Intel exec vouches for Atom-based Apple Newton tablet - report

[AppleInsider]

A high ranking Intel executive is said to have made comments this week that corroborate reports of a Netwon-like mini-tablet under development at Apple, as originally revealed by AppleInsider last year.

Intel Germany chief Hannes Schwaderer reportedly spilled the beans during the company's 40th birthday celebration at BMW World in Munich, adding that the device is expected to be powered by one of his firm's Atom ultra-mobile device chipsets.

"Schwaderer today confirms what has long been a rumor on the Internet: namely, that there is an iPhone with Intel's new Atom chip," reads a report in the German edition of ZDNet. "The device is slightly larger than the current version, Schwaderer said. This is not [because of] the Intel chip, but [because of] the larger display used in the new iPhone."

AppleInsider exclusively reported last September that Apple, which helped spawn the PDA market with its Newton MessagePad line in the '90s, was planning to give the concept another go with a modern day reincarnation based on the its mutli-touch technology.

The device has been described by sources as an ultra-thin "slate" akin to the iPhone and running an embedded version of the Mac OS X Leopard operating system.

Artist depiction of future tablet device alongside Apple's existing handhelds | Artwork by audiopollution.

In a followup report published in December, AppleInsider went on to reveal that Apple would adopt Intel's ultra-mobile PC platform -- later renamed Atom -- for use in the much rumored Newton mini tablet and possibly future generation iPhone devices.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[SpamSandwich]

If real, I sure hope it's not bigger than 5.5"x8.5".

[NasserAE]

"Schwaderer today confirms what has long been a rumor on the Internet: namely, that there is an iPhone with Intel's new Atom chip," reads a report in the German edition of ZDNet. "The device is slightly larger than the current version, Schwaderer said. This is not [because of] the Intel chip, but [because of] the larger display used in the new iPhone."

I doubt it will be a phone if it is bigger than the current iPhone. Maybe built-in HSPA feature for internet access only.

However, this sounds interesting. 3G iPhone this week and the tablet on WWDC08?! Probably explain the AT&T vacation memo and todays iPhone limit memo. I might be wrong.

[melgross]

Ok, waiting for the comments saying that because of this comment, Apple will change chip sources to AMD. As though that could happen.

[backtomac]

Originally Posted by melgross

Ok, waiting for the comments saying that because of this comment, Apple will change chip sources to AMD. As though that could happen.

I don't know Mel. An Apple tablet with a tri core Phenom would ROCK.

[dr_lha]

As Jobs has publicly stated that the Kindle is a piece of crap and people "don't read books anymore" - I predict this is the Apple iKindle.

[wizard69]

I think this sort of device is very doable and likely to be a high priority for Apple.

First; if one does the math you will realize the device doesn't have to be huge if Apple keeps the same pixel density. We are talking that won't be more that maybe an inch wider and probably not much longer.

Second; Apple has been very clear about the touch devices being the first web based tablets. Good tablet use requires more pixels, simple as that. Especially for the two big considerations: Video and web browsing. Of course all other functionality can be improved for such a device.

In any event what has been described is almost exactly what I'm looking for in a cell phone. Something that can still be carried on the person but yet delivers a bigger screen and a bit more capability.

Dave

[JeffDM]

Originally Posted by dr_lha

As Jobs has publicly stated that the Kindle is a piece of crap and people "don't read books anymore" - I predict this is the Apple iKindle.

I think he tends to say such things to divert attention. The people that know better than to listen to a mouthpiece would look this stuff up anyway.

There were about $17B in US book sales and apparently still growing. The music industry is a bit over $10B and shrinking.

[NasserAE]

Originally Posted by dr_lha

As Jobs has publicly stated that the Kindle is a piece of crap and people "don't read books anymore" - I predict this is the Apple iKindle.

I don't see how the Kindle is related to what is talked about here! Kindle is book reader, SJ said that people don't read anymore. He was talking about a device that only used to read books. The device here is like a computer with web browser, iTunes (can be used for audiobooks), and probably software from Apple App Store.

[CREB]

*****

[jpellino]

I'm holding a 5x7 card in my hand - nice size, they could put a killer screen in one, still small enough for a one hand multitouch... I know smaller is more acceptable, but you don't want this thing in your pants pocket anyway... I still miss some of the things my Newton could do.

At iPhone thickness it fits into a coat pocket and can stand to have a 75% on-screen keyboard.

And also - Apple should buy jott.com - what General Magic could have been. Integrate that into the mobile OS.

[dm3]

uuuuuuu, an exclusive report! From the same folks who said the Mini was dead.

[CREB]

Originally Posted by jpellino

I'm holding a 5x7 card in my hand - nice size, they could put a killer screen in one, still small enough for a one hand multitouch... I know smaller is more acceptable, but you don't want this thing in your pants pocket anyway... I still miss some of the things my Newton could do.

I still have three of my Newtons that I dearly love. No hesitation on my part to quickly purchase a new generation Newton. None whatsoever.

[machei]

Just so long as it's got bluetooth so I can use my wireless keyboard and mouse. I just can't learn to love the touch keyboard.

[anantksundaram]

Man, what's with these Apple partners (Intel, ATT, TIM, Vodafone.....) who can't keep their mouths shut?

[Hattig]

This is pretty much as small an Atom device could be made due to the large package the multi-chip solution comes in (Atom + Paulsbo + RAM, far larger in volume than the size of the ARM SoC in the iPhone. Sure, the screen is dictating the size of the tablet, but without that restriction, the device couldn't be smaller.

It's also one of the target device types of the Atom, although I expect it will use an Atom < 1.2GHz, possibly even the slowest one available, to maximise battery life. Paulsbo has nice features for this size device - video decode and good 3D. I'm also sure that Apple will have got an awesome pricing deal from Intel.

[Virgil-TB2]

Originally Posted by JeffDM

I think he tends to say such things to divert attention. The people that know better than to listen to a mouthpiece would look this stuff up anyway.

There were about $17B in US book sales and apparently still growing. The music industry is a bit over $10B and shrinking.

Agreed.

Besides which the Kindle *is* crap, and people really *don't* read many books anymore.

The problem is that people read that comment the wrong way.

"the Kindle is crap" == "we can make one waaay better than that thing"
"people don't read anymore" == "people would read more if there were good electronic books"

[chwebdesign]

This would be neat if it could be used as a hand held display/tablet for any of your current macs - Lets say I have a mac mini which I do connected to my Plasma however I do not wish to stop watching my movie so instead the mc mini can switch to the hand held monitor that connects via wifi or something to that effect...???

I would grab one of these for sure.

[Eduardo]

Originally Posted by NasserAE

However, this sounds interesting. 3G iPhone this week and the tablet on WWDC08?! Probably explain the AT&T vacation memo and todays iPhone limit memo. I might be wrong.

I wonder if this refers to the postcard invitation to WWDC '08. "A landmark event in more ways than one" with the two Golden Gate bridges?

[lepton]

Close, but the device will not have a black bar along the left (top) of the device, only one at the bottom where the Home button is. In other words, it will have an iMac "chin". The resolution will be 1280 by 720, the screen will be OLED and 6" diagonal.

[dshan]

Apple may be working on such a device, but given the current Atom's limitations I doubt it'll be anything announced at WWDC or thereabouts. 1G Atom's power usage is too high too be useful to Apple in the hand-held space (a 2G Air is a more likely home for the 1G Atom). If they do such a device in the near term (i.e. this year) it'll probably have an ARM processor not an x86 chip (the ARM version of OS X is already available and multi-touch-enabled, as are many ARM binary OS X multi-touch apps), but next year the 2G version of Atom is another story. Then the x86 may be competitive with ARM for hand-held devices and Apple may well switch to it (hello universal binary multi-touch apps and SDK).

[satchmo]

Originally Posted by Eduardo

I wonder if this refers to the postcard invitation to WWDC '08. "A landmark event in more ways than one" with the two Golden Gate bridges?

BINGO!!!

Or maybe it has something simply to do with two way video on the new iPhone.

[Chris_CA]

In late breaking news, Apple has announced the company is dropping Intel as the power inside the Mac line of computers as soon as the current contract expires.
It is expected they will utilize CPUs designed and integrated by current Apple employees as well as from newly acquired PA Semi.

[Ireland]

It will have a 10" screen. Taking bets here!!



Mac touch FTW!

[sausage&Onion]

They specifically state that it will be an iphone. maybe the new model is "slightly" larger? I hope AI is right, but it seems like a stretch to say that the rumor is corroborated.

[werbz]

Originally Posted by lepton

Close, but the device will not have a black bar along the left (top) of the device, only one at the bottom where the Home button is. In other words, it will have an iMac "chin". The resolution will be 1280 by 720, the screen will be OLED and 6" diagonal.

I'm somewhat skeptical about the screen type.
I reckon it will be called the iPad (maybe, maybe not, time will tell, but anyway).
OLED is the way to go in terms of brightness, but it just isn't Apple's style to put 'old' technology into their new devices.

The iPad will have a new type of display (i highly doubt Apple would have perfected their camera-in-screen device by now, but hopefully they will.

so, back to the iPad. It will have a 6" multi-touch display, wireless-n, bluetooth, the usual, starting with an 8gb, alongside a 16gb version, going up to 32 and possibly even 64gb in the ipad's next revision.
the 'chin' will remain, the border between the edge of the screen and the sides will be almost indistinguishable from its black case (i doubt it will be plastic, probably the same glass-aluminum as in the imac).

it will have 3g (duh), video conferencing, ms office syncing (or at least someone will be able to write a script for it without much hassle).... however, it wont run solely on the iphone's os x platform, but rather a combination of leopard (10.5) and iphone 2.0,

thats all for today... that, and it will resemble the nano 1g in depth (thickness)

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by dr_lha

As Jobs has publicly stated that the Kindle is a piece of crap and people "don't read books anymore"

Ah he's cracked anyway!

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by CREB

I still have three of my Newtons that I dearly love. No hesitation on my part to quickly purchase a new generation Newton. None whatsoever.

So buy one then, they are named iPhone.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Man, what's with these Apple partners (Intel, ATT, TIM, Vodafone.....) who can't keep their mouths shut?

Why do you care?

[FuturePastNow]

Originally Posted by dr_lha

As Jobs has publicly stated that the Kindle is a piece of crap and people "don't read books anymore" - I predict this is the Apple iKindle.

Yeah, Steve runs his mouth on these sorts of things a lot. Of course, he's mostly right- a lot of people don't read books anymore. But I submit that the people who do still read overlap Apple's customer base by a lot.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by Eduardo

I wonder if this refers to the postcard invitation to WWDC '08. "A landmark event in more ways than one" with the two Golden Gate bridges?

No, I think those bridges are for Leopard and iPhone. Don't over think it.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by FuturePastNow

Yeah, Steve runs his mouth on these sorts of things a lot. Of course, he's mostly right- a lot of people don't read books anymore. But I submit that the people who do still read overlap Apple's customer base by a lot.

Finally someone makes sense in these comments.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by werbz

I reckon it will be called the iPad

So you think they are going to market it just to women then?

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Man, what's with these Apple partners (Intel, ATT, TIM, Vodafone.....) who can't keep their mouths shut?

What can I say, these idiots are just outside Steve's striking distance.

[GregAlexander]

Apple was definitely working on a Tablet - they said so in an article 6 months back about the development of the iPhone and how they took their engineers off the Tablet project and put them onto iPhone.

However - Apple has also said they produce up to 10 "pixel perfect prototypes" of their new products and seriously develop 3 ... only then choosing the best. Apple may have shown Intel their Atom version and discussed limitations... Intel may have interpreted that as a wishlist for v2. If that happened, Intel would be right, but they'd be shocked that v1 had an Arm processor.

Originally Posted by chwebdesign

This would be neat if it could be used as a hand held display/tablet for any of your current macs - Lets say I have a mac mini which I do connected to my Plasma however I do not wish to stop watching my movie so instead the mc mini can switch to the hand held monitor that connects via wifi or something to that effect...???

I would grab one of these for sure.

I think that's useful in some cases, and the technology is a step towards the next generation of Apple OSX. However, it might make the tablet "clunky" - Lotus notes was described as "doing something badly which no other products could do at all", Apple is usually described in the opposite fashion - doing less than others but doing it brilliantly. I mean, if it has an Atom chip it could run its own desktop interface if Apple thought it would be easy enough to use.

I do think that technology would be useful in other cases. I'd like my old iMac to run as a second user on my new iMac.... then I'd have 2 fast computers. If Apple enabled that setup, I'm sure they could then let a 3rd party enable it on the iPhone without worrying about ease of use problems.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by Ireland

It will have a 10" screen. Taking bets here!!



Mac touch FTW!

I'm betting on 5"x7", 5"x8" or 5.5"x8.5". Something in that range.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by werbz

I reckon it will be called the iPad (maybe, maybe not, time will tell, but anyway).

C'mon... the Mac iPad? Say that three times fast and think again.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by GregAlexander

Apple was definitely working on a Tablet - they said so in an article 6 months back about the development of the iPhone and how they took their engineers off the Tablet project and put them onto iPhone.

However - Apple has also said they produce up to 10 "pixel perfect prototypes" of their new products and seriously develop 3 ... only then choosing the best.

Apple is the best company around, but they talk a lot of shit too. If Steve said he takes 10 shits in a row until he does the right one some people would actually take him at his word. I may be way off with some of my predictions, we'll see, but I remain convinced that it's best to think for yourself.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

I'm betting on 5"x7", 5"x8" or 5.5"x8.5". Something in that range.

Just under 5 3/4" x just under 8 1/4" is a 10" screen.

[probably]

Though it's doing well, what I had wanted Amazon to do with the Kindle was turn textbook publishers upside down and make that expense as nominal as buying a bestseller paperback on Amazon.

Do you know how many higher education students would pay for a Kindle-sized device to replace all the textbooks they'd ever need to carry somewhere? How enticing that would be for well-endowed universities to adopt and dispense (serving as an attractive, modern branding for the college, too?)

Of course, the business plan I can't envision is the whole telling-publishers-we're-paying-10%-of-what-you-charge-for-your-glossy-economics-textbook part.