Slashdot Mirror
What To Expect From Apple's Rumored MacPad
Jeff writes "I decided to review the specifications of recent e-readers and mobile devices as well as the ongoing Apple rumor mill to chart out the most likely features, innovations and configuration we can expect from Apple's long awaited Newton successor/Mac Tablet which I'll call the MacPad. The MacPad will arrive in fall '09 or Jan '10, with a 10" diagonal color display, a $599 price point with a Verizon data plan, a stylus, note taking application and handwriting recognition and an e-bookstore for iTunes. Apple's biggest challenge will be convincing its huge installed base of iPhone owners that they need a MacPad too. Past failed Newtonian predictions by others are available on Slashdot and the likelihood that any of this is right can be gauged by earlier Confucian gems such as Haskin warns that Apple may be setting itself up for a failure with the iPhone."
64-128 GB of RAM?! heck, i'd buy it, rip the ram modules and throw that thing away.
Really, the gem of this is referring to how previous rumor based stories that sided negative were wrong.. If you ignore the fact that the entire idea of this story is cobbled together from fairy dust and wishes.
I love my mac but.. in the words of William Shatner, get a life!
Personally I think Newton's zombie would be a great name for a MacPad. iZombie.
Plus it'd be a clean, sterile looking zombie, none of this blood, dirt and torn clothes. A MetroZombie.
Task Mangler
That sound almost nothing like what Gizmodo is reporting: "It'll land in October, to be exact, when we should expect to pay around $800 for it."
When "a price of $599" doesn't sound intellectual enough, call it a price point and suddenly you sound like an expert.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Tomorrow's headline will no doubt read, "First 'Behind the Stick' Review of Production Model Flying Car!" What the hey, here's a quote from the article that's not yet been written; "The SuperFlyer 6000 rides smooth as silk and corners like it's on rails. At 144 miles per gallon, you couldn't ask for more, save for the stereo which is a little bit lacking with it's 5.1 surround (we'd prefer 7.1)."
So, a product that's never been announced and only ever carried by the rumours that "it'd be really cool if Apple did, like, a tablet, you know!" is being discussed.
There is no substance at all, no "there" there. How can anyone seriously discuss what to expect from a product that has no information whatsoever about it? It's just all circle-jerk stuff, the sort of stuff kids fantasise about but has no connection to reality.
(sigh) I love talking tech as much as anyone, but can we at least try to stay grounded in reality?
Hell, it's just as likely to hover 14 cm above a solid surface, have a voxel-based GPU, holographic memory unit all powered by a microtok generator. Why not just make shit up? The UI will be based on the user's thoughts, but will react before the user knows they're thinking about an action because that's how cool it'll probably be, maybe.
Yup. News for nerds. Making shit up. So what does The Onion do for stories these days if Slashdot is going to nick the good ones?
How are these far-fetched predictions any different than the many that were made for the iPhone and iPod before it?
I hate to argue about the "slashdottedness" of a post, but I don't see how this belongs here. This kind of conversation is more appropriate in MacRumors or sites like it...
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary
AT&ROFLMAO
I know, I know, it's just a (repeated) typo. But to consistently assign products 64-128 GB of RAM...it doesn't really inspire confidence in me as to the accuracy of the rest of the article...
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
Yeah. I know a guy who's brother's girlfriend's uncle's cleaner knows someone who once talked to a guy in a bar, but *that* guy's sister's grandson's nephew's monkey's uncle was a personal friend of Steve Jobs, and he knew the guy who dries the executive's hands in the Apple research division, and that guy knows a girl who once dated Steve Ballmer, but she hated the way he sweats so much, and her friend's cousin once met Steve Jobs, who knows Jonathan Ive's accountant, who's looking for a way to write off the costs of developing a new interface for handling tablet input.
What was I.. Oh that's right, so the secret formula for Coke is mostly sugar, right, and those eleven herbs and spices? Yeah, ten of them are salt and pepper, and one's a genetically modified version of thyme, but it's crossed with a secret DNA strand that was developed in Area 51 from alien genetics. Don't ask me how I know. I'll need a chart to get *that* out.
Why on earth would you hack it to run linux, this thing (assuming it existed) would most likely run OS X... So you take off a perfectly good unix with drivers for all the bits of the hardware, and lots of application support, and replace it with a one-size-fits all OS that doesn't do the half of it... Why?
> What To Expect From Apple's Rumored MacPad
Rumors?
and wants his Mac tablet. He said to pick it up after the Forever release party, and just before Microsoft releases BobLive.
-- $G
This "let's make shit up and pretend like it is real," stuff annoys me. There is no basis to any of this.
What's more, I find it rather unlikely Apple is going to try for a PDA type device. Why? As mentioned, the iPhone. If you do some shopping around these days you discover that dedicated PDAs, as in devices that aren't part of a phone, are rather rare. You can get them, of course, but there aren't so many out there. Why's that? Well most people don't want to carry another device with them. They are all about minimal amount of crap to carry around.
Phone PDAs, well those are all the rage. These days it seems that providers have almost as many smart phones as normal phones. People love the idea. You get all your PDA features, in a slightly larger phone. Only one device to carry.
I know it is certianly that way for me. A number of years ago our boss got us PDAs. There was some deal that he was able to get them cheap so he figured "Why not?" Well, they never really got used. Even he wasn't all that keen on carrying an extra device. However we now all have smartphones, and we all love them. Ya they are a little larger than a plain cell, but not much and you get all the PDA features AND all the phone features.
So it would be rather retarded for Apple to try and enter the PDA market, because there really isn't one. They already are doing great in the smartphone market, that is probably where they'll stay. I just don't see PDAs making a resurgence, ever.
Now they might try a tablet PC or something, there is a small market for those. However it won't be a $500 device, that's for sure. Tablet PCs are, as the name implies, PCs you can write on as in full featured laptop hardware. Means from Apple you are talking $1000+.
Sounds like a nice prediction (not saying anything about its accuracy), but as someone who recently purchased an ebook reader, I don't think I could ever go back to anything but an e-ink screen for long-term reading (though we'll have to see how the Pixel Qi screens are). Being able to read 3 or 4 books without having to think about plugging the device in to recharge is a godsend!
This guy's the limit!
If all you're using is raw c and x11+xv, then your application will run happily on OS X with the click of a compile button.
[ credits to Rik Myslewski at the register]:
* eWEEK, November 2002, "Waiting for the Mac Tablet": ... revealed.
"It's my strong belief - let's call it a hunch - that prototype Mac tablets are already making the rounds among select developers."
* Engadget, May 2005, "Apple's patented the Tablet Mac"
"[Tablet-Mac rumors] became substantiated today when Apple's secret plans for a tablet PC were
* CutMeLoose.com, May 2005, "Apple Tablet PC sightings"
"I have no less than 5 sources saying an Apple Tablet announcement is due soon."
* Cnet UK, November 2007, "Apple Tablet PC is real, says Asus"
"You can bet your bottom dollar [a tablet Mac] is being built as you read this."
* Mac|Life, January 2008, "The Apple Tablet Mac: 8 Reasons It's Gonna Happen"
"The tablet rumor has been around for the last couple years, but now, all the ducks are in a row."
* ZDNet, May 2008, "Tablet Mac coming this fall"
"A little birdy tells me that Apple will announce a 12 or 13-inch tablet in the fall of this year."
* Wired, July 2008, "Apple to Launch MacBook Touch?"
"The blogosphere is aflutter with rumors of a touchscreen Mac tablet."
* Industry Standard, December 2008, "Apple announces Mac tablet at Macworld 2009?"
"Could this 6 year old rumor finally come true?"
So you take off a perfectly good unix with drivers for all the bits of the hardware, and lots of application support, and replace it with a one-size-fits all OS that doesn't do the half of it... Why?
Haha ok let me break this down to you. First of all that "perfectly good" part is solely your opinion and believe it or not not everybody agrees. Secondly there are huge differences between unix like OSs. And last but not least, some people like to own whatever they've bought rather than lease it. That's why.
I am the lawn!
That would smack of playing "catch up" and introducing a "me too" product. Does that sound like Apple?
Yes. The last Apple commercial I saw: "Copy & Paste: New on the iPhone 3GS" Their desktops and servers are using intel chips now. MacOSX proponents were constantly touting "UNIX underpinnings!" Apple does a lot of innovating, but in their innovation, they purposefully ignore others' years old achievements, then add them in a "me too!" style to sell version 2.0 of their innovation.
Remember when computers didn't have monthly data plans? I would rather save $ and just mooch off free wi-fi.
That post is far more informative than the "let's make stuff up" article that Taco posted.
This guy's the limit!
I think his point is that MacPorts covers 99% of the Linux/Unix workalike software out there. Sure there is a lot of Linux only stuff - but typically only because the project is still in alpha and hasn't taken off yet. Given that, the drivers for the hardware on the device are not likley to be supported by Linux for some time after it's release... so you could 'own' the device by installing Linux but you'd be crippling it at the same time - for what purpose? Nothing but ego apparently.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Just a brief list of linux stuff that runs on top of OS X:
X11
kde
e17
For everything else there's fink and darwin ports.
In fact, darwin itself is open source, meaning if you really, really have a hard on to run just linux apps, you could run the core OS with the drivers and all with X11 on top of it. Beeslebob's point is spot on, there's no reason to take a perfectly good unix that has drivers custom written for it to replace it with a one-size fits all OS like linux (as awesome as linux is, hardware drivers are its Achilles' Heel because the hardware is often propietary).
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
The Mac Pad has some possibility to be real simply because you would have to be blind to not see that the end of the Macintosh as a basic consumer device is coming. Anyone that went to WWDC can tell you the focus was entirely on iPhone OS.
The Macintosh will still be around as high end media creation devices and servers. Think of iPhone, Touch and potential MacPad or new consumer devices as media consumption devices. They will have basic editing ability (see iLife and iWork) but that's it. Who really needs a quad quad xenon to play MP3s and watch videos. Also look at the game market on iPhone OS. That's where the money is and that's where Apple is going.
So what you're saying is that you can't find any reason why linux does the job of this device better than OS X, so you're going to default to "it's free software and therefor must be better". Even though I've demonstrated several reasons why running OS X on it, as designed would be beneficial?
Fair enough, if your reason is "because I can", but honestly, you're deluding yourself if you actually think it's somehow better just by being free.
You're putting up a bunch of straw man arguments here like "iTunes and iPod are horrible lock down"... what horrible lock down, it's a pair of music players that play mp3 and aac -- two formats that will play on almost any other player in the world. What's the lock down?
As for iTunes doing well if it were completely separate to the devices... Well, that's kinda the point -- the reason it's doing well is not because it's locking you down, but instead because apple have a solution that works well. People find it nice to not have to do more than plug in their iPod and have everything work transparently.
Note that your iPod selling at a loss story is a lie -- apple barely breaks even on the iTMS, they make all the money selling the devices.
In the end you will end up paying more for songs because Apple sold you your iPod
Even though I can use mp3s and aacs, and CD audio from all sorts of other sources? How is that exactly?
If iTunes store was infact the best store around, how come you can't just release it into the wild and people will love it?
I'm sorry, what? I really don't get what you're trying to say here.
At the end of the day, all you're doing is throwing up a bunch of FUD about apple, most of which is not true in any way, and at the same time not answering the question -- *why* would you run linux on it... What would it do better?
I guess for the same reason people take Apple computers and laptops, remove (or dual boot) OSX and install Linux on them. They like the hardware, but prefer the different OS.
They may want to make the product more efficient (only install/compile what they want). They may want functionality and control of open source apps which are often MUCH easier to install, configure and manage with a Linux install rather than having to work it into the OSX environment.
There are often a good number of reasons people might want to do this...if for nothing else but for "because it can be done".
For such a new product, yes, drivers may be lagging for a little while, but, the Linux community usually comes up with them pretty quickly.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"Apple's biggest challenge will be convincing its huge installed base of iPhone owners that they need a MacPad too. "
What? No.
First of all, if this "MacPad" exists it is not going to be targetted at existing iPhone customers. It will be targetted at existing Mac users and PC users. From what I'm hearing this thing more akin to a mobile PC than a Netbook-ified cell phone. You're not going to convince many users of the expensive but very functional iPhone that they need yet another mobile device. So, yes, in a way, this would be a challenge, such a big one, in fact, that it would make no sense to try to do it.
It will come with an installed copy of Duke Nukem Forever. And a pony.
I for one because I am used to Linux and KDE4 is the first DE (including Windows and OS X) that I actually like. I am also against some practices from Apple and Microsoft that I decided to boycott wherever possible. Oh and 'killerapps' (read: apps I prefer) like AmaroK, DigiKam and Kdenlive (yes Linux has an awesome video editor, shocked? ;) :P) that do not work that well on Mac OS X yet...
Here be signatures