This was an excellent article, and brought back a lot of memories for me. I owned many of the devices!
I think there is a big piece that is missing though, and I think it is the reason why the iPod through iPhone products have been successful where others have not. It has to do with MEDIA. In developing the iPod, Jobs struck deals with all the record labels to offer songs that are downloadable through iTunes. This was the groundbreaking idea, offering the infrastructure all the way from the product (the song) to the listener.
With the iPhone and Apple TV came the deals with TV companies and Studios. Next, with the iSlate, there will be deals with publishers so that we can get rich magazine content on a convenient device. This will be a Kindle killer.
I was also surprised that Danger/Sidekick didn't get a mention, since they were an instrumental player in the business, and inspired teens to get into mobile computing/messaging/social networking.
I hope that it's a scaled down MacBook rather than a scaled up iPhone. x86 rather than ARM. If it does run x86, I'll buy one in an instant to replace my netbook.
And boo for not including Psion in this report.
Tell me what chip that's more energy efficient than ARM? No the Intel Atom is not one of them.
Do Apple have a history of cannibalizing old product names? Wasn't the iBook the "consumer" level portable during the late PowerBook days?
I can only think of minor products getting old product names. i.e. "Superdrive" - which used to be Floppy Disc Drive and "Apple Mouse" which is now the old Mighty Mouse.
With Inkwell dating back to 2003 it's easy to see that Apple have a very well polished product to announce, now that the world is ready.
If Apple decide to make a brilliant device that runs OSX 10.6 where I can install Adobe CS4, Apache, PHP, ColdFusion, Office etc I'm in and you can happily take my cash. But I only want one 3G phone contract.
However, if Apple plump for the iPhone OSX with iTunes AppStore apps lockdown you can count me out. I already have an iPhone 3GS and and a MacBook running CS4 and the rest and that will suit me fine until my contract is up and i'll just pick-up the next gen iPhone.
This tablet needs to replace my laptop - possibly taking out the MacBook Air. What it don't need to be is a large iPhone.
Then you can count yourself out right now. This device will NOT be a micro Mac. It will NOT replace your laptop. And I suppose you want all the ports too, huh. USB, Firewire, eSATA, DVI, RS-232, Parallel, LightSpeed, Mini Displayport, NuBus, SCSI.
In your dreams only. This will be a specialized device and will disappoint all the nerds living in their parent's basements. It will be declared an epic fail, as usual by the usual suspects, and then go on to take a brand new market nobody has thought of by storm. As another blog post said somewhere, Apple will teach us why we need this device and the rest of the industry will follow suit. Just like the Mac. Just like the iPod. Just like the iPhone.
I was also surprised that Danger/Sidekick didn't get a mention, since they were an instrumental player in the business, and inspired teens to get into mobile computing/messaging/social networking.
Actually, Danger/Sidekick devices were popular, but that's NOT because they were good. Sure, they may have looked cool, but the actual software was crap. Even my friend that bought one said that they were pieces of crap, and then a few months later swapped it for an iPhone. Apparently didn't like it enough to even pay the termination fees to get out of contract to stop using it! So... yes, they were popular, but once people bought them, they were pretty unsatisfied with what the phone could do. The device definitely was one of the first to allow a keyboard on a phone, but that's not really original thinking if the phone is intended to be used as a texting device, so I'd say even its main point is pretty lame. The server outage didn't make things better BTW But yeah, it would have sufficed to give Danger one line or so to say it was a third-rate product that got blown away by the iPhone... sort of like what Steve Jobs was saying about Windows, except this time it's Danger.
Then you can count yourself out right now. This device will NOT be a micro Mac. It will NOT replace your laptop. And I suppose you want all the ports too, huh. USB, Firewire, eSATA, DVI, RS-232, Parallel, LightSpeed, Mini Displayport, NuBus, SCSI.
In your dreams only. This will be a specialised device and will disappoint all the nerds living in their parent's basements. It will be declared an epic fail, as usual by the usual suspects, and then go on to take a brand new market nobody has thought of by storm. As another blog post said somewhere, Apple will teach us why we need this device and the rest of the industry will follow suit. Just like the Mac. Just like the iPod. Just like the iPhone.
You see the thing is I'm not that nerd in my parent's basement. As you my have read I would like the tablet to be a replacement for my laptop. Fine - I can do with out most of the connect-ability ports. Accessing DVDs for software loading over a network works fine for the MacBook Air. I would like the ability to run CS4 at least - after all I am a designer and Mac is upheld dearly by the design community.
I would like the tablet change the way people work on a MAC OSX environment the same way the iPhone changed the way people used a mobile phone. I understand the limitations of connect-ability but there should be no issue with capacity as the MBA works fine running CS4.
Not a bad article, makes it clear that Tablets on their own are a hard sell, you need infrastructure and software.
My worries about a tablet are that the display is unprotected during travelling. That is something that a netbook solves. However a good scratch-proof, oleophobic display might not be as fragile as it would initially seem.
Certainly a few App Store applications will be being ported already to the iSlate (for want of a better name right now) by NDA'd third parties. I imagine a few games, some drawing/art software, and other stuff that might look good in the keynote soon.
After the keynote, when iPhone OS 4.0 has been announced, and the 4.0 SDK is out, normal application developers will get up to two months before physical release to tablet-ise their iPhone apps, and create new widgets for the tablet's "desktop". There could be thousands of tablet applications ready by the shipping date - unprecedented for a new class of device from a manufacturer.
If apple decide to make a brilliant device that runs osx 10.6 where i can install adobe cs4, apache, php, coldfusion, office etc i'm in and you can happily take my cash. But i only want one 3g phone contract.
However, if apple plump for the iphone osx with itunes appstore apps lockdown you can count me out. I already have an iphone 3gs and and a macbook running cs4 and the rest and that will suit me fine until my contract is up and i'll just pick-up the next gen iphone.
This tablet needs to replace my laptop - possibly taking out the macbook air. What it don't need to be is a large iphone.
Then you can count yourself out right now. This device will NOT be a micro Mac. It will NOT replace your laptop. And I suppose you want all the ports too, huh. USB, Firewire, eSATA, DVI, RS-232, Parallel, LightSpeed, Mini Displayport, NuBus, SCSI.
In your dreams only. This will be a specialized device and will disappoint all the nerds living in their parent's basements. It will be declared an epic fail, as usual by the usual suspects, and then go on to take a brand new market nobody has thought of by storm. As another blog post said somewhere, Apple will teach us why we need this device and the rest of the industry will follow suit. Just like the Mac. Just like the iPod. Just like the iPhone.
Nopes.
It will have 2 USBs and a Mini Display Port. It's all it needs to be a fully functional computer.
It's an intermediate device. No need for Apple to cannibalize their laptop sales. People will think, what's the point of buying a laptop when the tablet does the same. Vice versa. Prepare to be disappointed.
Exactly. It has to be thought of more as a netbook or as a replacement for a netbook. It might eventually come to replace laptops, (years from now), but it's certainly not going to do so out of the box on the first go.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JustReelFilms
... I'm not surprised if Adobe decides to build CS 4 tablet edition.
Wow. This actually scares me. I sure hope they don't.
On the other hand though, let's face it ... it's probably completely beyond Adobe's capabilities to make CS4 for Apple's tablet at this point. I would say that other software houses have at least a year or two to fill the gap before Adobe would be ready to put anything on it.
Here's hoping Pixelmator has been working on iPhone apps behind the scenes.
As a footnote, Go Corp also brought one of the first antitrust complaints against Microsoft, to the FTC, which failed to act. This led to the Department of Justice taking up the case, which led to a consent decree, which Microsoft essentially ignored, which then led to years of federal litigation against Microsoft.
It will have 2 USBs and a Mini Display Port. It's all it needs to be a fully functional computer.
This is really unlikely given that the Apple product with the closest form factor to the tablet right now (the Air) has only one USB port.
It will have probably have an iPhone dock connector also, so there will be no need for an extra video out port. If there is no need, it won't be included. Apple is usually very anal about that kind of thing.
Personally, I doubt that it will have any connectors other than a headphone jack and a dock connector.
If Apple decide to make a brilliant device that runs OSX 10.6 where I can install Adobe CS4, Apache, PHP, ColdFusion, Office etc I'm in and you can happily take my cash. But I only want one 3G phone contract.
However, if Apple plump for the iPhone OSX with iTunes AppStore apps lockdown you can count me out. I already have an iPhone 3GS and and a MacBook running CS4 and the rest and that will suit me fine until my contract is up and i'll just pick-up the next gen iPhone.
This tablet needs to replace my laptop - possibly taking out the MacBook Air. What it don't need to be is a large iPhone.
There are plenty of Windows 7 tablets out there. Maybe those would better suit your fancy (they don't seem to that popular though). What people want out of this rumored tablet never ceases to amaze me. A sub $1000 tablet would likely run on netbook level hardware as is suggested in almost every thread, and Arm not Atom (so not x86). Hardware wise, that pegs it as a netbook replacement, not a laptop replacement. This shouldn't be expected to replace your laptop unless you use your laptop as a netbook.
Historically tablets have cost more than their touch less counterparts. Apple wont break any new ground here. If you want a tablet to replace a macbook, expect it to cost more than a macbook. If you want one to replace a macbook pro, expect it to cost more than a macbook pro. Of course as you increase cost, you dramatically decrease the number of perspective buyers.
Where Apple will break new ground is in doing things a traditional computing device doesn't, ease of use, and content delivery. For that, you have to deviate a lot from the traditional desktop OS. I think an OS (and apps) designed and optimized for the hardware and touch input provides a much better starting point than OSX does.
Furthermore, can you name one feature of iPhone OS 4.0? You can't because Apple hasn't introduced it yet. An Apple tablet based on iPhone OS would be running at least iPhone OS 4.0 with (likely) a custom UI, if not its own version altogether. Think forward, not backwards. If the hardware was capable and there was demand, you would get your apps on iPhone OS and when you did, they would be optimized for the hardware and designed for a touch screen. Why do so many people want to go down the failed windows route?
Comments
I think there is a big piece that is missing though, and I think it is the reason why the iPod through iPhone products have been successful where others have not. It has to do with MEDIA. In developing the iPod, Jobs struck deals with all the record labels to offer songs that are downloadable through iTunes. This was the groundbreaking idea, offering the infrastructure all the way from the product (the song) to the listener.
With the iPhone and Apple TV came the deals with TV companies and Studios. Next, with the iSlate, there will be deals with publishers so that we can get rich magazine content on a convenient device. This will be a Kindle killer.
I was also surprised that Danger/Sidekick didn't get a mention, since they were an instrumental player in the business, and inspired teens to get into mobile computing/messaging/social networking.
I hope that it's a scaled down MacBook rather than a scaled up iPhone. x86 rather than ARM. If it does run x86, I'll buy one in an instant to replace my netbook.
And boo for not including Psion in this report.
Tell me what chip that's more energy efficient than ARM? No the Intel Atom is not one of them.
Do Apple have a history of cannibalizing old product names? Wasn't the iBook the "consumer" level portable during the late PowerBook days?
I can only think of minor products getting old product names. i.e. "Superdrive" - which used to be Floppy Disc Drive and "Apple Mouse" which is now the old Mighty Mouse.
With Inkwell dating back to 2003 it's easy to see that Apple have a very well polished product to announce, now that the world is ready.
There are two ways this Tablet can go for me.
If Apple decide to make a brilliant device that runs OSX 10.6 where I can install Adobe CS4, Apache, PHP, ColdFusion, Office etc I'm in and you can happily take my cash. But I only want one 3G phone contract.
However, if Apple plump for the iPhone OSX with iTunes AppStore apps lockdown you can count me out. I already have an iPhone 3GS and and a MacBook running CS4 and the rest and that will suit me fine until my contract is up and i'll just pick-up the next gen iPhone.
This tablet needs to replace my laptop - possibly taking out the MacBook Air. What it don't need to be is a large iPhone.
Then you can count yourself out right now. This device will NOT be a micro Mac. It will NOT replace your laptop. And I suppose you want all the ports too, huh. USB, Firewire, eSATA, DVI, RS-232, Parallel, LightSpeed, Mini Displayport, NuBus, SCSI.
In your dreams only. This will be a specialized device and will disappoint all the nerds living in their parent's basements. It will be declared an epic fail, as usual by the usual suspects, and then go on to take a brand new market nobody has thought of by storm. As another blog post said somewhere, Apple will teach us why we need this device and the rest of the industry will follow suit. Just like the Mac. Just like the iPod. Just like the iPhone.
My predictions for jan 27.
Sending girlfriend off.
Calling in sick.
Liveblogs
Clicking "Buy Now"
Sounds like a cool day!
I was also surprised that Danger/Sidekick didn't get a mention, since they were an instrumental player in the business, and inspired teens to get into mobile computing/messaging/social networking.
Actually, Danger/Sidekick devices were popular, but that's NOT because they were good. Sure, they may have looked cool, but the actual software was crap. Even my friend that bought one said that they were pieces of crap, and then a few months later swapped it for an iPhone. Apparently didn't like it enough to even pay the termination fees to get out of contract to stop using it! So... yes, they were popular, but once people bought them, they were pretty unsatisfied with what the phone could do. The device definitely was one of the first to allow a keyboard on a phone, but that's not really original thinking if the phone is intended to be used as a texting device, so I'd say even its main point is pretty lame. The server outage didn't make things better BTW
And I suppose you want all the ports too, huh. USB, Firewire, eSATA, DVI, RS-232, Parallel, LightSpeed, Mini Displayport, NuBus, SCSI.
Yeah!! Throw in PS/2, VGA, HDMI, coaxial audio, Ethernet and phone line for good measure!
One should also of course be able to swap its internal CD for a floppy drive.
Then you can count yourself out right now. This device will NOT be a micro Mac. It will NOT replace your laptop. And I suppose you want all the ports too, huh. USB, Firewire, eSATA, DVI, RS-232, Parallel, LightSpeed, Mini Displayport, NuBus, SCSI.
In your dreams only. This will be a specialised device and will disappoint all the nerds living in their parent's basements. It will be declared an epic fail, as usual by the usual suspects, and then go on to take a brand new market nobody has thought of by storm. As another blog post said somewhere, Apple will teach us why we need this device and the rest of the industry will follow suit. Just like the Mac. Just like the iPod. Just like the iPhone.
You see the thing is I'm not that nerd in my parent's basement. As you my have read I would like the tablet to be a replacement for my laptop. Fine - I can do with out most of the connect-ability ports. Accessing DVDs for software loading over a network works fine for the MacBook Air. I would like the ability to run CS4 at least - after all I am a designer and Mac is upheld dearly by the design community.
I would like the tablet change the way people work on a MAC OSX environment the same way the iPhone changed the way people used a mobile phone. I understand the limitations of connect-ability but there should be no issue with capacity as the MBA works fine running CS4.
My worries about a tablet are that the display is unprotected during travelling. That is something that a netbook solves. However a good scratch-proof, oleophobic display might not be as fragile as it would initially seem.
Certainly a few App Store applications will be being ported already to the iSlate (for want of a better name right now) by NDA'd third parties. I imagine a few games, some drawing/art software, and other stuff that might look good in the keynote soon.
After the keynote, when iPhone OS 4.0 has been announced, and the 4.0 SDK is out, normal application developers will get up to two months before physical release to tablet-ise their iPhone apps, and create new widgets for the tablet's "desktop". There could be thousands of tablet applications ready by the shipping date - unprecedented for a new class of device from a manufacturer.
there are two ways this tablet can go for me.
If apple decide to make a brilliant device that runs osx 10.6 where i can install adobe cs4, apache, php, coldfusion, office etc i'm in and you can happily take my cash. But i only want one 3g phone contract.
However, if apple plump for the iphone osx with itunes appstore apps lockdown you can count me out. I already have an iphone 3gs and and a macbook running cs4 and the rest and that will suit me fine until my contract is up and i'll just pick-up the next gen iphone.
This tablet needs to replace my laptop - possibly taking out the macbook air. What it don't need to be is a large iphone.
exactly
Then you can count yourself out right now. This device will NOT be a micro Mac. It will NOT replace your laptop. And I suppose you want all the ports too, huh. USB, Firewire, eSATA, DVI, RS-232, Parallel, LightSpeed, Mini Displayport, NuBus, SCSI.
In your dreams only. This will be a specialized device and will disappoint all the nerds living in their parent's basements. It will be declared an epic fail, as usual by the usual suspects, and then go on to take a brand new market nobody has thought of by storm. As another blog post said somewhere, Apple will teach us why we need this device and the rest of the industry will follow suit. Just like the Mac. Just like the iPod. Just like the iPhone.
Nopes.
It will have 2 USBs and a Mini Display Port. It's all it needs to be a fully functional computer.
It's an intermediate device. No need for Apple to cannibalize their laptop sales. People will think, what's the point of buying a laptop when the tablet does the same. Vice versa. Prepare to be disappointed.
Exactly. It has to be thought of more as a netbook or as a replacement for a netbook. It might eventually come to replace laptops, (years from now), but it's certainly not going to do so out of the box on the first go.
... I'm not surprised if Adobe decides to build CS 4 tablet edition.
Wow. This actually scares me. I sure hope they don't.
On the other hand though, let's face it ... it's probably completely beyond Adobe's capabilities to make CS4 for Apple's tablet at this point. I would say that other software houses have at least a year or two to fill the gap before Adobe would be ready to put anything on it.
Here's hoping Pixelmator has been working on iPhone apps behind the scenes.
We're all, in one way or another, setting ourselves up for disappointment in a week and a half
(except those who are ignoring the whole thing - but is that anyone?)
Not ignoring the whole thing, but my own expectations are so low that any surprises will be exactly that.
As a footnote, Go Corp also brought one of the first antitrust complaints against Microsoft, to the FTC, which failed to act. This led to the Department of Justice taking up the case, which led to a consent decree, which Microsoft essentially ignored, which then led to years of federal litigation against Microsoft.
Nopes.
It will have 2 USBs and a Mini Display Port. It's all it needs to be a fully functional computer.
This is really unlikely given that the Apple product with the closest form factor to the tablet right now (the Air) has only one USB port.
It will have probably have an iPhone dock connector also, so there will be no need for an extra video out port. If there is no need, it won't be included. Apple is usually very anal about that kind of thing.
Personally, I doubt that it will have any connectors other than a headphone jack and a dock connector.
There are two ways this Tablet can go for me.
If Apple decide to make a brilliant device that runs OSX 10.6 where I can install Adobe CS4, Apache, PHP, ColdFusion, Office etc I'm in and you can happily take my cash. But I only want one 3G phone contract.
However, if Apple plump for the iPhone OSX with iTunes AppStore apps lockdown you can count me out. I already have an iPhone 3GS and and a MacBook running CS4 and the rest and that will suit me fine until my contract is up and i'll just pick-up the next gen iPhone.
This tablet needs to replace my laptop - possibly taking out the MacBook Air. What it don't need to be is a large iPhone.
There are plenty of Windows 7 tablets out there. Maybe those would better suit your fancy (they don't seem to that popular though). What people want out of this rumored tablet never ceases to amaze me. A sub $1000 tablet would likely run on netbook level hardware as is suggested in almost every thread, and Arm not Atom (so not x86). Hardware wise, that pegs it as a netbook replacement, not a laptop replacement. This shouldn't be expected to replace your laptop unless you use your laptop as a netbook.
Historically tablets have cost more than their touch less counterparts. Apple wont break any new ground here. If you want a tablet to replace a macbook, expect it to cost more than a macbook. If you want one to replace a macbook pro, expect it to cost more than a macbook pro. Of course as you increase cost, you dramatically decrease the number of perspective buyers.
Where Apple will break new ground is in doing things a traditional computing device doesn't, ease of use, and content delivery. For that, you have to deviate a lot from the traditional desktop OS. I think an OS (and apps) designed and optimized for the hardware and touch input provides a much better starting point than OSX does.
Furthermore, can you name one feature of iPhone OS 4.0? You can't because Apple hasn't introduced it yet. An Apple tablet based on iPhone OS would be running at least iPhone OS 4.0 with (likely) a custom UI, if not its own version altogether. Think forward, not backwards. If the hardware was capable and there was demand, you would get your apps on iPhone OS and when you did, they would be optimized for the hardware and designed for a touch screen. Why do so many people want to go down the failed windows route?