It would be useful for business with exel word etc. I'm surprised no one has mentioned about how much it would cost if the screen would break plus the surface pro 3 goes above €1500 I think
The size of the screen isn't what stops the iPad from being any good at Excel, or Number for that matter. Touch interface and virtual keyboard is simply a non-starter for spreadsheets. To some degree this applies for Word, Pages, PowerPoint and Keynote too.
I do creative work so I am the market for it. I hope there is pressure sensitivity and a more powerful version of iOS. If i can also make do with it as a laptop alternative then it's a phenomenal product for me. All I am saying is it better be more than just a humongous iPad.
With the 12" fanless Macbook internals, they'd be able to make a tablet Mac that ran all the desktop software. The MB is a bit heavier than the iPad 1 so it would need trimmed down but this would just need a UI reworking. Microsoft is trying to do this with Windows 10 so that it behaves like a responsive website where the UI just scales to different screen sizes. It's not so easy to do with complex software but it's worth considering because generations of people are being brought up with touch computing and keeping desktop software isolated from it is limiting.
The UI elements are small on desktops and would have to be overridden. The window system on desktops would have to go. Dragging around, resizing and closing floating panels on a touch device would be very annoying. Split panes would be a little easier but there's not enough room to do loads at a time.
The idea of having a desktop would have to go too, it would have to startup like iOS with icons in front of a desktop image. When you opened any app, it would load fullscreen with no title bar. The menu system would have to be replaced possibly by a corner icon (Apple logo?) and tapping it can load up a new menu system in the middle of the display (e.g radial or stacks).
When any new window is opened, it would need a tab system. This can be at the top or at the left in a hidden bar like OS X's notification bar. So swipe in from left to show open windows. The main view could be split to show two things at once and they could restrict it to two and a middle split.
App switching can use gestures and the Finder would be completely redone. It could just be a single vertical panel like the notification panel on the right but allow drilling down a hierarchy and also allow multiple splits but one column each. Save/load operations from menus would open this sidebar. External drives would load in the same column.
It can have some restrictions over OS X like not having a beachball, not having an Activity Monitor. The left sidebar can handle this and allow you to close items that are locked up. They don't have to limit it to App Store apps completely but can do this by default.
For software that has UI elements that are still too small, if they had a 3D sensor above the glass, they could detect when a hand is approaching a UI element and scale that area up. This might be like a magnified area or just scale the whole app window.
Typing would still be less efficient than a laptop but the 3D sensor would help. If the range was enough, you could sit the panel in a laptop position with a smartcover holding it up and just tap on the desk in front of it. The display would show where you were tapping. When you tap on a keyboard, you don't always have to look where you are tapping because you remember where the keys are and this would be the same. You could even have dummy rubber keyboards and the sensor would know where you are touching and it can track hand movement on the desk as though you had a trackpad but it wouldn't show an arrow because you can never have more than one arrow, it would have to be something else on-screen.
If it was x86, it might be priced similar to the Macbook but it could get away with 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD vs 8GB/256GB.
Being able to draw on it would be good too but they have to watch for anti-glare coatings getting scratched.
Aspect ratio and camera placement would be other things to work out.
The main thing with a pro product is productivity - creation vs consumption. Being able to code software on it is a big thing like being able write Swift apps and run, debug and deploy them all from the same device. Apple has always promoted the iOS devices as post-pc yet not a single piece of software that they run can be built using them, this all requires a past-pc.
The iPad is for people who lead a loose, relaxed, and multifacted life. Bohemian types, people who need to look up stuff at any time to expand their horizons. People who never get bored.
while i can't vouch for all of that, i will say we use our iPads (plural -- we have two) to look stuff up all the time. wikipedia, IMDB, web.. wouldnt do it if i had to bust out a laptop every time. sounds silly but laptops are just too much like work for me now.
With the 12" fanless Macbook internals, they'd be able to make a tablet Mac that ran all the desktop software. The MB is a bit heavier than the iPad 1 so it would need trimmed down but this would just need a UI reworking. Microsoft is trying to do this with Windows 10 so that it behaves like a responsive website where the UI just scales to different screen sizes. It's not so easy to do with complex software but it's worth considering because generations of people are being brought up with touch computing and keeping desktop software isolated from it is limiting.
My understanding of Windows 10 is not so much that it adapts to what screen size you have but what peripherals you have. So if you only have a touchscreen the buttons are fingertip sized. But if you plug in a mouse the buttons shrink down and menus pop up, all in real time. Unplug the mouse, it changes back. Turn on your Bluetooth stylus, the GUI changes again...
This puts a lot of burden on app developers though, they have to use model-view-controller to keep their app logic separate from the GUI (this is best practice anyway though), and then provide multiple GUIs for the one app.
Comments
With the 12" fanless Macbook internals, they'd be able to make a tablet Mac that ran all the desktop software. The MB is a bit heavier than the iPad 1 so it would need trimmed down but this would just need a UI reworking. Microsoft is trying to do this with Windows 10 so that it behaves like a responsive website where the UI just scales to different screen sizes. It's not so easy to do with complex software but it's worth considering because generations of people are being brought up with touch computing and keeping desktop software isolated from it is limiting.
The UI elements are small on desktops and would have to be overridden. The window system on desktops would have to go. Dragging around, resizing and closing floating panels on a touch device would be very annoying. Split panes would be a little easier but there's not enough room to do loads at a time.
The idea of having a desktop would have to go too, it would have to startup like iOS with icons in front of a desktop image. When you opened any app, it would load fullscreen with no title bar. The menu system would have to be replaced possibly by a corner icon (Apple logo?) and tapping it can load up a new menu system in the middle of the display (e.g radial or stacks).
When any new window is opened, it would need a tab system. This can be at the top or at the left in a hidden bar like OS X's notification bar. So swipe in from left to show open windows. The main view could be split to show two things at once and they could restrict it to two and a middle split.
App switching can use gestures and the Finder would be completely redone. It could just be a single vertical panel like the notification panel on the right but allow drilling down a hierarchy and also allow multiple splits but one column each. Save/load operations from menus would open this sidebar. External drives would load in the same column.
It can have some restrictions over OS X like not having a beachball, not having an Activity Monitor. The left sidebar can handle this and allow you to close items that are locked up. They don't have to limit it to App Store apps completely but can do this by default.
For software that has UI elements that are still too small, if they had a 3D sensor above the glass, they could detect when a hand is approaching a UI element and scale that area up. This might be like a magnified area or just scale the whole app window.
Typing would still be less efficient than a laptop but the 3D sensor would help. If the range was enough, you could sit the panel in a laptop position with a smartcover holding it up and just tap on the desk in front of it. The display would show where you were tapping. When you tap on a keyboard, you don't always have to look where you are tapping because you remember where the keys are and this would be the same. You could even have dummy rubber keyboards and the sensor would know where you are touching and it can track hand movement on the desk as though you had a trackpad but it wouldn't show an arrow because you can never have more than one arrow, it would have to be something else on-screen.
If it was x86, it might be priced similar to the Macbook but it could get away with 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD vs 8GB/256GB.
Being able to draw on it would be good too but they have to watch for anti-glare coatings getting scratched.
Aspect ratio and camera placement would be other things to work out.
The main thing with a pro product is productivity - creation vs consumption. Being able to code software on it is a big thing like being able write Swift apps and run, debug and deploy them all from the same device. Apple has always promoted the iOS devices as post-pc yet not a single piece of software that they run can be built using them, this all requires a past-pc.
Why do you think?
PS: Not that it matters but where did you come up with the 100 number?
I can't imagine going back to a laptop to read in bed or the sofa, or using in the kitchen when we cook...
while i can't vouch for all of that, i will say we use our iPads (plural -- we have two) to look stuff up all the time. wikipedia, IMDB, web.. wouldnt do it if i had to bust out a laptop every time. sounds silly but laptops are just too much like work for me now.
The iPhone got bigger and now the iPad is getting bigger. Next up, return of the 17" Macbook Pro? Woohoo!
With the 12" fanless Macbook internals, they'd be able to make a tablet Mac that ran all the desktop software. The MB is a bit heavier than the iPad 1 so it would need trimmed down but this would just need a UI reworking. Microsoft is trying to do this with Windows 10 so that it behaves like a responsive website where the UI just scales to different screen sizes. It's not so easy to do with complex software but it's worth considering because generations of people are being brought up with touch computing and keeping desktop software isolated from it is limiting.
My understanding of Windows 10 is not so much that it adapts to what screen size you have but what peripherals you have. So if you only have a touchscreen the buttons are fingertip sized. But if you plug in a mouse the buttons shrink down and menus pop up, all in real time. Unplug the mouse, it changes back. Turn on your Bluetooth stylus, the GUI changes again...
This puts a lot of burden on app developers though, they have to use model-view-controller to keep their app logic separate from the GUI (this is best practice anyway though), and then provide multiple GUIs for the one app.