Apple tablet speculation: high-end graphics, several models - Page 5

You make an excellent point.

Then at least it should be more open than the iPhone. I should be able to get apps for it from nearly anywhere.

I don't think we are thinking too far different, but when I said drawing, I mean actual detailed drawing and sketching, which is not collaborative. I think you are meaning sketching or white boarding or whatever which can have a collaborative element to it.

I would think that whatever characteristics it has, they would be minimal at first so collaboration on documents seems a bit of a stretch to me also. Something like an Office suite for instance would be a big mistake in my view and probably not sell that well even if it was available. MS Office is really too much, and mostly unnecessary for most desktops, let alone a mobile tablet.

I still mostly expect some basic file system action, but very simplified compared to the desktop OS, and document creation via a mobile version of Pages. I'm not sure there will be much more as it seems aimed at consumers not office workers.

There will of course be a "finger painting" app given the popularity of the same thing on the iPhone and the bigger screen available, but my hope is that they have found a way to introduce true ink to the project and something that would allow for a finer control and proper drawing tools.

It seems to me that such a device really would need it and might be considered something of a failure in many quarters if all you can do is draw with a finger, but my expectations may be a bit over-wrought.

I also hope they don't give it the unwieldy name of "iTablet," because aside from being hard to say and too long, that just makes it seem like any other tablet that went before, which i'm hoping it's not. I see it more as an "iBook" (which is still up for grabs I believe) or "Folio" (if it wasn't already taken), or something totally different. Perhaps if they have solved the pen input part, it might even be called Newton.

I don't understand why you exerted yourself to write this crap.http://forums.appleinsider.com/image.../1rolleyes.gif

if by anywhere you mean the iTunes App Store, i'd say you'd be on the money.

Browsing the internet is a pretty big crossover point, as is video that you suggested, and short emails would probably be very easy on a tablet anyway. I would think people spend more time on a netbook surfing the web than they do typing emails, but who knows...

Many will choose a kindle because of lower content costs? You have that backwards, Amazon takes a huge cut out of content sales.... much larger than the anticipated 30% cut Apple would take.

Exactly!

Apple has some good engineers. But a tablet computer that can magically re-write every existing Mac application in the world is beyond even them.

C.

We are actually about 85% in agreement. My only point with Flash, and Java even more so, was that "I" think the netbook market is a very significant one that I think Apple would want to address with a tablet device, since they have nothing else at the moment.

To address that market I think you need full internet capabilities. I agree, the tablet would have to be a multi-purpose device with a myriad of possible uses to succeed. Most of those wouldn't need F&J, as you pointed out, but a certain set of possible uses would. A Swiss Army knife has multiple features, you don't usually need them all for each task, but that doesn't mean you would want them to have left a couple out.

One use I might have for a Tablet would be to get the kids off Runescape on the iMac, so if such a device were to exist but lacked, say Java and a reasonable graphics capability. It wouldn't be able to fulfill one of my possible uses. That might be enough to dissuade me from getting one.

No amount of BS marketing hype from Apple would be able to convince me a missing feature was a 'feature', though past experience tells me they certainly wouldn't be shy at giving it a shot.


As a person who uses a touch interface with desktop OSX exclusively, I continue to be astonished by people who think a mouse is the only possible input device for fine control. Multi-touch via the trackpad anyone?

I manage fine control via the touchpad on my Macbook perfectly well. I don't see why I couldn't continue to do so were the touchpad functionality transferred directly to the screen. Then we have graphics tablets, which for decades have been the premier input device for fine control. Surely it doesn't take much imagination to see that a touch screen with graphic tablet like input would be perfectly usable.

A modified OSX that itself delivered enhanced touch interaction to all applications running under it might be one possibility. The browser on my phone presents web pages in a way that allows for touch interface with them and mechanisms for slick text entry in otherwise tiny fields.

My iPod would have been unusable as of several years ago had I not done a battery replacement myself. Which, I might add, involved having to remove nearly 2mm worth of motherboard and removing a fair percentage of the insulation around the battery in order to get it to fit.

1st batch is gonna be ok? .. hahaha

If it can run a full version of OS X support, supports stylus AND multi-touch inputs, as allows me to run Bootcamp/Parallels/etc, I will buy one and get rid of my thinkpad X61 tablet PC. I need a tablet pc to input Japanese kanji, but I really don't need the keyboard all the time. Apple, I hope you are listening and don't produce just an oversized iPod Touch...Running the iPhone/Touch OS won't cut it. If that happens, it will be time to buy a Modbook.

Apple will likely figure that whatever iSteve wants is pretty much perfect for just about everybody. Their motto should be "Steve's way, or the highway".

I'm surprised there hasn't been any leaked pictures yet.

So you won't be getting one then.

I don't think your needs are typical, and you didn't really state why you actually needed OSX. Although it sounds like you just want access to every Mac and Windows program ever made. Virtually all of those programs will not be designed for touchscreen input and many would feel absolutely clunky on a tablet.

Archos currently makes the tablet closest to what you want in the Archos9 retailing for $549, except it runs Windows 7 starter instead of OSX. There are a couple things to note here:

1. It runs Windows 7 starter edition, which hints at the performance limitations of the platform. An Apple tablet running OSX, but costing less than a Macbook would be subject to similar performance limitations. The OS and many of the programs are built for a more powerful platform, and memory intensive programs and multitasking could bog it down. Netbooks are subject to similar limitations, but having not used one, I can't say how bad it is for sure, but I'm sure I would be able to bring one to a halt if I tried to. iPhone OS and its applications are on the other hand designed for lower powered devices, and it is almost a given that a tablet would receive its own section in the app store with apps optimized specifically for the tablet hardware. Multitasking, once enabled in iPhone OS, would also work better than with OSX due to the properly optimized OS and Apps.

2. It comes with an optical trackpoint and left and right click buttons to replicate a mouse or a trackpad. This points to Archos dissatisfaction with Windows 7 as a touch platform despite all the enhancements Microsoft has added. Furthermore, Apples aesthetic design choices make similar pointing device enhancements unlikely which would mean that that there would be no fall back to a traditional pointing device if the touchscreen was too clunky to use in certain situations (although I guess they could create a virtual trackpad in addition to a virtual keyboard, perhaps in the middle of a split keyboard... that still would not be ideal). iPhone OS and its apps are optimized for touch, so you wouldn't run into these usability problems.

The desire to run OSX apps instead of iPhone OS apps designed for a tablet is short sighted in my opinion. If there is sufficient demand for a tablet app not available on the app store, someone will create it, and when they do it will be optimized for touch input and the tablets hardware. My only wish would be somewhat looser restrictions on the app store. Lastly the iPhone OS installed user base is actually larger than the OSX user base, that combined with the popularity of the App store makes it a more attractive target for developers. The tablet would get more love from developers if it ran some form of iPhone OS.

Mac OS X is a desktop/notebook OS and every application expect the user to have a keyboard a pointing device and full screen.

If you want to run Mac OS X on the small format computer. Apple already make a product called the MacBook Air. It's pretty good.

We have had tablet computers for 10 years now. And our experience shows us that tablet computers are terrible at running desktop apps. Because regular desktop applications are not designed to be used that way.

If you take up screen space with an on-screen virtual keyboard, things get even worse.

Almost every Mac application ever written will simply suck running on a device like this. Which is why every tablet computer created to date has sold in Newton-like quantities.

The iPhone demonstrates very clearly that a radically different form-factor needs a purpose-built user interface.

Putting Mac OS X on a tablet is like putting a steering wheel on a motorcycle.

C.

A good analogy. Many are primed for rejecting whatever Apple comes up with by creating their own arbitrary criteria for technical specs, the OS it will run, and how much it will cost. People who have specific technical expectations are always going to be disappointed no matter what Apple does. We should all know by now that Apple is not focused on the beanie-copter crowd. Their preemptive disappointment should be taken with a grain of salt, with the knowledge that Apple's success with this product will not be a function of their approval (which most of them will never give anyway).

Excellent points there. I would also say an iPhone OS device could also be cheaper and have longer battery life than a Mac OS X device, since it does not need as high performing components. In addition, the larger display and more powerful components of a tablet compared to an iPhone or iPod touch allows for a wider range of applications that may not have been suitable on an iPhone or iPod touch. I think we may see mobile versions of iLife and iWork on the tablet.


Exactly. Consider the iPod vs. the iPhone and iPod touch. Remember all those mockups of a touchscreen iPod with an iPod 5G GUI with virtual click wheel? Compare that to the iPhone GUI. There's a difference and it's due to, as you said, the form factor.


Awesome. My new signature.

High content cost isn't how Apple has operated. It's Apple that has been pressuring record labels to hold back on running up prices for music. And if there's a more cost-conscious set-up than the App Store, I can't think of it.

Low-cost digital content is the very foundation of Apple's success with products like the iPod, the iPhone and the Touch. Why would Apple throw out that foundation when expanding into other media?


I do agree that comparisons with netbooks seem odd. After all, netbooks are all about cheap hardware rife with compromise. Apple hasn't played in that area ever and isn't about to start.

Lets all remember Apple does have a 9.5% ownership of Imagination Technologies ( PowerVR ).
My guess is the "stunning new graphics" are going to be integrated like you say, specifically a SGX543MP4 ( 4 core 200MHz GPU ). It's backwards compatible with the iPhone powerVR chips ( both the 2G/3G and 3Gs ).

The CPU may be multi core too, since the multicore ARM Cortex-A5 has an attractive power ( work/watt) profile, and idle cores can be shut down. Same goes for the beefier A9. All of the compatible with the iPhone.

If the device is OS X compatible, it will also include iPhone/touch compatibility. The iPhone and the app store will immediately propel this device. Why would you release a mobile device that has no apps, and ignore the current apps?

You'll even be able to run them in a little window!

I don't have any sources, I'm just using my crystal ball. Last year about this time. I was hoping for a new ipod touch with 720p outputs and a harddrive. Oh well.

Good question, I think the Zinc -Air battery is more likely at this point. I experimented with this type of battery back in the 90's and it showed good potential. It had good energy density and was light weight. However, it's charging profile was very picky. A little too much voltage and it would destroy the bettery. A company called Evercell tried to market one for use in fishing boats, but it was never reliable enough to succeed. I did learn that ARTX is still working on the technology. They still sell a type of this battery to the mllitary because of it's long shelf life...