Speculation: Wireless multitouch display
The more I think about it, the more likely it seems that Apple is planning a wireless multitouch display for the Mac. It's elegant, technically feasible, and it would be a great bridge product -- giving users a chance to try multitouch without buying a computer that depends on it entirely. I even think there are strong hints that Apple already has multipoint input working in Leopard.
Does Apple already have multipoint input working?
In the iChat video on Apple's Leopard preview site, the narrator describes a new feature in iChat:
"Screen Sharing lets you remotely observe and control your buddy's display -- from the other room, or another time zone. Initiate a Screen Sharing session and iChat immediately kicks off an audio chat so you can talk through simultaneous control of a single Mac desktop. Create web sites together, make travel plans, or review that big presentation. iChat with display sharing opens a whole new world of collaborative possibilities."
First of all, Apple has clearly been putting some work into remote desktops if they're encouraging users to collaborate on real, graphics-heavy work across the internet. That would be useful in a wireless display. But what's really interesting here is that Apple has made remote desktop software that's user-friendly enough for iChat.
Most remote desktop software isn't aimed at mass-market products because of a huge usability problem: cramming multiple mice into an OS that expects a single cursor. There are three ways to handle multiple mice on a remote desktop:
1. Force users to share a single mouse pointer
A Bridge Product
Anyone who's seen Jeff Han's work knows the potential of multitouch user interfaces. But touch screens would be a real ergonomic problem on most desks today -- which have large monitors a good distance from the keyboard. If Apple wants to try bringing multitouch to Mac OS X (and, iChat conspiracy theories aside, I bet they do), they'll need a bridge product that lets users experience multitouch without completely committing to it.
A wireless display would be a perfect first step. Docked, it would look and acts like a standard LCD monitor; it would have multitouch, but you'd be free to ignore it and use the mouse. Internally, it would have a mobile CPU, RAM, and 802.11n, but the stuff would be mostly idle when it was sitting on your desk. When you unhooked it it would come to life, running remote desktop software to mirror your display seamlessly. But don't call it a tablet; all the hardware would be there to give the illusion that it's just a wireless monitor.
(The other hardware gotcha is that you might want an extra wireless interface on the dock for a dedicated 802.11n link. That way you're insulated from bad connections or slow routers.)
It's not hard to imagine users liking multitouch in a form factor like this. A few new gestures is all you'd need to browse the web and queue up songs on iTunes from the couch. An iPhone-style soft keyboard isn't ideal for heavy typing, but it should work fine for entering URLs and filling out forms. And being able to switch between landscape and portrait would be great.
A Quartz Window Server
The hardware would be nothing new to Apple: take an iPhone and strip away anything you don't need to run a remote desktop. Scale up the screen and the battery, and you've got the hardware you need for a wireless display.
On the software side, things are more complicated. Hextile-encoded VNC is very usable on a 100Mbps LAN -- and 802.11n should be able to match that performance. But usable isn't quite enough if you want people to think of it as a wireless monitor; you need it to be transparent.
The most likely implementation for Apple would be to have the display act as a remote window server. The host computer would send the contents of each surface separately, and the display would be in charge of doing all the compositing. Quartz Compositor uses a client-server model internally, so the hooks should already be in place; all you need is an efficient wire protocol. Add a mobile GPU to the display, and you have a window server implemented almost entirely in hardware.
Quicktime integration will be an important optimization. Protocols like VNC try to display video by reading in the uncompressed frames, run-length encoding them, and sending them across the network. Apple will want to add hooks to Quicktime so that it can stream the original, compressed video to the display; that should make it possible to watch full-screen HD video over 802.11n (at around 25Mbps, instead of the 1.5Gpbs that uncompressed HD needs).
With local compositing and Quicktime integration, performance will be great for most applications; it really will feel like you're just using a monitor. Window dragging and GUI animations can be done without sending graphics across the network (assuming the textures fit in video RAM). Video plays smoothly. Even crazy UIs like Time Machine's should perform well. Software doing heavy animation will stutter, so wireless mode won't be good for 3d games -- but everything else should be pretty slick.
Wishful thinking?
Besides my hand-waving about iChat, I have no actual evidence that Apple's working on bringing multitouch to the Mac. But they should be. Users, hardware manufacturers, and even furniture designers will have to do some experimenting to get the ergonomics right for extended use at a desk, but a tablet-style device for the couch is a no-brainer.
The best way for Apple to introduce multitouch would probably be in the form of an iMac with a wireless display. I'm picturing something like the iMac G4, with an articulated screen that users could angle and bring close to the keyboard if they decide to give up their mice. Multitouch notebooks are another option, but it would be hard for lazy people like me to overcome the muscle-memory of reaching down to use the touchpad. I need a wireless multitouch display to get me into the habit of interacting with the screen directly; but I want the reassurance of a mouse waiting for me on my desk just in case the grand experiment of multitouch doesn't pan out.
Does Apple already have multipoint input working?
In the iChat video on Apple's Leopard preview site, the narrator describes a new feature in iChat:
"Screen Sharing lets you remotely observe and control your buddy's display -- from the other room, or another time zone. Initiate a Screen Sharing session and iChat immediately kicks off an audio chat so you can talk through simultaneous control of a single Mac desktop. Create web sites together, make travel plans, or review that big presentation. iChat with display sharing opens a whole new world of collaborative possibilities."
First of all, Apple has clearly been putting some work into remote desktops if they're encouraging users to collaborate on real, graphics-heavy work across the internet. That would be useful in a wireless display. But what's really interesting here is that Apple has made remote desktop software that's user-friendly enough for iChat.
Most remote desktop software isn't aimed at mass-market products because of a huge usability problem: cramming multiple mice into an OS that expects a single cursor. There are three ways to handle multiple mice on a remote desktop:
1. Force users to share a single mouse pointer
2. Draw two fake cursorsVNC does this, and for collaboration it's a usability nightmare. You need to take turns moving the cursor, or nobody can click on what they want. It's like trying to get work done on a Ouija board. And if one user wants to select the button to shut down his VNC server, the other can make it pretty hard for him.
3. Add true multipoint input to the user interfaceIf you're only dealing with atomic mouse clicks, you can fake multiple cursors by drawing two pointers. In the background you have the real, invisible cursor jump around the screen generating events in all the right places. It works okay in many cases. But things break down strangely when users start trying to drag things simultaneously: either User A unexpectedly loses control of what he was dragging, or User B has to wait for his friend to release his button before he can do anything. It's confusing and unintuitive.
So iChat's screen sharing makes me think Apple's already got multipoint input working. From the description in their video, it probably works in the OS and their own applications (or at least iWeb, Safari, and Keynote). But lots of third-party applications will need tweaking before multitouch works as expected everywhere. It doesn't make sense to do all this work just to add a new feature to iChat, no matter how cool. So I think Apple really added multipoint input to OS X for the other obvious application: desktop multitouch.As far as I can see, true multipoint input is the only way to make remote desktops user-friendly enough for the mass market. You need to add support to the OS, the standard widgets, and any applications that do custom mouse handling. It's a big job, but the alternatives all suck in one way or another.
A Bridge Product
Anyone who's seen Jeff Han's work knows the potential of multitouch user interfaces. But touch screens would be a real ergonomic problem on most desks today -- which have large monitors a good distance from the keyboard. If Apple wants to try bringing multitouch to Mac OS X (and, iChat conspiracy theories aside, I bet they do), they'll need a bridge product that lets users experience multitouch without completely committing to it.
A wireless display would be a perfect first step. Docked, it would look and acts like a standard LCD monitor; it would have multitouch, but you'd be free to ignore it and use the mouse. Internally, it would have a mobile CPU, RAM, and 802.11n, but the stuff would be mostly idle when it was sitting on your desk. When you unhooked it it would come to life, running remote desktop software to mirror your display seamlessly. But don't call it a tablet; all the hardware would be there to give the illusion that it's just a wireless monitor.
(The other hardware gotcha is that you might want an extra wireless interface on the dock for a dedicated 802.11n link. That way you're insulated from bad connections or slow routers.)
It's not hard to imagine users liking multitouch in a form factor like this. A few new gestures is all you'd need to browse the web and queue up songs on iTunes from the couch. An iPhone-style soft keyboard isn't ideal for heavy typing, but it should work fine for entering URLs and filling out forms. And being able to switch between landscape and portrait would be great.
A Quartz Window Server
The hardware would be nothing new to Apple: take an iPhone and strip away anything you don't need to run a remote desktop. Scale up the screen and the battery, and you've got the hardware you need for a wireless display.
On the software side, things are more complicated. Hextile-encoded VNC is very usable on a 100Mbps LAN -- and 802.11n should be able to match that performance. But usable isn't quite enough if you want people to think of it as a wireless monitor; you need it to be transparent.
The most likely implementation for Apple would be to have the display act as a remote window server. The host computer would send the contents of each surface separately, and the display would be in charge of doing all the compositing. Quartz Compositor uses a client-server model internally, so the hooks should already be in place; all you need is an efficient wire protocol. Add a mobile GPU to the display, and you have a window server implemented almost entirely in hardware.
Quicktime integration will be an important optimization. Protocols like VNC try to display video by reading in the uncompressed frames, run-length encoding them, and sending them across the network. Apple will want to add hooks to Quicktime so that it can stream the original, compressed video to the display; that should make it possible to watch full-screen HD video over 802.11n (at around 25Mbps, instead of the 1.5Gpbs that uncompressed HD needs).
With local compositing and Quicktime integration, performance will be great for most applications; it really will feel like you're just using a monitor. Window dragging and GUI animations can be done without sending graphics across the network (assuming the textures fit in video RAM). Video plays smoothly. Even crazy UIs like Time Machine's should perform well. Software doing heavy animation will stutter, so wireless mode won't be good for 3d games -- but everything else should be pretty slick.
Wishful thinking?
Besides my hand-waving about iChat, I have no actual evidence that Apple's working on bringing multitouch to the Mac. But they should be. Users, hardware manufacturers, and even furniture designers will have to do some experimenting to get the ergonomics right for extended use at a desk, but a tablet-style device for the couch is a no-brainer.
The best way for Apple to introduce multitouch would probably be in the form of an iMac with a wireless display. I'm picturing something like the iMac G4, with an articulated screen that users could angle and bring close to the keyboard if they decide to give up their mice. Multitouch notebooks are another option, but it would be hard for lazy people like me to overcome the muscle-memory of reaching down to use the touchpad. I need a wireless multitouch display to get me into the habit of interacting with the screen directly; but I want the reassurance of a mouse waiting for me on my desk just in case the grand experiment of multitouch doesn't pan out.
Comments
Really, though, that's a great post and idea. I think the most likely scenario would be the "detachable screen" iMac. When docked it's just a regular old iMac (although with an option to enable multi-touch), when removed it's a wireless tablet for around the house.
That would actually be the kind of tablet I could see Apple getting behind, as opposed to the current Windows entire computer behind the display thing. OTOH, such a beast would have to limit its screen size for "detachable" to be very useful.
And on yet another hand: once you get all the window serving and local Quartz and QT hardware issues worked out, is it really going to be much more expensive to just put a Mini in there?
So maybe not a detachable iMac screen, but a smaller form factor that serves as home adjunct to your server/desktop, but instead of limited Front Row/iPhone type functionality offers your whole computer, with multi-touch optimized apps. Let's assume that as apps are updated they get a multi-touch option that can be toggled.
With a decent enough high res screen this could be a really nice device. But the price will probably be in the upper range of the iPhone and perhaps a bit more for the bigger screen and battery.
Would people be wanting to pay $599-$799 for a wifi enabled eBook reader if they could have a full-featured MacBook for not much more? I would, but not sure a lot of other people will. Especially as the iPhone CPU is not nearly as powerful as a MacBook's. And apps running on this device will be as 'closed' as the ones on the iPhone.
It is not intended as a MacBook tablet edition. Such a device would more likely be >$1000. It'll be cheaper than that, but at $600+ likely too expensive for its functionality. And I do not think Apple could offer it for less than the iPhone...
I can see Apple producing a wifi Internet terminal / media viewer with multitouch display. It's basically an iPhone the size of a 15" Mac Book Pro screen, minus the phone part, plus more battery.
With a decent enough high res screen this could be a really nice device. But the price will probably be in the upper range of the iPhone and perhaps a bit more for the bigger screen and battery.
Would people be wanting to pay $599-$799 for a wifi enabled eBook reader if they could have a full-featured MacBook for not much more? I would, but not sure a lot of other people will. Especially as the iPhone CPU is not nearly as powerful as a MacBook's. And apps running on this device will be as 'closed' as the ones on the iPhone. It is not intended as a MacBook tablet edition. Such a device would more likely be >$1000.
A wireless remote screen associated with a Mac would be both much more powerful and compact and much less useful than a full on tablet or WiFi internet iPhone thing.
More powerful because it would use the horsepower of the Mac to do the heavy lifting, more compact because it wouldn't need it's own full on computer. Less useful because it would tethered to that Mac, so it's an "in your house" thing, like iTV or an Apple Remote.
So I think the question is, if Apple makes a wireless screen, does leaving out the Mac mean they could price it to be attractive as a Mac accessory? If not, I think they should just go with a full on tablet with multi-touch, if anything a all.
It would be slightly more expensive than your wireless display, but it would not need a Mac or PC host (with a fast wifi link).
The wireless display is one way of doing that. Relative to buying a separate tablet computer, it's fairly cheap: you're already selling the user a screen with their iMac, so you just have to convince them to pay for the 802.11n, embedded CPU and cheap mobile GPU, RAM and a battery. I can imagine this being an option on a future iMac -- maybe around $300, subsidized by lower-end models.
A much simpler (but less snazzy) way to sneak in the tablet is to put it in a big box with the word "iMac" on the side. Imagine a slimmed-down version of the current iMac design, with all-bluetooth peripherals and an internal battery. Just unhook it from the stand, and you've got a tablet. I'm much less excited about that idea, but I gotta admit it's a lot simpler than a wireless design.
-John
addabox, I envision this product to be more powerful than a mere wireless display (needing a host Mac) but less powerful than a MacBook. Literally just to view podcasts, PDFs and browse the web if you're near a wifi hotspot. It won't do Word or Excel, but you can do anything that's web based as long as you're on wifi.
It would be slightly more expensive than your wireless display, but it would not need a Mac or PC host (with a fast wifi link).
Actually, I'm just riffing off of jcf's detailed evocation of such a device.
See, I don't think anybody has figured out this "tablet" deal. There's a niche for a few industries to use PC type tablets, but it really hasn't caught on like, well, the people that were convinced that Apple had to have one right now thought it would.
The trouble with a tablet "lite" is that once you can do all that is there any reason not to go full computer? Once you can browse the web with a multi-touch interface how far are you from a Mini in a different package?
I actually don't know, but I think to make sense there would have to be a pretty steep price delta from "big iPhone" to "multi-touch tablet" to make it a smart thing to do.
In other words, I think a big iPhone would need to come in around $500 to justify the loss of functionality over an iBook, cool interface or no.
The wireless multitouch display might be a good solution for high-end machines. But on the low end, an LCD iMac that you can remove from its stand just makes more sense.
The virtual keyboard shown on the iPhone means you don't have to mess around with the awkward and elaborate swivel screens that we see on some PC tablets-- basically just differently hinged laptops with touch screens. Plus you save on the depth, weight and cost of a keyboard/swivel arrangement.
I've never been a tablet enthusiast--I just don't see how it improves much over a laptop and have long maintained that once you get over pocket size (iPod iPhone etc) some intermediate size like 6" or 9" or something just isn't that useful. Keep it something you can carry around in a shirt pocket or make it big enough to be really useful, at least around the screen size of the old 12" Powerbook. But then why not just a light sub-notebook?
But multi-touch is the real killer app that changes that. A small pad that can do real things with little effort and an amazingly elegant work-around for the no keyboard problem. The option for an iPhone like UI for the "real" Mac OS X, for fast movement around your most used apps, or a touch version of the standard interface.
2 lbs, .75" thick, 12" screen, some kind of premium over a standard MacBook, since now you're not loosing functionality, you're gaining portability.
Sign me up.
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalks....cfm?key=j_han
and then researched the Apple acquired FingerWorks technology
http://FingerWorks.com.
I have several posts elsewhere on my research of MT including here
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...53#post1032353
and here
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...40#post1033040.
I've been lusting after a ~3lb ultraportable 12" Macbook with an embedded MT panel in lieu of a keyboard since I first started thinking about MT. I had not thought about a wireless MT device as was described here and I think the concept has real merit. Once you see the MT concept, it triggers many imaginative implimentations. Apple has had 2+ years to design and test many different MT prototypes, the first of which is the "baby application" of MT in the iPhone.
I think MT is/will be Apple's killer App and will change the way users interact with computers until "Hal/Star Trek" computers arrive on the scene. And I think it's coming sooner rather than later.
Thanks to all here for planting new MT ideas in my head.
1.) Turning a whole iMac into some portable display:
The reason the iMac is cheap is because it has a cheap 3.5" HD and bigger (cheaper) cooling components.
Shrink that down to display size and you more likely will run into a price range of a MacBook Pro, and be far away from the $999 or $1,199 of the current iMacs. Or do you think people happily trade their 250GB HD for a 60GB one?
With a comparable HD size and ATi or Nvidia GPU the basic 'Tablet iMac' would likely b $2,000+ at which point most people won't buy it. No matter how cool the removable display feature is.
2.) Virtual keyboard on the one display
Laptops can easily be used on a desk (and most people prefer working on a desk or table) because the keyboard is flat on the desk surface while the screen is raised upwards.
With a single display tablet the screen has to be put down on the desk surface. This means the screen is looked at from an angle, which often distorts the colors. And your fingers hide whatever text you're working on, requiring you to scroll and reposition your text much more often. Not convenient.
What makes the iPhone cheap is that it has no HD, no DVD and only 4 or 8GB of storage. Not 120+ like a MacBook Pro or 160+ like an iMac.
Turning a wifi display into a Mac mini is surely easy, but then it will likely be 2" thick as well. Do we want that? Thin engineering is a lot more expensive that's why MacBooks have lower specs than iMacs costing more money. People who buy iMacs do want the processing power, they would not be happy with a lowly MacBook and Intel GPU. And with more power and dedicated GPU we're again talking MacBook Pro prices...
The one thing I can envision is a laptop consisting of two multitouch displays that can be opened flat on the desk giving one big display (albeit with a break in the middle), but you can also use it (almost) like a normal notebook typing on a virtual keyboard on the lower screen.
But with two screens this machine will be a lot more expensive than even the MacBook Pro, not because 2 screens are so expensive, but because the MacBook Pro vents a lot of heat through the keyboard. If you place an LCD there, it'll sustain thermal damage. Apple would have to completely rework the heat flow for the lower part ensuring no heat escapes upwards, but only sideways. And that would be a difficult engineering feat.
However you look at it, a multitouch display plus Mac mini will likely be a lot more expensive than the cost of a cheap display plus a $599 mini. And anything with real new functionality as in 2 displays will likely cost even more than the expensive MacBook Pro models.
That's why the only useful choice is to cut everything (like DVD drive and HD) and go for a 4 or 8GB eBook reader / wifi Internet terminal with a low power iPhone CPU. Such a device could be made relatively cheap.
The odds of Apple releasing such a device with a full blown Intel CPU, 30GB of Flash storage and no DVD drive at a $799 or lower price point? Not very high.
I think there are a couple of issues mixed here which pose some engineering challenges:
1.) Turning a whole iMac into some portable display:
The reason the iMac is cheap is because it has a cheap 3.5" HD and bigger (cheaper) cooling components.
Shrink that down to display size and you more likely will run into a price range of a MacBook Pro, and be far away from the $999 or $1,199 of the current iMacs. Or do you think people happily trade their 250GB HD for a 60GB one?
With a comparable HD size and ATi or Nvidia GPU the basic 'Tablet iMac' would likely b $2,000+ at which point most people won't buy it. No matter how cool the removable display feature is.
2.) Virtual keyboard on the one display
Laptops can easily be used on a desk (and most people prefer working on a desk or table) because the keyboard is flat on the desk surface while the screen is raised upwards.
With a single display tablet the screen has to be put down on the desk surface. This means the screen is looked at from an angle, which often distorts the colors. And your fingers hide whatever text you're working on, requiring you to scroll and reposition your text much more often. Not convenient.
What makes the iPhone cheap is that it has no HD, no DVD and only 4 or 8GB of storage. Not 120+ like a MacBook Pro or 160+ like an iMac.
Turning a wifi display into a Mac mini is surely easy, but then it will likely be 2" thick as well. Do we want that? Thin engineering is a lot more expensive that's why MacBooks have lower specs than iMacs costing more money. People who buy iMacs do want the processing power, they would not be happy with a lowly MacBook and Intel GPU. And with more power and dedicated GPU we're again talking MacBook Pro prices...
The one thing I can envision is a laptop consisting of two multitouch displays that can be opened flat on the desk giving one big display (albeit with a break in the middle), but you can also use it (almost) like a normal notebook typing on a virtual keyboard on the lower screen.
But with two screens this machine will be a lot more expensive than even the MacBook Pro, not because 2 screens are so expensive, but because the MacBook Pro vents a lot of heat through the keyboard. If you place an LCD there, it'll sustain thermal damage. Apple would have to completely rework the heat flow for the lower part ensuring no heat escapes upwards, but only sideways. And that would be a difficult engineering feat.
However you look at it, a multitouch display plus Mac mini will likely be a lot more expensive than the cost of a cheap display plus a $599 mini. And anything with real new functionality as in 2 displays will likely cost even more than the expensive MacBook Pro models.
That's why the only useful choice is to cut everything (like DVD drive and HD) and go for a 4 or 8GB eBook reader / wifi Internet terminal with a low power iPhone CPU. Such a device could be made relatively cheap.
The odds of Apple releasing such a device with a full blown Intel CPU, 30GB of Flash storage and no DVD drive at a $799 or lower price point? Not very high.
hobBIT--you make some excellent engineering points, particularly with respect to heat flows in the 2 screen laptop. Having had 2+ years to design and test prototypes, it will be interesting to see what Apple comes up with.
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...8&postcount=54
I think there are a couple of issues mixed here which pose some engineering challenges:
1.) Turning a whole iMac into some portable display:
The reason the iMac is cheap is because it has a cheap 3.5" HD and bigger (cheaper) cooling components.
Shrink that down to display size and you more likely will run into a price range of a MacBook Pro, and be far away from the $999 or $1,199 of the current iMacs. Or do you think people happily trade their 250GB HD for a 60GB one?
With a comparable HD size and ATi or Nvidia GPU the basic 'Tablet iMac' would likely b $2,000+ at which point most people won't buy it. No matter how cool the removable display feature is.
Well $2000+ is only $500 more than a $1500 20" iMac and gives you mobility options. When prices drop on flash drives you could have a std HDD in the base and a flash drive in the tablet part.
Yes, it would be an expensive iMac but a reasonably priced iTablet given that when docked you have a reasonably featured desktop. And tablets are somewhat expensive anyway.
You could have a desktop dock to make it iMac like and a "mobile" dock that docks the tablet into a keyboard, HDD, bigger battery and optical drive. The "mobile" dock would essentially turn it into a laptop.
The flash drive holds the OS and your most needed data files. Moderately limited without the docks but useful enough to take to meetings. With wireless connectivity you could still have access to the HDDs.
Depending on how the multitouch is implemented you could likely still have a digitizer built in for stylus use. If I recall correctly its a mesh behind the LCD with a pretty decent range...for inductive sensors anyway. More cost but as JCG points out a stylus is better for photoshop.
Vinea
However you look at it, a multitouch display plus Mac mini will likely be a lot more expensive than the cost of a cheap display plus a $599 mini. And anything with real new functionality as in 2 displays will likely cost even more than the expensive MacBook Pro models.
That's why the only useful choice is to cut everything (like DVD drive and HD) and go for a 4 or 8GB eBook reader / wifi Internet terminal with a low power iPhone CPU. Such a device could be made relatively cheap.
The odds of Apple releasing such a device with a full blown Intel CPU, 30GB of Flash storage and no DVD drive at a $799 or lower price point? Not very high.
Hallo everybody this is my first post!
I think that we are missing the point: a remote screen it is NOT a TabletPC
It is more like a remote control with touch screen capabilities.
For the sake of semplicity think a Apple portable with a button on the back when you push it the screen pops out and you can go around with it.
All the disks, memory and processing power will be in the computer. The portable device have only a small battery that should last for a couple of hours, a wireless connection and the sensing device.
The sensing device is transmitting just raw data to the computer that perform all the processing power. There is already sistems that works this way (Citrix).
About the screen: the iPhone is 0.46 inches thick (mostly due to the camera), the screen device can have the same size.
At this point all the technology is available and owned by Apple.
About the cost you have just to add a small battery, a wireless card and the sensing device.
It could be less then 100$
Add 100 bucks at the iBook price and you have it!
Titan
Hallo everybody this is my first post!
I think that we are missing the point: a remote screen it is NOT a TabletPC
It is more like a remote control with touch screen capabilities.
For the sake of semplicity think a Apple portable with a button on the back when you push it the screen pops out and you can go around with it.
All the disks, memory and processing power will be in the computer. The portable device have only a small battery that should last for a couple of hours, a wireless connection and the sensing device.
The sensing device is transmitting just raw data to the computer that perform all the processing power. There is already sistems that works this way (Citrix).
About the screen: the iPhone is 0.46 inches thick (mostly due to the camera), the screen device can have the same size.
At this point all the technology is available and owned by Apple.
About the cost you have just to add a small battery, a wireless card and the sensing device.
It could be less then 100$
Add 100 bucks at the iBook price and you have it!
Titan
Welcome to Apple Insider. Now here's why your completely wrong about everything
Actually, if you read the original post it's a very good tech rundown of what you're talking about.
But I don't think the multi-touch interface is really designed to work with the latency of a remote screen. It would mean specialized MT optimized apps resident on the main computer, working with the MT hardware on the screen, and doing it fast enough that there wouldn't be any sense of lag.
I think by the time you got a biggish (12") MT screen and the local processing to deal with that, plus the stuff to send and receive data from the main computer, you might as well put a computer in the screen.
If you really could make a small remote screen for $100, then I would say great. But I don't think that's realistic, and once things start getting north of $500 (which I really think would be the case) you're moving into MacBook territory anyway, and why not make it a lot more functional?
My guess is that when it comes to pocket/palmtop/tablet computing, people want really small, or really cheap, or really powerful. If you can't make it cheap and small, better make it powerful, because nobody wants an awkwardly sized thing that's too big to fit in your pocket but too small to be really comfortable, and nobody wants an awkwardly marketed thing that's too expensive to be a toy but can't really hold its own as a tool.
cheap+small = not powerfull
cheap+Powerfull = not small
small+Powerfull = not cheap
so take your pick people....
;P
Welcome to Apple Insider. Now here's why your completely wrong about everything
Thank you!
Maybe I am not... but that's the funny part of exchanging opinions!
Actually, if you read the original post it's a very good tech rundown of what you're talking about.
Actually, that was my first message on AI not on a forum
But I don't think the multi-touch interface is really designed to work with the latency of a remote screen. It would mean specialized MT optimized apps resident on the main computer, working with the MT hardware on the screen, and doing it fast enough that there wouldn't be any sense of lag.
I think by the time you got a biggish (12") MT screen and the local processing to deal with that, plus the stuff to send and receive data from the main computer, you might as well put a computer in the screen.
As I wrote in my post there are already application that perform such tasks, a Citrix intallation work perfectly pratically without latency.
With a 802.11n with the (theoretical) speed between 100 a 150 Mbps it could work wireless.
If you really could make a small remote screen for $100, then I would say great. But I don't think that's realistic, and once things start getting north of $500 (which I really think would be the case) you're moving into MacBook territory anyway, and why not make it a lot more functional?
I was not referring to a new line of computer.
I think a remote screen as an the evolution of the existing lines: you buy an iMac or MacBook you can choose the option of a remote screen for 100/200 $
My guess is that when it comes to pocket/palmtop/tablet computing, people want really small, or really cheap, or really powerful. If you can't make it cheap and small, better make it powerful, because nobody wants an awkwardly sized thing that's too big to fit in your pocket but too small to be really comfortable, and nobody wants an awkwardly marketed thing that's too expensive to be a toy but can't really hold its own as a tool.
Your statement is correct.
My point is that I was not talking about a "pocket/palmtop/tablet computing" but about a remote screen.
I think that we are missing the point: a remote screen it is NOT a TabletPC
It is more like a remote control with touch screen capabilities.
I know... I am quoting myself!
Have a nice weekend
Titan