Slashdot Mirror
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."
I knew I kept my Newton for a reason... now I can be snotty and say "Oh yeah, I had one first" when it becomes popular. Now where did I put it...
Seriously as said above I can't see it selling that cheaply but I really did love the Newton despite its quirks. I still believe it died because it was just a little too far ahead of its time. Palm drove the last nail in its coffin with a smaller, lighter, more practical device. I would be interested to see what Apple could come up with for a tablet now with their focus on touch egonomics and a decade+ of hardware advancement.
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
I've seen this rumor floating around from enough sources that I won't be surprised if it happens. That said, even though other rumored apple products have turned out to be true, it seems that the only thing that is off is the price -- apple prices these things for about 20% more than what analysts predict.
If Apple comes out w/ a tablet, I can easily see them pricing it at $999.
Sell it to verizon to be subsidized some what like their HP netbook, give it unlimited wifi, and apple may have killed its iphone. Granted you can't stick an itablet, inote, isheet? into your pocket, but it takes what a lot of people view to be the compelling reasons to buy an iphone (always on internet, nifty apps, nifty user interface). I'm sure someone would hack skype or some other voip solution to work for it, then you could make free calls from anywhere, and it wouldn't quite be as redundant as making voip calls from your iphone.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Their take on a Netbook as a tablet:
ARM processor, runs stripped-down iPhone OS, has a touchscreen, plays media, runs a couple apps at a time.
Sounds like a next-gen iPod Touch. The current one costs $230 to $399 on Apple's own website. A little bigger, and it's Newton: TNG.
The only reason I can see Apple doing any kind of tablet would be to get in on the eBook market. Just like the App Store, it would integrate directly into iTunes and make them even more money. That's the sort of stuff that fits Apple's style.
Good points, but I think the problem is that they've been there before, and it didn't work out too well for them.
With Apple being Apple, I think if they ever do venture down that road again, it will be because they have come up with a new and different method of licensing the software.
However, it's pretty unlikely IMO, given that Apple likes to maintain a very specific user 'experience', and allowing their OS to be used on potentially sub-standard hardware could undermine that experience and potentially turn some away from the OS.
Apple's said they don't want to do a netbook, and when people think tablet, they think of a standard tablet-based laptop.
My personal theory is that it would be a Kindle-sized iPhone, though probably without the phone part (so I guess a Kindle-sized ipod touch). With the features of the next version of the os that's publicly known, there's no reason why you couldn't use the iphone interface to do anything you'd do with a netbook. Any apps that you might expect on a netbook would likely be written and sold in the app store pretty darn quick, like a basic word-processing app. If you couldn't stand to use the on-screen keyboard (which presumably would have bigger buttons for the bigger screen), then use a bluetooth keyboard.
That, as far as I can tell, would solve (to me, anyway), both the netbook *and* tablet issue.
If there's an active platform that can't run Linux, it must be very arcane. And Macs are hardly arcane. Nowadays the hardware is not that different from a PC.
I have a Motion tablet that runs Vista. That OS is every bit as bad as its reputation, but I put up with it because it's the only tablet OS with decent handwriting recognition. If I could similar software for Linux, I'd switch tomorrow.
And yes, I know about PenReader. Despite its claims, it does not handle handwriting. You have to draw out the letters one at a time. Easier to use an on-screen keyboard.
The first to put an eInk screen in addition to the normal screen in a Netbook or tablet form-factor will win all the prizes.
Think about it...all the features of a netbook you love, but the eInk display from a Kindle that allows you to send documents to it. Oh, the humanity!
I work for a university, and Apple recently sent a guy to talk to our faculty about the future of technology. During question time I referred to the possibility of a Mac tablet so I could try to gauge his immediate expression. No clue from that, all I had to go on was his response that Apple is obviously aware that people are talking about the possibility of a Mac tablet, and they'll come out with one as soon as they can do a good quality one for less than six hundred bucks.
Of course, he also said our computer labs were obsolete, which was bullshit, so who knows what to believe.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
I'm sticking to an extra large iPod Touch. Right now the Touch is a stripped down iPhone and really there's not a lot of reason to buy it. Now that 9-10" 10x6 displays are dirt cheap, now would be the time to build an iPod Touch out of one. It would be bigger, but the Touch electronics and battery are really small.... it would be like the screen of current netbooks. Toss in the standard mini webcam and mic (again practically free now) for taking audio notes and using pictures. They'll be unlocking bluetooth in the gen 2 Touch soon, so for a 10" screen hopefully they'd open up the Apple keyboard for input.
Apple is committed to iPhone and the app store right now. I can't see any device smaller than a Macbook running the desktop OSX. They are also looking to roll their own chips now, so again hitting the low power tablet factor they don't have to share is definitely how they roll.
One reason to post a story is to generate conversation. It doesn't have to be some mind twisting geeks only story, it can be fluff, it can be rumor or humor.
From what I heard, Sir Isaac Newton liked a good fart joke every now and then.
photosMy Photostream