Apple Tablet

[blessingx]

Okay, the rumors are getting pretty hard to ignore at this point. I guess we'll know in the next month or two, but here's the latest.

"Secondary screen/touchpad?" Hmmm.

[bperboy]

Okay, the rumors are getting pretty hard to ignore at this point. I guess we'll know in the next month or two, but here's the latest.

"Secondary screen/touchpad?" Hmmm.

Hmm.. I'm a pretty avid Mac user, but up 'till now I haven't really taken those rumors seriously. Looking at your linked article, that actually looks quite intriguing! The secondary screen / touchpad possibility looks quite nifty. If only I didn't have college costs, headphone stuff, and photography all to pay for, I might be able to afford this!

I could see some real advantages to adding this as a secondary screen / touchpad, especially in my photography workflow. There's some real potential in the concept. Plus I could probably ditch the Macbook Pro and move to a desktop, either an iMac or Mac Pro.

[tkam]

Really feel like spending $700-$900 for a "secondary screen / touchpad"?

It'll be interesting to see what hardware they've crammed in it and if it's going to be running a full version of OS X or just a more extended iphone OS. If it's the later that would be disappointing.

[n_maher]

I'm with Todd, for $700-$900 it'd better be pretty fracken capable and not just a giant Ipod Touch. I'm already pretty non-plussed by the lack of keyboard, a lot of screen real estate is going to get eaten by that every time to you type something.

[penger]

They just want you to buy the bluetooth keyboard?

[guzziguy]

I'm with Todd, for $700-$900 it'd better be pretty fracken capable and not just a giant Ipod Touch. I'm already pretty non-plussed by the lack of keyboard, a lot of screen real estate is going to get eaten by that every time to you type something.

Apple subcontracted ALO for this and got a great deal.

[Hopstretch]

Keyborads rae fro fagogts.

[Currawong]

Apple wouldn't make this unless there was some purpose behind it. As that article only talks about the hardware, there the huge element of what software it will run and what functionality that will embody that has to be seen first. It doesn't surprise me that the idea of a tablet has been floating around in Apple for years. It's probably not been practical until now though.

[HeadphoneAddict]

If it wont run flash in Safari I'm not interested. If you can't tether to a cell phone I'm not interested.

[grawk]

What if flash works, but tethering doesn't?

[crappyjones123]

ORRRRRRRR what if tethering works and flash doesnt

[Dusty Chalk]

He's not interested. Jesus, don't you guys understand short-cut booleans?

[grawk]

I"m interested if I can use a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, if it runs ssh, and if I can hook up either a duet or a ONE.

[penger]

Looks kinda like an if then else statement to me... but what do I know, I'm not a programmer.

[crappyjones123]

logic gates remain open until apple comes out with the netbook itself. i wonder if that infrared keyboard would be any good for use with it.

[luvdunhill]

Looks kinda like an if then else statement to me... but what do I know, I'm not a programmer.

Either condition will make the entire statement false. Simple grammar my friend.

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

I've been waiting for this huge ipod for years. It will sell like crazy, I predict. The screen size looks just right for books, video, and skype calls. Maybe also a simple game or two.

[mr.khali]

It seems Apple wants redemption for the failure of their Newton. It will be interesting to see if they still have the golden touch. It is hard to bet against them.

[Currawong]

Apple was bleeding money with the Newton. It had to go, regardless of how good it was. The 2000 series was brilliant, but at its price wasn't going to compete with Palm, who were nailing the market. Apple has brought back the the Newton with the iPhone, nailing the things that the Newton, and Palm, could not do well, such as browse the web and work as a phone without being clunky.

There's a story that, a few years ago, either hospitals or doctors had a meeting with Steve Jobs to try and persuade him to make a tablet for use in hospitals, and he turned them down. I think now with the iPhone being successful this has revived the idea of a tablet, but, other than being used by doctors, there's still the big question of, what would it be useful for? Just being cool isn't good enough. How many people look at tablet PCs and say, "Hey, that's cool, I'd love one" but never bother, or if they have the cash to throw away on one, almost never use it in tablet mode? How many people do you know who own a tablet PC? None? The only reason I can see Apple making a tablet/large iPhone is they have a software idea in mind that makes it a device you never knew you wanted, just like you never knew you wanted an Airport Express until you saw one, a Time Capsule, an iPod or an iPhone. There has to be a point to owning one, and I haven't seen that yet.

[bperboy]

Now the rumor mill is all abuzz with tales of iPod updates in early September rather than a tablet device. Seems to me like it could be covert PR by the Apple folk. Personally, I'm much more interested in the release of Snow Leopard, which has been rumored to be released this month, but I think they'll do a combined release of SN with an iPod refresh in early Sept.

[n_maher]

I've been hearing the Ipod rumors for weeks, makes sense historically and also would be timed well with the Zune HD release date.

[bperboy]

Yeah, another good point about the Zune release. I guess Microsoft lowered the price on that quite a bit, but now Apple's going to destroy it by offering a revamped iPod for the same price. Totally take the focus off the Zune. If I didn't like their products so much, I'd be really pissed at Apple.

[jp11801]

The tablet is perfect for me as on the go with my netbook it's just music, movies and surfing the web. It would need to show major enhancements over the iphone though to get me to dump my asus eee900.

[TheSloth]

I don't understand Apple's seeming hatred of the netbook market. I use a hackintosh Dell Mini 9 and really love it. I type a lot and have no issues with the little keyboard, and love how tiny it is. In fact, I haven't turned on my 'proper' computer for over 2 weeks...

They have an OS that can seemingly run extremely well on rather underpowered hardware. This little machine certainly runs OS X better than the Windows .junk it came with. I hope that they do decide to enter the netbook or similar market, and don't insist on crippling it with a proprietary version of the OS like the iPhone. OS X iPhone makes sense for the iPhone, but don't see how it would work on a bigger, more powerful machine

[grawk]

They don't hate it, it's just not the right market for them. Netbooks are targetted at the low end of the market, and apple doesn't want to compete in races to the bottom.