Why Everyone Has High Hopes For Apple Tablet

waderoush writes "The deafening roar of anticipation around Apple's expected 'iSlate' announcement on January 27 is strange, to say the least, given the public's utter apathy about tablet computers to date. What's going on? Xconomy's analysis makes three points. 1) Previous tablet makers have shown little imagination around UIs and how a touchscreen changes things. 2) With the iPhone, Apple has shown what's possible in this regard. 3) There's latent demand for a mobile computing device that's smaller and lighter than a laptop but has more screen real estate than a smartphone — something reminiscent of a Star Trek tricorder or PADD. Hence the hopes for the iSlate — which are so high that it may be difficult for even Apple to meet them."

Comments

Re:Hype and Results

[gad_zuki!]

>Apple enters the market with their own device, which has a bunch of features that may or may not have been seen in other devices, but on the whole is a very well integrated package. Somehow, they saw a way to make the product work.

This really shows a lack of knowledge of Apple's history.

1. The Newton. Palm made this work. Not Apple. Later on Apple copied the Treo format (phone + PDA) Palm made popular and merged it with a virtual keyboard.

2. Apple Pippin. Failed game/multimedia console. Nintendo64 and PS2 got it right.

3. Power Mac G4 Cube. Failed on the market. Infamous for cracking case. Now, there's no shortage of small cube PCs. The PC world got this right.

4. Apple QuickTake. Failed digital camera. Everyone gets this right.

5. Macintosh TV. Failed TV/PC combo. Now TV is just a PCI card away or done with steaming/downloading.

6. Apple's "Hockey Puck" USB Mouse. No one gets this right because its such a bad idea.

7. eMate. Low cost Newton based PC. OLPC and others get this right.

Apple tries a lot of things and they fail more often than they succeed. The idea that theyre the ones who can fix the tablet market is a bit of stretch. Heck, I like tablets, but I understand their limitations, especially in regards to keyboards/inputs. Perhaps it will have something like the iwheel.

Mathematicians and Engineers, for starters.

[maillemaker]

>Who writes anything anymore?

Mathematicians, Engineers, Physicists, and basically anyone in a technical field of work or study have to resort to writing because inserting mathematical or engineering symbology on-the-fly while typing is very tedious at best.

I love typing, and I am very fast at it, and it worked great for all of my liberal arts studies.

But for the real work, I have to use pencil and paper.