason why it'll be really cool/great is because of the new input technologies which it'll have.
Remember, what makes Apple products unique are not their increasingly commodity hardware but the USER INTERFACE. I believe the user interface is THE major reason for the iPhone/iPod Touch's success (look at the Xmas sales figures). It is because of Apple's ability to take advantage of the touch screen and accelerometer. Not the hardware but things like the "pinch zoom" and "swipe" and landscape/portrait mode detection.
To really see how people have taken advantage of these features, play some of the many many games available for this PLATFORM.
Now Apple has (hopefully) the opportunity to take these ideas even further. A 7-9" iPod Touch would make a passable netbook; that is a decent device for doing most CASUAL computing tasks. (many complaints about the tiny "keyboard" on the iPhone would go away). Where it would excel in would be in the new applications (10,000+ strong in the AppStore, close to 500 MILLION downloads) that take REAL advantage of the new input technologies. A lot of these applications, particularly the creative ones (sound and paint programs for example) would benefit substantially from more screen real-estate. And think of the games!
So that could be Apple's answer to the netbooks. Using its (I know, I know) proprietary technologies it could bring these new technologies together in a way that is cohesive, fun and easy to use. That's the advantage of totally controlling the hardware and software. Unfortunately without this control, open source projects and (to a lesser extent) Microsoft have to aim at the lowest common denominator and can only copy what Apple pioneers.
There's an "average" laptop size that's a pretty damned good mix between size, cost, usability, and portability. In my current laptop, I decided to go for the wider screen and bigger laptop, and I don't like it as much as my smaller, lighter, "standard" sized previous model. (a Dell 600m) While I've seen much smaller laptops, I figure they are probably in much the same camp as my larger, heavier, more annoying laptop - they deviate from a standard size that has proven to be an awfully good set of compromises over years of time.
Phones are as big as they are because people like them that size. I don't mind the brick that is my home cordless phone because I don't live with it in my pocket. My Razr cell phone, on the other hand, is delightful primarily because of its minute form factor and it's compatibility with and accessibility from my jeans pocket.
Deviating from the "standard" form factor is very risky - the value of finding a new "right size" is high, but the chances of getting it right is very low. Dell blew it on my current laptop, it's too big and heavy for me to love.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Disclaimer: I have used an iTouch for 5 minutes.
Some nice possibilities with a larger screen is landscape-mode movies. The PSP works/looks great as a movie player because the screen size is almost perfect for mobile movie/TV watching. I imagine the auto-orientation feature of the iPhone would make a nice "auto-launch" macro for starting the movie viewing application.
One nit I would like to pick or suggest is to include an on/off switch and an external speaker for alarm and/or schedule notifications. I played with an iTouch for 5 minutes and could not figure out how to turn it off. I pinched. poked, prodded, pulled, tossed, and left it alone in the hope that it would shut-off. It's not likely that I will ever buy one (I hate touch-screen and need buttons for operating the device while not looking at it.)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
If it doesn't come with GPS, I don't want it. I passed on the original iPod touch because it didn't come with GPS. Oh, and I don't want a gadget like this to receive phone calls, that's why I didn't get the iPhone in the first place.
this?
I'd like an iPod Touch, I really would. However, but 80GB iPod 5.5G can hold a metric fuckload more data than any of the iTouches available, so I'm sticking with it.
Why bother with a 9" screen when you can only have a handful of movies & TV shows that can take full advantage of it?
Wake me up when they put hard drives in iTouches.
Well the macbook air is really the mac net book isn't it ?
and well a 7/9 itouch would be completey useless for normal day to day useage... UNLESS..
It was the size of a itouch now (ie fits in pocket), can be used as is, and mabye folds out into full size some how.
Mr Jobs had a "Whipple", an operation best described as a living autopsy. Most of his GI system has been removed. He is also a pancreatic cancer survivor (albeit a neuroendocrine-derived neoplasm). I'd call that more than a little "health thing"
Da Blog
Or somehow get the lcd and e-ink "merged" or stacked somehow so both can be used, I'm non familiar with the hardware enough if such a thing is possible.
Well, OLPC project has always planned to develop such a thing (B&W hirez e-ink under sunlight or Color LCD by its own light). They just didn't manage to come up with this within the XO-1 time frame and R&D budget.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Newton then eMate, ipod touch then ? bigger iPod touch?
Please mod parent into the stratosphere of insightfulness. Thank you.
/var/run/twitter.sock is a twitter socket puppet.
Bring on the bigger iPhone, I believe there is big demand for a larger iPhone. There are some of us older folks who like technology, we just need to beable to see it.
"Beyond that, everything about it appears to be pure speculation." How about everything including that is pure speculation...
A significant impact in the deceleration of PC sales was the war on third party developers started by microsoft. By absorbing so many features into the OS, vc's could no longer confidently fund software start-ups. This reduces the usefulness of the PC. In contrast Apple has said: don't worry, *you* develop the nifty apps and we make it easy for you to sell it.
It is unbelievable, but an underpowered, minimum size screen gadget has more nifty utilities than my multi-touch laptop with 300GB HD and super fast processor.
It HAD BETTER include Rosetta, as I still haven't encoutered a better handwritten character recognition system in aobile other than the one those guys developed. They moved on an had a version for wince devices too, IIRC the company was called Paragraph at one time, couple of Russian guys... (i.e. apparently Apple doesn't really own the Rosetta technology.)
If that's the sort of device you want, get an Archos 5, 5g, or 7, or a Nokia 810.
and its 9 inches long
...Designing a bigger and better...
That's the thing - when you take the class of mobile devices, and add "bigger" you have already failed. The class of mobile devices is popular because of the extreme mobility, things between laptops and mobile devices have normally not been very successful (and I would argue netbooks are still basically laptops just on the smallest end of the scale). That's why I don't see Apple making one, because all of the devices they have made have been about addressing specific needs whereas an oversized mobile-style touch device is simply cool for the sake of being cool.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
for which they already have the ARM emulation software running (iPhone dev kit)
The iPhone simulator runs only x86 code. When you compile for the simulator you are really compiling an x86 binary that the simulator can run - which is part of the reason why you can't do performance testing when running in the simulator.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I was doing some research on this rumor, and came across this.
This is outrageous! Jobs will have this person's hide for leaking the prototype!
I have used both Rosetta and Graffiti on my Newton, and Transcriber (which was derived from Rosetta) and Microsoft's emulation of Graffiti on the Pocket PC, and both the original Graffiti and Microsoft's version wins hands down over Rosetta/Transcriber.
Graffiti was a shorthand character recognizer that used unique single-stroke glyphs rather than attempting to emulate the form of individual characters as Jot (which is now bundled with PalmOS as Graffiti II) does, and Microsoft's original character recognizer did. It takes more work to learn, but it is faster and more efficient than any handwriting recognizer on a small screen.
Xerox developed a completely unrelated single-stroke character recognizer called Unistroke, at about the same time as Jef Hawkins developed Graffiti. They patented it and sued Palm over Graffiti, and despite the fact that Hawkins' original thesis that led to Graffiti predated Xerox' patent application Palm eventually caved in and replaced Graffiti with Jot.
So far as I know, Xerox has not sued Microsoft over their character recognizer. Whether they licensed the patent or whether Microsoft was just too much to take on, I don't know.
If Apple does turn the Touch into a Tablet, I would be MUCH more interested in it if they included the equivalent of Graffiti instead of merely licensing Rosetta/Transcriber again.
Then you can have your larger screen and still fit the iScroll in your pocket. I'd like one of those.
Hysterical and/or prone to using overly emotional turns of phrase much?
A "whipple" is best described as a major surgical intervention intended to reduce the risk of mortality from cancer, because unlike "living autopsy," it's at least a little bit accurate. An autopsy is a examination to determine cause of death or extent of disease - a living autopsy would be an exploratory surgery.
If they want to take on the handheld pc market, they have to get over the fact that Flash opens the door to other app development tools. Sandbox it, do whatever it takes, get Flash on the iTouch. Otherwise IMO it's still a glorified iPod, not a serious competitor in the handheld pc space. I love my iTouch, but would not want to upgrade to one with a 7" screen if it's deliberately crippled from most web content like the current iTouch is.
I want one!
If you want to be really precise, a "Whipple" is actually a pancreaticoduodenectomy. If he had his pylorus spared, weight loss might not be as high a concern.
Many Whipple survivors develop diabetes which, when uncontrolled, can lead to dramatic weight loss. Given Mr Jobs' peculiar aversion to allopathic medicine (he initially tried to combat his pancreatic cancer with herbs and diet), one can imagine a certain reluctance to engage with the entire paraphernalia of diabetes management, involving as it can, continuous invasive blood monitoring, an array of medications, and regular, periodic injections of insulin.
Da Blog
Where did you hear that he had a Whipple? Citation?
I'm going to do you a favour and introduce you to a very special friend of mine. I call him...
Mr Google.
Da Blog
They could simulate ARM if they wanted, there's plenty of computer power to spare - but it would be more work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/we-want-a-dead-simple-web-tablet-help-us-build-it/
Yes, TechCrunch were making their own tablet. What happened to that, I wonder.
I love these sort of stories. Unsubstantiated rumours, speculation, hype and hope all mixed up into a story that is only a shade more believable than your average fairy tale.
The success of pundits with long-range Apple forecasts is not so much bad as utterly atrocious. I'll file this story in the "believe it only after it's announced by Apple" pile (aka garbage bin).
I've wanted something about the size and shape of an old fashioned etch-a-sketch but with wifi and a great screen for watching 720p h264 video for a long long time. :-)
Funny, when I Read The Fracking Headline, i assumed that the story was about devices with more storage capacity.
A touch with 160gb of storage would be quite a cool toy. The current (8gb)? model is kind of skimpy...
Huh?
There's also another issue. iPods have been made as small and as, well, less expensive as they have by having components that are soldered into place, built with surface mount techniques, and squeezed into tiny spaces by having every little thing pressed in amongst and around every other one.
This is not like replacing a hard drive in a desktop. It would be more like replacing every third cell in a working kidney. Sadly, part of the price of the form factor is less ability to change things later. That's not some evil scheme on Apple's part; it's a simple and very hard to address matter of engineering.
There are plenty of reasons for a netbook other than cost, as Liliputing has argued quite articulately again and again.
- Being able to throw it in a bag and not have to sacrifice as many other things to make the weight manageable.
- Being able to work more efficiently in small spaces like airline or commuter rail seats.
- Better for women and children who have smaller hands and don't gain from larger systems.
- Low enough weight to be used while standing, as is desired by, say people working inventory in a factory or looking over drug interaction data in a hospital corridor.
For about half of these, a tablet would be just as good or considerably better than a keyboard oriented device, especially with the new Swype-style onscreen keyboards.
As for apps, well, how many of those are one buck quickies? How many from vendors who used them to promote desktop apps? And how many simply not the same kinds of things one would choose for a tablet?
I'm sorry but I'm seeing plenty of opportunity, plenty of possible demand, and no real third party barriers. But then, hell, I've been waiting for a chance to buy such a device for about fifteen years now.
Personally, I can't help but wonder if this "leak" was actually Apple orchestrated to stir demand but fuzz specifics before next week's MacWorld Expo. As I've said a hundred times before, let's see what's out by January 10th and then talk about longer term trends.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
An even bigger iPod? Nah.
Sounds like this device would be competing with the netbook and tablet PC market. How about a Maemo device (Nokia 770, N810, etc) with a multi-touch screen? That would be sweet.
Exactly. "Software and usage was clunky, and the weight was just too much". You were using a previous gen device, probably clunkily ruggedized, almost certainly hobbled by bullshit specs required by Microsoft when they stepped in and sabotaged the whole market, in part to undermine the growing competition from Palm OS devices. Good old "embrace, extend, extinguish."
A tablet of the sort being discussed wouldn't be an "iPod class device", just one that we are speculating would run some variation on what Apple quite insistently refers to as the "iPhone/iTouch platform".
Go back and watch the video on Apple's site that they put up when they brought the SDK public. Interesting in quite a few ways. All the way through it is the theme that this platform has broader potential, and that Apple has broader plans for it than just current devices doing current types of apps. The featuring of the dedicated Kleiner Perkins venture capital pool was a pretty blatant tell for those of us who were paying attention.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
The only way I can see them not getting blasted all to hell in the market if Steve is really dying is to bring back the Woz...
And doesn't that make it interesting that Woz will be presenting at MacWorld next week? Not for Apple but still becoming more visible.
Oh, and by the way, the product that he's promoting? Means to turn a Mac laptop into a tablet.
Aren't coincidences fun?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I want an interactive digital photoframe ... It sits there in the kitchen flipping photos from our gallery until you touch the display and it transitions to a dashboard with the current weather, maybe some stocks, etc... Maybe an iTunes widget for the remote speakers... Touch the mail icon and I can quickly check my mail. Touch the browser icon and it goes to a pre-set homepage containing links to our security camera or family recipes...
Are you listening Apple?
why would apple bother with this? Unless it's some sort of touch screen pc then this is really useless. An ipod that doesn't fit in your pocket..
I just want more memory
Oh, no doubt, my primary concern in that post was refuting the common statement that netbooks are just about cost. But as for the market for small tablets and "netbooks" being not worth it I've written about this market twice before, though I focused more on keyboarded devices and, in short, having actually done quite a bit of research on this, some of it as an IT director for big enough departments to get honest answers out of the manufacturers, I'm pretty damn sure that the markets are more than big enough to justify the cost. They didn't get withdrawn from lack of users. They got withdrawn because of Microsoft sabotage and corporate groupthink. To go broad, the fucking MARINE CORPS was looking into the Newton when it got canceled. Doctors loved it and were starting to get it specced for hospital use. Insurance companies were handing them out to their agents. Plenty of users there to pay for a product line that's already up and running and has no real competitors. This wasn't rational behavior. Seriously.
It's dangerous to assume that because companies did something, they should have done that thing. Companies do stupid shit all the time. That's a large part of why U.S. automakers are in such trouble right now. They do what is best for the executives making the decisions. Or what their friends think is cool. Or simply what's easiest to understand. I've done corporate workflow consulting and I can tell you that there's a reason that the Nobel prize in Economics went a few times back to a guy (Thaler) who specialized in articulating repeated patterns of irrational decisionmaking. One of the hottest management books right now is something called The Innovators Dilemma . Personally, I think that it wusses out on some key factors, but it shows that even in "c-level" offices they're starting to figure out that the current management paradigm frequently leaves them with their head up their asses. And, even worse, telling each other how sweet the smell is up there.
Go ahead, prognosticate. It can be fun. But don't succumb to the assumption that just because a product went south, that kind of product isn't viable.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Trouble is, where you say "crippled" Apple's people see "Permitted, by transcendent grace of Jobs".
Now, personally, I'd be a bit surprised by Apple building a much larger device that takes iPhone apps, because introducing two completely different screen sizes to that niche would play aesthetic hell with existing apps and possibly result in an unpleasant bifurcation of that market. Apple, though, seems quite fond of the "all your apps are approved by us" concept, so I strongly doubt that anything smaller than one of their existing computers is not going to be getting open platform treatment.
Let's be Honest.
This is Apple's stab at Archos and their move to conquer the ever present growth of the demand for Digital TV (apple tv already exists right?) but in a hand held device. Not to mention viewing video on a half decent screen for long commuters and frequent travelers.
Throw in a decent wifi browser with 3.5g/HSDPA connection and all Mac-Freaks will have their netbook of choice - marking an end to Archos domination, and we all know what a decent, multi-functional product that is.
I was going to buy an Archos, but I will wait with baited breath....