Compelling images of possible Tablet.
I was doing research on upcoming MID's and found these pictures of an "unknown" device being tested in Asia. The discussion was as to whether this could be an Archos or other type of MID, Apple was only casually mentioned, but when you look at these pictures, pay attention to the MENU BAR on top, where it shows the time......you will see the exact same FONT and interface as when you look at same on your Mac. See for yourself: 
If my supposition is correct, this device is not running Snow Leopard, but a modified version of the iPod Touch.....
Another shot showing size:
I have no experience at all with Photoshop, but I do not see these as being "altered"........any comments??
One last comment. It would make sense for Apple to release this device as non-platform specific. Imagine if the iPod could only run on a Mac?? Their market share out the door for a new product, long in R&D, would be drastically reduced!
If my supposition is correct, this device is not running Snow Leopard, but a modified version of the iPod Touch.....
Another shot showing size:
I have no experience at all with Photoshop, but I do not see these as being "altered"........any comments??
One last comment. It would make sense for Apple to release this device as non-platform specific. Imagine if the iPod could only run on a Mac?? Their market share out the door for a new product, long in R&D, would be drastically reduced!
Comments
Why is is all the fakers only have a few posted. You've came to wrong forum to try to fool people mate.
I quite understand your doubts. I am usually only a "lurker"here, as I come more for reading and research, especially when the rumor-mill is so strong about ANY new Apple device. I had recently purchased a UMPC (Viliv X70), haven grown tired of waiting for the ever/never upcoming Apple Tablet. I was doing research. actually for my X70, when I came across these pictures.
I had seen the same fever-pitch level of excitement in January, before San Francisco, and when nothing transpired, I started looking into the UMPC.
If you look at my "join date", you will see it is quite some years ago, NOT today. I am just someone that loves ALL things Mac.......if this device does surface, trust me, my brand new X70 will be on eBay the same day!
In any event as the title says it is very close to what I'm looking for. A thin smallish screened device with a lot of horse power and massive storage. That and it will be from the iPod mold and not a failed stab at a Mac tablet.
Dave
This couldn't possibly be some 'work of art' from an unscrupulous black market asian manufacture simply getting a leg up on cloning a real Apple tablet (if/when it ever happens).... No... cause nobody would ever try and (visually) clone an Apple branded product right?!
My bet...
Its just what I said... a black market clone of an Apple tablet that doesn't even exist yet... they can steal the Apple font without a problem and they can even rip off what they THINK an Apple tablet might look like (simply by expanding what they know about the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Then again I'm so jaded from all of the other 'almost' tablets I'm not sure I'll even really believe it even when I see it posted all over Apples home page...
Dave
I come from deep inside the "I WANNA BELIEVE" camp but even so...
This couldn't possibly be some 'work of art' from an unscrupulous black market asian manufacture simply getting a leg up on cloning a real Apple tablet (if/when it ever happens).... No... cause nobody would ever try and (visually) clone an Apple branded product right?!
My bet...
Its just what I said... a black market clone of an Apple tablet that doesn't even exist yet... they can steal the Apple font without a problem and they can even rip off what they THINK an Apple tablet might look like (simply by expanding what they know about the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Then again I'm so jaded from all of the other 'almost' tablets I'm not sure I'll even really believe it even when I see it posted all over Apples home page...
Dave
I hear what you're saying, but one can only hope........these are the first pics I have found, that with their surroundings, positioning, resolution etc, don't appear to be photoshopped/modified. If it is just an apple clone, why all the websites showing Apple store, iPhone, etc? I have been watching, waiting for this device for SO many years....have seen the flurry of Patents that Apple have taken out, especially in the past year........I can only hope and dream.....maybe September??
I love the UMPC form factor, am enjoying my X 70, BUT, it's still not an Apple.......I call it the "fruit of the OTHER tree"
Could be real? Maybe, but they could be cheap copies of a non existent Apple tablet or they could be photoshopped... no matter to me anymore... I'll only get a chubby when I see them on Apples home page! Been burnt way too many times. To quote a famous movie cop.... I'm getting to old for this shit!
Dave
I do notice one interesting thing...
The tablets have NO button on them... Now could this mean they are fake? At first glance yes... but on the other hand Steve was quoted (iirc) that he didn't even want to have ANY button on the iPhone but AT&T wouldn't accept a phone with no buttons at all.
Something like that WAS written right? I'm not dreaming that up...
Anyway... if Steve were to have TOTAL say over a brand new consumer device would he go BACK to his 'zero button' vision of perfection?? **or** would be forced to follow what we all recognize as successful 1 button design ala iPhone and iPod touch?
No I must resist.... do not press that submit butt
Oh, where's the link for where you found them?
The Song Taste image, on the right at the top there is a white gap but it tapers as it goes down until the thumbnails at the bottom are actually off-screen.
The image after this, you can see on the iphone on the right, the silver bezel at the top seems to have a square corner. Maybe this is light leakage or a reflection but it looks wrong.
I don't understand why one side of the bezel is wider than the other either unless it's to be branded.
Apple have never used micro-USB in their devices but I guess they could start doing it. I kinda wish they would to be honest, I don't like the large plug. The SD card support would makes sense.
I hope this isn't it though. To me it just seems too small. Maybe that's the biggest they can make the screen without a large risk of it cracking but I just wonder who's going to be spending $700 or more on a device like that. It looks like a 5" screen and to me, that is just a big ipod touch.
The netbook market wants cheap machines that run full operating systems. One of the most popular netbooks - the MSI Wind - on newegg is also among the cheapest at just $290. $700 is already way over double that, especially if it has no camera.
What I want to see for that kind of money is at least a 10" screen, which is this size:
http://3gnetbooks.com/wp-content/upl...ni-10-back.png
To fit on a proper on-screen keyboard, it will need this size of display.
If the images are genuine, I'd say it's more likely to be a 3rd party tablet. Maybe even Dell's rumored tablet. The display doesn't look much different from the screen on the black Mini 10:
http://www.zahipedia.com/wp-content/...diamini10g.jpg
The menu bar looks the same too. Dell and Intel were rumored to be making a 5" touch device to compete with the Kindle.
As to it being real, well if Apple tries to sqaush it early Monday morning you will know the answer to that question. Personally I could see Apple offering up two Touch based tablets by early next year. I just don't see a ten inch device being a huge long term hit. The size is a problem for portability.
Dave
Is it an Apple product though, that is the question to which I have to say no. What do I know though.
...
Well, you ought to know. Apple uses white cables exclusively. What is that black cable with the ugly ridged connector? Look at the Wi-Fi icon in the upper righthand corner. Does that look like the Wi-Fi icon on any Apple device you have ever seen?
My conjecture is that an Apple tablet would work in both landscape and portrait mode. This device is displayed only in landscape mode. The laptop that it is resting on is not an Apple laptop. However, it cribs some Apple design elements. This bigger "iPhone" also cribs iPhone design elements. My verdict: It is not an Apple device. It only wishes that it were.
All this looks like is an iPhone that won't fit in your pocket, it's practically imperfect.
Perfect for the practicle. The whole idea for a device in this size class is to give you something a little bigger than iPhone but at the same time extremely portable. In very real terms it would be as convient or maybe more so than a paperback book. Paper back books by the way can be stuffed into pockets. A device this size actually might go into a pocket even easier than the paperback as it would be thinner and rounded.
As to looking like an iPhone, it's not like the form factor leaves you a lot of wiggle room.
Dave
Well, you ought to know. Apple uses white cables exclusively. What is that black cable with the ugly ridged connector?
I have my doubts about this being an Apple device but this here is poor reasoning. We are talking about a device sitting on some engineers desk. It is likely far from production and certainly didn't come wrapped in a nice box with accessories. So your point isn't even remotely valid.
Look at the Wi-Fi icon in the upper righthand corner. Does that look like the Wi-Fi icon on any Apple device you have ever seen?
now we are onto something. But honestly the pics Are pretty bad.
My conjecture is that an Apple tablet would work in both landscape and portrait mode. This device is displayed only in landscape mode.
Another good point but then again maybe the engineer doesn't like portrait mode.
The laptop that it is resting on is not an Apple laptop.
The laptop simply doesn't come into the equation.
However, it cribs some Apple design elements. This bigger "iPhone" also cribs iPhone design elements. My verdict: It is not an Apple device. It only wishes that it were.
I have my doubts about it being Apple hardware. However as to cribbing iPhone it's not like there are lots of options when it comes to tablet design. There seems to be lots of high expectations of Apple when it comes to tablets but I have to say your options are extremely limited. They are slabs and there isn't much you can do to dress them up
Dave
Don't know if the pics are real or not (they look like what we'd expect) but if they are a sign of things to come, I'd also think that there would be a second (larger) tablet in the mix.
It's not an apple tablet....obviously. It's as what someone has already mentioned here....a prototype from one of the asian manufacturers. It's a MID of some sort that will be on the market soon if not already. It's probably blessed by intel with an atom cpu.
I noticed some are not happy with the devices size, to me it it is close to perfect. That is my desire is for something with a screen close to 7" diagonal, but frankly was hoping for an aspect ratio of 16:9 or wider. This looks to be slightly narrow. In any event I wonder how useful people think that a ten inch class device will be, I just don't see the demand when offered up against something like this.
As to it being real, well if Apple tries to sqaush it early Monday morning you will know the answer to that question. Personally I could see Apple offering up two Touch based tablets by early next year. I just don't see a ten inch device being a huge long term hit. The size is a problem for portability.
Dave
I love the tablet form factor, specifically with a 7" screen, like I have on my UMPC, which will be out the window if these pics indicate an imminent Apple device. From Apple's perspective, they do NOT want to reduce or compete with the popularity of the iPhone/iPod Touch, so a new device needs to be significantly larger, but NOT as large as the traditional laptop. The "book" size really seems to have taken off, as can be seen in the exploding current Netbook/Kindle/eBook Reader market.
Here's a snipping of my X70 - I have marked directly "on-screen" (with stylus) some of the features that one could use this device for:
See how the screen size of an iPod would just be too small for such functionality?? Today, when I went out for lunch, I just popped this into my bag.....now imagine the possibilities if this device could be tethered to the iPhone, or had built in 3G & an HSPA modem. Let's not forget how much research has been done between Apple and a couple of Cell providers relating to 4G.....imagine how it's deployment could increase the potential for this mini-tablet?? For example, found this, one of many reports after a quick Google:
http://www.perivision.net/wordpress/?p=1901
http://www.product-reviews.net/2009/...r-att-in-2009/
The first tablet UMPC's were released just over 3 years ago, I believe, way before their time, as part of the Microsoft Origami Project. They were barely acknowledged, and not exactly widely known, yet if one looks today at the ever-rising popularity of the Netbook/MID, obviously the market is out there, the potential huge, for the next BIG THING. A few companies, such as Asus (T91), Viliv (S5,X70, S7 etc), Samsung (Q1 models), Archos, etc, recognize the potential of the 7" - 9" Tablet form factor. The OQO, which was similar in size to the iPod screen, failed.....the major complaint being screen size (too small). Vilv released their S model with two sizes - 5 and 7 inch, which covers all eventualities for a prospective consumer in selecting his Netbook/MID. With Apple's research & development of their multi-touch gestures, screens, input capabilities, Inkwell (previously little developed), their device if (praying here) it is released...........WOW!!!!!!! Also, let's not forget Windows 7 that will be released this September.....it is heavily "involved" with multi-touch (I know, I know.......FINALLY they might just be releasing an OS that is the illegitimate(?)child/imitator of Appl)e......his Steveness has not let ALL of the above go over his head while recuperating.......nope........he's probably cruising this forum right now, lying on his MacCouch, reading our words off his BigMac (tablet)
If this is the rumored device, why would anyone want an iphone and this? I believe it would be come a choice of iphone or tablet if it was only 6". If it replaced my iphone i might get one, but I'd still want a full size tablet.
Don't know if the pics are real or not (they look like what we'd expect) but if they are a sign of things to come, I'd also think that there would be a second (larger) tablet in the mix.
As I was saying about the UMPC form factor......
Whatever it is it's not a creation in Photoshop. The transition from focus to OOF areas is perfectly consistent with its surroundings.
Oh, where's the link for where you found them?
Believe it or not, I actually found these images on Twitter at a friend's house, downloaded them when I noticed the Font on the menu bar, after seeing the various Apple related website on the device's screen. I will look again, to try and find the original. The above link I was led to during my X70 research (Googling).....I only go to Twitter if I am led there during my inquiries....if you have any idea of how I can find this again, you let me know......it's driving me nuts, like looking for a needle in the proverbial hay(web)- stack!