Apple Tablet Rumors Again (Still?)

LSU_ADT_Geek writes "With a conventional netbook clearly out of the question, researchers for Piper Jaffray said Thursday there's mounting evidence to suggest Apple next year will introduce its own take on the market in the form of a tablet-based device that will sell for $700 or less."

Comments

Please stop these non-news rumours

[tsa]

Rumours are not news. They belong on Digg. Please please /., try to keep the quality of the post high and avoid speculation like this. It makes the site so much more worth reading.

Re:Please stop these non-news rumours

[causality]

Rumours are not news. They belong on Digg. Please please /., try to keep the quality of the post high and avoid speculation like this. It makes the site so much more worth reading.

It was clearly labelled as a rumor: "Apple Tablet Rumors Again (Still?)". If it weren't, I'd have a much easier time seeing your point.

Sure, you could say that the holy absolute purity of the rest of Slashdot is forever tainted by the stain of the word "rumor" in this story but, eh, have you SEEN the rest of Slashdot? I think it'll be alright.

I can digg it.

[BlueKitties]

I could definitely see something like this heading our way; While I'm not a Mac fan myself, they do seem keen on making "nifty" products (e.g. the iPhone, iMusicPlayers, etc.) If they do make something like this, it will probably have unique features (maybe a camera that lets you interact via hand motions, facial expressions?) Still, this seems fairly realistic.

I'd go for it, if...

[rindeee]

If they integrated all of the cool functionality (multi-touch screen, etc.) from the iPhone as well as the full OS X base (iChat w/video, real app support, etc.); I'd be all over it. I don't want an iPhone for this kind of stuff, nor do I want to carry around my MacBook (as I do now out of necessity). A tablet would be the perfect compromise for my needs.

Re:way

[ilblissli]

come now troll, you are aware that their cheapest notebook is 1k right? and you are aware that tablets are typically MORE expensive than a comparable notebook that doesn't have tablet functionality right?

Mounting evidence

[93 Escort Wagon]

That evidence being, apparently, the increasing number of analysts who all parrot "Apple may be making a netbook"?

Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see what Apple might come up with - but there are plenty of Mac rumor sites already available.

I'll go with "untrue"

[pla]

Apple next year will introduce its own take on the market in the form of a tablet-based device that will sell for $700 or less.

Put simple - Tablets suck except for a very few niche uses... And even for those few uses, netbooks do the job cheaper and more conveniently.

So put simply, I'll consider this a completely bogus rumor, since Apple has better sense than to revive a dying-for-a-good-reason technology. They may have a few failures in trying to predict the next cool toy, but haven't made the mistake of recreating retro hardware since the Lisa.

Now, I mentioned netbooks above - It wouldn't surprise me at all to see Apple try to jump into that market (though they will no doubt ignore the "sub $500" as a defining characteristic of that class of device). Perhaps (though by no means certain) even with a flippable screen, giving users the option of using it in notebook-style or tablet-style mode. But an outright straight-up tablet, not going to happen.

Re:I'll go with "untrue"

[Anonymous Coward]

... since Apple has better sense than to revive a dying-for-a-good-reason technology. They may have a few failures in trying to predict the next cool toy, but haven't made the mistake of recreating retro hardware since the Lisa.

Perhaps, like the iPod, they're going to actually create the next big technology? Or, being positioned where they are in the industry, they may have figured out how to do it right and create a tablet/hybrid which actually catches on ... (yes, entirely speculative, but hey, so is the original article, eh?)

Re:I'll go with "untrue"

[alen]

laptops are becoming the next desktop. tablets and netbooks are nice to carry around with you.

carrying a laptop around is like going out with a baby. you need to take a bag of junk with you. a netbook or a tablet with nice battery life you just throw in your bag that you take with you anyway. and for the millions of people that commute on public transit it will be a nice way to pass the time. bigger screen to read books, better hardware for games, and you may be able to do some work and sync your docs.

what a tablet or netbook needs to do is not have a boot up time. my wife's iphone is always on. if i want 10 minutes of net time i don't want to waste 5 minutes of it waiting for a netbook to boot up

Re:I'll go with "untrue"

[tlhIngan]

They didn't create the portable music digital music player. They did create a market for a very sleek-looking higher-end one with its own proprietary locked-in store, which now sells un-DRMed music like everyone else was already using.

Actually, the iPod got to where it is by basically being the right device at the right time:

* Space - it had a lot of it. (Competitors had more, though)
* Size - it had a lot of space for its size (The Creative Nomad was bigger than a contemporary CD player. The iPod was much smaller - slightly thicker than a pack of playing cards). Other MP3 players in the same size had a pitiful handful of songs at best.
* Speed - Parallel port, serial port, USB1.1 suck for filling space. Great if you're only dealing with 128MB of memory, but lousy when you want to actually fill in gigabytes and have it take a reasonable amount of time. Firewire was the only option at the time.
* Market - MP3 players were niche at the moment. MP3-CD players were the item to get, but they're big (see size), and cumbersome (burning a CD... and having huge books of MP3 CDs to pick one to play). Apple got in early and rode the wave as MP3 players started getting mainstream (no doubt helped by Apple's marketing making everyone want one).

Apple released the iPod at the right time with the right combination of features that people wanted - a small player that holds a decent quantity of music that doesn't take all day to transfer. MP3 players were still pretty niche when the iPod was released (MP3s weren't, thanks to Napster, but people were listening via their computers). Apple got in during this time - either by luck or pure business savvy. A few years later and the iPod may have been the next Newton as the market gets flooded with new entrants.

The iTunes store came *MUCH* later (2003-ish or so), by Apple dragging the kicking and screaming music industry into it.

The problem is, netbooks are already mainstream, and the race to the bottom has stopped more or less because the bottom has been reached. Instead, now we see netbooks clamoring for the low-end laptop market with larger screens and higher prices. At best, Apple would be another competitor in the high-end netbook market, but probably not a very worthy one (it *IS* Apple, and they don't have the iPod advantage). Unless Apple comes up with something "must have" that redefines the market (at least that's Apple's strength... finding the few things that make people go "why didn't I think of that"?).

Re:I'll go with "untrue"

[kaizendojo]

Put simple - Tablets suck except for a very few niche uses... And even for those few uses, netbooks do the job cheaper and more conveniently.

Put simple - that's why you're posting on /. instead of working for a company like Apple. They've already proven that tablets - which is what the iPhone essentially is, just in a smaller form factor - don't suck, and millions of consumers agreed. Tablets with a user interface done right, that is. This is not just a move to come up with a cool new toy, this is an acknowledgment of a growing market replete with a built in catalog of available applications that users actually want. And as a bonus, they can expand to users who want a Kindle but expect a but more for their bucks than just a reader. And I'm damn glad, since I put my Dad into the stock early and it's going to be my inheritance some day.

Re:I'll go with "untrue"

[KylePflug]

No, but it pretty much made them saleable. If you remember back to the dawn of the MP3 era, everyone either had a small (like 128 or 256mb, tops) flash-based mp3 player, maybe with a few memory cards (I went threw several Rios before my first iPod). Almost nobody actually bought HDD MP3 players.

Apple pulled off the look, synchronization, and most importantly the interface - I'm entirely convinced that the clickwheel is what killed the competition, just like the multi-touch is what is saving the iPhone.

If they can do this with a tablet - combining active digitizers and capacitive input to get natural input and good handwriting recognition - and combine it with a slim bluetooth keyboard, they have a real shot at making an integrated device that goes for the Kindle/iTouch/netbook markets all at once. I'm of the opinion that it should not run OSX as we know it - I don't think the form factor is right. Give it the backbone of OSX and the ability to run those apps, but it needs a new front-end to replace Finder. The reason Tablets haven't worked before (I've owned three) is because they are pen-input devices built around a mouse/keyboard input operating system. Apple gets interfaces; I don't see them making that mistake.

Re:no way

[cayenne8]

If $700 is a lot of money to you for a tablet sized/functioning computer...then you are not in the demographic that Apple is marketing to.

And why do people still pay attention to analysts?

[divisionbyzero]

Almost every bit of information they have is second or third hand (a guy heard from a guy who heard from a guy). They are barely one step above a rumor site. Most of them don't have the expertise to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Industry Analysts who look at industry trends and give advice to executives can be useful but analysts for financial institutions (e.g. Gene Munster for Piper Jaffray) that are making specific predictions about product introductions have a (not so) hidden agenda. Get people to buy now on optimistic news and dump later when it proves to be bogus. Remember, they make money in both directions.

Re:way

[mabhatter654]

it would be one with apps that are USEFUL and not junk!

Tablet PCs never caught on because there's only 2-3 apps DESIGNED for tablets not made by Microsoft. The majority of apps on tablets in the real world I've seen are just VB programs for data entry with little benefits on a tablet versus a laptop.

Apple has the app store and it has multi-touch apps that all do cool stuff with the hardware... Tablet PC had a 7 year run all by itself and nobody stepped up with the must-have apps. A 10" iPod Touch, with access to all the iPhone/Touch apps existing right now, would take off. Not to mention the new apps that might work on an iPhone but really need more real estate.. like editing photos or web browsing.

Hardware wise, the current Touch probably supports a 10" screen in hardware so it would be really cheap and easy for Apple to release this. Rumor has also been that iPhone OS 3 has support for bigger screens and requires UI resolution independence so apps made for an iPhone or Touch will look correct on bigger screens.