"You guys could ask for anything and you want a two button mouse?"
kinda makes you wonder if anyone at apple even pays attention to any of this. if they did, they'd make quite a bit of money by offering it as an option. i love apple and will never use m$, but... uh, except for my m$ 2-button, scroll wheel mouse, with bluetooth, because apple's won't make one... JUST GIMMIE DAH BLEEPIN MOUSE, APPLE... please i'm begging you... please (whimper).
i really think that the two-button mouse thing is just Steve refusing to admit he was wrong !!
Then why'd he ship two button mice with NeXT boxes?
OK, I've got a challenge for the two-button people, just to keep the sort of fantasy product development angle going: Since presumably you want an Apple two-button mouse because you're convinced that they'll come up with a better solution than the likes of Logitech will on their own, what improvements do you think they'd make? What features, construction, design, etc. would set off an Apple two-button mouse from its hundreds of peers? Flex those creative muscles and let's see what you come up with.
i already have an apple two button mouse.. the obvious one and my control key i mean come on.. is it really that hard to tap a button.. its second nature to me now
Then why'd he ship two button mice with NeXT boxes?
OK, I've got a challenge for the two-button people, just to keep the sort of fantasy product development angle going: Since presumably you want an Apple two-button mouse because you're convinced that they'll come up with a better solution than the likes of Logitech will on their own, what improvements do you think they'd make? What features, construction, design, etc. would set off an Apple two-button mouse from its hundreds of peers? Flex those creative muscles and let's see what you come up with.
How about this:
Take the current apple mouse, cut the top peice down the long axis. You now have two button mouse (with the appropriate internals) Create a mechinism inside that can be manually switched from the bottom that makes it operate as a one button or two button. (making the right half move in tandem with the left for one button use, and move freely for two.)
You will have the same basic look and still keep it simple for new users, while giving advanced users a choice.
How about a hotkey to enable scrolling when that option is available. Say you are browsing and you want to scroll, you hols down "x" key and as you move your mouse up and down the page scrolls.
Yeah, one of the mouse buttons could have a little plastic or metal thing inside and the other button would have a hole for the plastic thing to go into, locking the buttons together. A switch on the bottom moves the lock back and forth. Also, when in two button mode, doing a chord (clicking both buttons at the same time) would be like a middle click. Middle-clicking (or scroll-clicking) in IE for Windows puts an icon on the screen and if your pointer goes above the icon, it scrolls up and if it goes below, it scrolls down. The farther above or below the icon your pointer is, the faster it scrolls. Also, middle-clicking a link would open it in a new tab or a new window.
OK, I've got a challenge for the two-button people, just to keep the sort of fantasy product development angle going: Since presumably you want an Apple two-button mouse because you're convinced that they'll come up with a better solution than the likes of Logitech will on their own, what improvements do you think they'd make? What features, construction, design, etc. would set off an Apple two-button mouse from its hundreds of peers? Flex those creative muscles and let's see what you come up with.
13.3" (1024 x 768) iBook replaces 12 and 14 inch models. It just makes more sense, at least to me. The 12" seems a bit too small, but the 14" seems like too much, considering it's the same resolution.
Other improvements (aside from the usual speed increases and such) would include slot-loading optical drive and stylus for drawing on the touchpad (toggles between normal mode and drawingpad mode).
Since we don't appear to be limited to currently shipping technologies (or even physically possible technologies, per the Star Trek references!), here goes.
I want a tablet. Not anything like the MS crap, but a real, thought-through design: 300ppi OLED screen printed on heavy-gauge Mylar for durability, backed by an entirely solid-state machine with every part soldered down firmly (including a generous allotment of RAM). The board would be suspended in a carbon fiber cage (as the PowerBooks are) and shockmounted. The back and sides of the case would be designed to act as a crumple zone in case the machine was dropped, to minimize hard shock to the machine itself, and all edges would be trimmed in rubber. The case could be easily replaced in the event that it got broken, as could the screen if it somehow got dented or torn (the material I'm thinking of is a type of polyester film used for drumheads - most varieties are tested to withstand pressures of 1000-1800psi, so it's not easy to accomplish the former, nor especially easy to do the latter). Since everything is solid-state, the machine would be thin and like, and it would last long on battery power. It would have onboard Bluetooth and 802.11*, a USB port for peripherals, and FireWire and Ethernet jacks for high speed communication (including syncing to another Mac), a headphone jack and a power jack. A bluetooth stylus - nice and plump in the ergonomic style, not one of those chopstick designs - would be included, and replacements would be inexpensive. The back would include a picture frame stand that could be released to perch the tablet upright for use with a keyboard and mouse when convenient. There would be sizes from about paperback dimensions up through a 16:10 about the size of legal paper for more high-end work.
Software wise, the tablet would run the same OS X available anywhere else, so the following updates would be in place in OS X:
No-apologies HWR, widely and transparently supported (this is IMO why Apple is shipping InkWell with no obvious use yet - it has to be refined and broadly supported by applications before Apple can build hardware around it);
Frameworks updated to enable the sort of dynamism NewtonScript supported, but built on (and within) existing OS X technologies (this shouldn't be all that hard in Cocoa at least);
Full support for gestures, a la Newton;
Adaptive energy-saving mode for wireless networking, that profiles applications for network use (so that it can shut off if none of the applications currently running use the network) and is otherwise smart about when to be on and when to be off;
Support for pressure sensitivity and pen angle (sorry Wacom!);
Resolution independent UI.
Besides revealing exactly how far away I think a workable tablet is , this would rock my world. A light, durable, powerful and network-savvy companion that I could sync at high speed with other Macs, and with which I could work in whatever manner I pleased (on the couch with a pen, on the desk with a keyboard, on the couch with a keyboard and the screen sitting upright on the coffee table, etc.).
Yeah... oh beautiful. Thanks heaps. I'm almost iTablet-Clean-And-Sober and then I find this compelling addiction, er, description. Thanks Amorph.
I'd like Apple to do a serious contribution to the Open Source community. What I have in mind is Cocoa, Quartz and QuickTime. Before they open them up they have to have made ports to Windows and Linux.
Erm... why would they have to do the ports? Surely half the point of making things open source is that it means that interested parties can port it themselves?
In many cases, Mac OS ports have been available within days of a piece of software being open-sourced, Duke Nukem for example, which was quickly ported to OS X after the linux build was open sourced. Marathon on the other hand is an example of a Mac game being ported to Windows by the open source community.
Oh, and FYI, Quicktime is already available on Windows, and Linux has an even smaller percentage of the market than Mac OS, whilst still being just as hard to port to as Windows, making it of highly questionable value for Apple to tear its engineers away from improving Mac OS X in order to port chunks of it to niche markets.
And exactly what will a port of Quartz do for Windows users? Are you imagining it as a drop-in replacement for the windows GUI compositor/renderer? How would that work? Not a single existing piece of Windows software would support it, and some very ugly hacking would be needed to make it work with the rest of the Windows OS.
The same is true of Cocoa - all existing cocoa frameworks are mac-specific. Porting Cocoa would just mean that every time a programmer downloads a 3rd party framework they would have to try and guess whether it was for Mac or Windows.
I'm sorry but I don't think you have any idea about how software works.
I don' think Amorph's tablet idea is any good. [ducks impending projectiles hurled by angry mob].
Wait, before you lynch me, here's why:
I don't think the concept of a tablet as some kind of new paradigm is particularly interesting. Essentially what is being suggested is a device which costs roughly the same as a powerbook, but rather than being used as a 'portable desktop', you really need to own a desktop 'server' to make full use of it.
OS X is not suited to a mouseless, keyboardless design. The Dock would not work well with a stylus, at least not in its present incarnation and double-clicking and contextual menus are all done differently in tablet OSes like PalmOS or Windows CE, and with good reason (double clicking with a stylus is awkward, and right-clicking is impossible). Most applications work much better with keyboard shortcuts for things like copy and paste. If you had to use the menu bar to do all those you would soon get irritated. Software would therefore need to be re-written with a choice of interface styles for tablet/desktop users.
It doesn't have a hard disk. I know solid state memory is the best thing since sliced bread, but for the forseeable future it will always be more expensive per megabyte than hard disk space. So clearly a tablet is no good for storing large documents or applications - most of your stuff would need to be stored externally and accessed wirelessly.
It doesn't have an optical drive. How exactly are you supposed to install an OS on it? Does it 'sync' with your desktop? Can you treat it as a USB/firewire volume and drag and drop the OS? What if your friend wants to give you some documents to put on it (not software of course, that would be wrong :-)), does he have to have a wireless card too (and his computer with him)? Or a USB flash drive? Most people I know still exchange stuff on CDRs.
It doesn't have a keyboard, so you can't write a book on it. Maybe you could use an on-screen keyboard but everybody knows they suck. So you need a bluetooth keyboard or something. That's more expense, and you can't carry it very far. Also it means seperate power supplies for each device that will all run out at different times. And its awkward, can you imagine trying to wedge your tablet into the sofa whilst you type on your detached keyboard?
You can take it on holiday but you can't bring all your software with you. You can't use it to write email on a train unless you have very legible handwriting (I don't). It is the ideal platform for photoshop work, but it doesn't have the disk space for large documents.
Sounds like a kludge to me.
What I want is a very simple change to the existing powerbook design that would give virtually all the benefits of this tablet but without any of the drawbacks. I want a screen that rotates 360 degrees (or 180, depending on implementation). That's it - a powerbook with a screen that can be turned right over so that it can close with the screen facing upwards. Nothing else.
Instantly you have a device that can be either a 1" thick tablet with a large hard disk and an optical drive, or you have a regular powerbook. Your choice to make whatever the situation demands. The extra expense would be minimal - just a couple hundred dollars at most for a really sturdy hinge mechanism (and it has to be perfect because I'm sick of my PB hinges breaking) and the rest would be no different than it is now.
Now maybe you can think of ways that this is less good than a tablet for some purposes: Heavier and with less battery life for example (so go back to having interchangeable battery/optical drive modules), but ultimately this is always going to be the best of both worlds and also sufficiently close to an already tried and tested design that it isn't a gamble to develop it. After all, if people don't care for the swing screen they don't have to use it.
I like many of Amorph's tablet ideas, especially with regard to energy saving and durability features of solid state. But what I essentially want is a fully functional computer that via all the iLife apps is truly the hub of my digital lifestyle. It should, thru airport, enable me to wirelessly connect to the web, wirelessly print, wirelessly access the Powermac in my office. All from my couch.
What I am speaking of is basically an iBook that folds into a tablet configuration. For me this would be my "Living Room Computer". I want a computer for less than $1K that sits in a dock like cradle on top of my entertainment center. I could come home from work and grab it as I head for the couch. It would automatically wake from sleep, and wirelesly connect to my 30"HD Cinema Display / TV, mirroring the view I have of the screen. I could browse the web, DJ my iTunes collection which would play thru my rack stereo system, I could iChat my pals from the couch, I could use it as a TV controller (remote) and browse and record the nights offerings. I could load a DVD from the couch that would play on my 30" TV. I could show my visiting friends my latest slideshow cued up from the couch. This would be the world's greatest remote control, from which I could conduct a multimedia symphony on any and all of my home's media equipment.
If Apple wants a computer to be the digital hub, it needs to work with the hardware investments people have already made as well as open future hardware opportunities for Apple such as a TV / Tivo type device. I want my computer to interface seamlessly with my TV, the reciever and speakers I have owned for years, I want to control this Digital lifestyle from my living room, not my office, not thru a 12" screeen or thru headphones. Americans love their Living Room / Entertainment Centers, bring the computer to the living room and let it control it all.
Just for fun, it should have a 3" beer coaster built into the waterproof display
It doesn't have a hard disk. I know solid state memory is the best thing since sliced bread, but for the forseeable future it will always be more expensive per megabyte than hard disk space. So clearly a tablet is no good for storing large documents or applications - most of your stuff would need to be stored externally and accessed wirelessly.
This is supposed to be a fantasy - I'm not sure cost is supposed to be an issue!!
Quote:
Originally posted by Socrates
It doesn't have an optical drive. How exactly are you supposed to install an OS on it? Does it 'sync' with your desktop? Can you treat it as a USB/firewire volume and drag and drop the OS? What if your friend wants to give you some documents to put on it (not software of course, that would be wrong :-)), does he have to have a wireless card too (and his computer with him)? Or a USB flash drive?.
I would guess that should be yes, yes, yes and yes.
Quote:
Originally posted by Socrates
Most people I know still exchange stuff on CDRs..
They will stop when they all have these!
Quote:
Originally posted by Socrates
It doesn't have a keyboard, so you can't write a book on it. Maybe you could use an on-screen keyboard but everybody knows they suck. So you need a bluetooth keyboard or something. That's more expense, and you can't carry it very far. Also it means seperate power supplies for each device that will all run out at different times. And its awkward, can you imagine trying to wedge your tablet into the sofa whilst you type on your detached keyboard?..
Not sure many people write books on their sofa. Clearly if you are going to be inputting long text, keyboard is still quicker even than pefect handwriting recognition, but you will probably be at a desk anyway - hence the picture frame stand. How about digital dictation built in? Or for the train a bluetooth flexible roll-up or fold-up keyboard (advance on some of the palm keyboards out there)
And hey, stop being so practical, some people are fantasising here!!
This is supposed to be a fantasy - I'm not sure cost is supposed to be an issue!!
It's not just cost. Would you rather have one device to meet all your computing needs, or two?
Quote:
I would guess that should be yes, yes, yes and yes.
So again when you buy your expensive new computer you would find that you would need to have another expensive computer in order to actually install any software on it.
Quote:
They will stop when they all have these!
And what happens to the poor mug who is the first in his circle of friends to buy one? It's bad enough being the only Mac user I know, but at least I can swap documents with my PC mates.
Quote:
Not sure many people write books on their sofa. Clearly if you are going to be inputting long text, keyboard is still quicker even than pefect handwriting recognition, but you will probably be at a desk anyway - hence the picture frame stand.
Do you suppose that all writers buy laptops just so they can sit at a desk?
I'm sorry but this is insane. What the hell is the point of having an ultra-portable device that needs you to carry around a separate keyboard and can only be used at a desk?
Quote:
How about digital dictation built in? Or for the train a bluetooth flexible roll-up or fold-up keyboard (advance on some of the palm keyboards out there)
How about a keyboard conveniently built into the casing, and a screen mounted with an adjustable angle for comfortable viewing.
Quote:
And hey, stop being so practical, some people are fantasising here!!
Myself included. I am fantasising about a computer I would buy and could be built tommorow, you are fantasising about a machine that cannot be built with present day technology except at impossible prices, and would not be as good for most users as the laptops we can currently buy anyway.
You don't have to like my idea, you don't even have to agree with my points, but to critisise me on the grounds that I'm not being pie-in-the-sky enough for you is about the lamest thing I've heard yet on these forums.
Can somebody else please kick this guy's ass now so I don't have to?
Comments
--Keynote iPod should really be real right now --
But,
Quote:
Originally posted by Nitzer
You guys could ask for anything and you want a two button mouse?
(...& a scroll wheel)
YES.
kinda makes you wonder if anyone at apple even pays attention to any of this. if they did, they'd make quite a bit of money by offering it as an option. i love apple and will never use m$, but... uh, except for my m$ 2-button, scroll wheel mouse, with bluetooth, because apple's won't make one... JUST GIMMIE DAH BLEEPIN MOUSE, APPLE... please i'm begging you... please (whimper).
Originally posted by Amorph
For another, QE only needs a 16MB AGP RADEON. That's ancient tech that Apple should have no trouble at all providing.
Actually, it requires a 16MB AGP RADEON MOBILITI.
Originally posted by KingOfSomewhereHot
i really think that the two-button mouse thing is just Steve refusing to admit he was wrong !!
i absolutely agree!
Originally posted by KingOfSomewhereHot
i really think that the two-button mouse thing is just Steve refusing to admit he was wrong !!
Then why'd he ship two button mice with NeXT boxes?
OK, I've got a challenge for the two-button people, just to keep the sort of fantasy product development angle going: Since presumably you want an Apple two-button mouse because you're convinced that they'll come up with a better solution than the likes of Logitech will on their own, what improvements do you think they'd make? What features, construction, design, etc. would set off an Apple two-button mouse from its hundreds of peers? Flex those creative muscles and let's see what you come up with.
though Not Invented By Steve (Sculley gets some credit), the tech is now available...
bits of Sherlock/Watson, an iSight w/iChat AV, laptop/tablet form factor...
still cited as the Holy Grail Concept Video of Human Computer Interaction
once Melissa Gates got hold of it, it mutated into Microsoft Bob... worst. product. ever.
please give us the Steve version.
Originally posted by Amorph
Then why'd he ship two button mice with NeXT boxes?
OK, I've got a challenge for the two-button people, just to keep the sort of fantasy product development angle going: Since presumably you want an Apple two-button mouse because you're convinced that they'll come up with a better solution than the likes of Logitech will on their own, what improvements do you think they'd make? What features, construction, design, etc. would set off an Apple two-button mouse from its hundreds of peers? Flex those creative muscles and let's see what you come up with.
How about this:
Take the current apple mouse, cut the top peice down the long axis. You now have two button mouse (with the appropriate internals) Create a mechinism inside that can be manually switched from the bottom that makes it operate as a one button or two button. (making the right half move in tandem with the left for one button use, and move freely for two.)
You will have the same basic look and still keep it simple for new users, while giving advanced users a choice.
How about a hotkey to enable scrolling when that option is available. Say you are browsing and you want to scroll, you hols down "x" key and as you move your mouse up and down the page scrolls.
Put that in your pipe...
That would be nice. I'd use it.
OK, I've got a challenge for the two-button people, just to keep the sort of fantasy product development angle going: Since presumably you want an Apple two-button mouse because you're convinced that they'll come up with a better solution than the likes of Logitech will on their own, what improvements do you think they'd make? What features, construction, design, etc. would set off an Apple two-button mouse from its hundreds of peers? Flex those creative muscles and let's see what you come up with.
My thoughts (earlier thread):
http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...008#post451008
dglow
13.3" (1024 x 768) iBook replaces 12 and 14 inch models. It just makes more sense, at least to me. The 12" seems a bit too small, but the 14" seems like too much, considering it's the same resolution.
Other improvements (aside from the usual speed increases and such) would include slot-loading optical drive and stylus for drawing on the touchpad (toggles between normal mode and drawingpad mode).
Originally posted by Amorph
Since we don't appear to be limited to currently shipping technologies (or even physically possible technologies, per the Star Trek references!), here goes.
I want a tablet. Not anything like the MS crap, but a real, thought-through design: 300ppi OLED screen printed on heavy-gauge Mylar for durability, backed by an entirely solid-state machine with every part soldered down firmly (including a generous allotment of RAM). The board would be suspended in a carbon fiber cage (as the PowerBooks are) and shockmounted. The back and sides of the case would be designed to act as a crumple zone in case the machine was dropped, to minimize hard shock to the machine itself, and all edges would be trimmed in rubber. The case could be easily replaced in the event that it got broken, as could the screen if it somehow got dented or torn (the material I'm thinking of is a type of polyester film used for drumheads - most varieties are tested to withstand pressures of 1000-1800psi, so it's not easy to accomplish the former, nor especially easy to do the latter). Since everything is solid-state, the machine would be thin and like, and it would last long on battery power. It would have onboard Bluetooth and 802.11*, a USB port for peripherals, and FireWire and Ethernet jacks for high speed communication (including syncing to another Mac), a headphone jack and a power jack. A bluetooth stylus - nice and plump in the ergonomic style, not one of those chopstick designs - would be included, and replacements would be inexpensive. The back would include a picture frame stand that could be released to perch the tablet upright for use with a keyboard and mouse when convenient. There would be sizes from about paperback dimensions up through a 16:10 about the size of legal paper for more high-end work.
Software wise, the tablet would run the same OS X available anywhere else, so the following updates would be in place in OS X:
No-apologies HWR, widely and transparently supported (this is IMO why Apple is shipping InkWell with no obvious use yet - it has to be refined and broadly supported by applications before Apple can build hardware around it);
Frameworks updated to enable the sort of dynamism NewtonScript supported, but built on (and within) existing OS X technologies (this shouldn't be all that hard in Cocoa at least);
Full support for gestures, a la Newton;
Adaptive energy-saving mode for wireless networking, that profiles applications for network use (so that it can shut off if none of the applications currently running use the network) and is otherwise smart about when to be on and when to be off;
Support for pressure sensitivity and pen angle (sorry Wacom!);
Resolution independent UI.
Besides revealing exactly how far away I think a workable tablet is
Yeah... oh beautiful. Thanks heaps. I'm almost iTablet-Clean-And-Sober and then I find this compelling addiction, er, description. Thanks Amorph.
Aries 1B
(Checking back into iTablet Rehab)8)
Originally posted by Henriok
I'd like Apple to do a serious contribution to the Open Source community. What I have in mind is Cocoa, Quartz and QuickTime. Before they open them up they have to have made ports to Windows and Linux.
Erm... why would they have to do the ports? Surely half the point of making things open source is that it means that interested parties can port it themselves?
In many cases, Mac OS ports have been available within days of a piece of software being open-sourced, Duke Nukem for example, which was quickly ported to OS X after the linux build was open sourced. Marathon on the other hand is an example of a Mac game being ported to Windows by the open source community.
Oh, and FYI, Quicktime is already available on Windows, and Linux has an even smaller percentage of the market than Mac OS, whilst still being just as hard to port to as Windows, making it of highly questionable value for Apple to tear its engineers away from improving Mac OS X in order to port chunks of it to niche markets.
And exactly what will a port of Quartz do for Windows users? Are you imagining it as a drop-in replacement for the windows GUI compositor/renderer? How would that work? Not a single existing piece of Windows software would support it, and some very ugly hacking would be needed to make it work with the rest of the Windows OS.
The same is true of Cocoa - all existing cocoa frameworks are mac-specific. Porting Cocoa would just mean that every time a programmer downloads a 3rd party framework they would have to try and guess whether it was for Mac or Windows.
I'm sorry but I don't think you have any idea about how software works.
Socrates
I don' think Amorph's tablet idea is any good. [ducks impending projectiles hurled by angry mob].
Wait, before you lynch me, here's why:
I don't think the concept of a tablet as some kind of new paradigm is particularly interesting. Essentially what is being suggested is a device which costs roughly the same as a powerbook, but rather than being used as a 'portable desktop', you really need to own a desktop 'server' to make full use of it.
OS X is not suited to a mouseless, keyboardless design. The Dock would not work well with a stylus, at least not in its present incarnation and double-clicking and contextual menus are all done differently in tablet OSes like PalmOS or Windows CE, and with good reason (double clicking with a stylus is awkward, and right-clicking is impossible). Most applications work much better with keyboard shortcuts for things like copy and paste. If you had to use the menu bar to do all those you would soon get irritated. Software would therefore need to be re-written with a choice of interface styles for tablet/desktop users.
It doesn't have a hard disk. I know solid state memory is the best thing since sliced bread, but for the forseeable future it will always be more expensive per megabyte than hard disk space. So clearly a tablet is no good for storing large documents or applications - most of your stuff would need to be stored externally and accessed wirelessly.
It doesn't have an optical drive. How exactly are you supposed to install an OS on it? Does it 'sync' with your desktop? Can you treat it as a USB/firewire volume and drag and drop the OS? What if your friend wants to give you some documents to put on it (not software of course, that would be wrong :-)), does he have to have a wireless card too (and his computer with him)? Or a USB flash drive? Most people I know still exchange stuff on CDRs.
It doesn't have a keyboard, so you can't write a book on it. Maybe you could use an on-screen keyboard but everybody knows they suck. So you need a bluetooth keyboard or something. That's more expense, and you can't carry it very far. Also it means seperate power supplies for each device that will all run out at different times. And its awkward, can you imagine trying to wedge your tablet into the sofa whilst you type on your detached keyboard?
You can take it on holiday but you can't bring all your software with you. You can't use it to write email on a train unless you have very legible handwriting (I don't). It is the ideal platform for photoshop work, but it doesn't have the disk space for large documents.
Sounds like a kludge to me.
What I want is a very simple change to the existing powerbook design that would give virtually all the benefits of this tablet but without any of the drawbacks. I want a screen that rotates 360 degrees (or 180, depending on implementation). That's it - a powerbook with a screen that can be turned right over so that it can close with the screen facing upwards. Nothing else.
Instantly you have a device that can be either a 1" thick tablet with a large hard disk and an optical drive, or you have a regular powerbook. Your choice to make whatever the situation demands. The extra expense would be minimal - just a couple hundred dollars at most for a really sturdy hinge mechanism (and it has to be perfect because I'm sick of my PB hinges breaking) and the rest would be no different than it is now.
Now maybe you can think of ways that this is less good than a tablet for some purposes: Heavier and with less battery life for example (so go back to having interchangeable battery/optical drive modules), but ultimately this is always going to be the best of both worlds and also sufficiently close to an already tried and tested design that it isn't a gamble to develop it. After all, if people don't care for the swing screen they don't have to use it.
Just my two cents,
Socrates
What I am speaking of is basically an iBook that folds into a tablet configuration. For me this would be my "Living Room Computer". I want a computer for less than $1K that sits in a dock like cradle on top of my entertainment center. I could come home from work and grab it as I head for the couch. It would automatically wake from sleep, and wirelesly connect to my 30"HD Cinema Display / TV, mirroring the view I have of the screen. I could browse the web, DJ my iTunes collection which would play thru my rack stereo system, I could iChat my pals from the couch, I could use it as a TV controller (remote) and browse and record the nights offerings. I could load a DVD from the couch that would play on my 30" TV. I could show my visiting friends my latest slideshow cued up from the couch. This would be the world's greatest remote control, from which I could conduct a multimedia symphony on any and all of my home's media equipment.
If Apple wants a computer to be the digital hub, it needs to work with the hardware investments people have already made as well as open future hardware opportunities for Apple such as a TV / Tivo type device. I want my computer to interface seamlessly with my TV, the reciever and speakers I have owned for years, I want to control this Digital lifestyle from my living room, not my office, not thru a 12" screeen or thru headphones. Americans love their Living Room / Entertainment Centers, bring the computer to the living room and let it control it all.
Just for fun, it should have a 3" beer coaster built into the waterproof display
Originally posted by Socrates
It doesn't have a hard disk. I know solid state memory is the best thing since sliced bread, but for the forseeable future it will always be more expensive per megabyte than hard disk space. So clearly a tablet is no good for storing large documents or applications - most of your stuff would need to be stored externally and accessed wirelessly.
This is supposed to be a fantasy - I'm not sure cost is supposed to be an issue!!
Originally posted by Socrates
It doesn't have an optical drive. How exactly are you supposed to install an OS on it? Does it 'sync' with your desktop? Can you treat it as a USB/firewire volume and drag and drop the OS? What if your friend wants to give you some documents to put on it (not software of course, that would be wrong :-)), does he have to have a wireless card too (and his computer with him)? Or a USB flash drive?.
I would guess that should be yes, yes, yes and yes.
Originally posted by Socrates
Most people I know still exchange stuff on CDRs..
They will stop when they all have these!
Originally posted by Socrates
It doesn't have a keyboard, so you can't write a book on it. Maybe you could use an on-screen keyboard but everybody knows they suck. So you need a bluetooth keyboard or something. That's more expense, and you can't carry it very far. Also it means seperate power supplies for each device that will all run out at different times. And its awkward, can you imagine trying to wedge your tablet into the sofa whilst you type on your detached keyboard?..
Not sure many people write books on their sofa. Clearly if you are going to be inputting long text, keyboard is still quicker even than pefect handwriting recognition, but you will probably be at a desk anyway - hence the picture frame stand. How about digital dictation built in? Or for the train a bluetooth flexible roll-up or fold-up keyboard (advance on some of the palm keyboards out there)
And hey, stop being so practical, some people are fantasising here!!
Originally posted by CatharticFlux
I want an 80% off one-day sale at the Apple Store
hehe.. i love my educational discount
Originally posted by tompage
This is supposed to be a fantasy - I'm not sure cost is supposed to be an issue!!
It's not just cost. Would you rather have one device to meet all your computing needs, or two?
I would guess that should be yes, yes, yes and yes.
So again when you buy your expensive new computer you would find that you would need to have another expensive computer in order to actually install any software on it.
They will stop when they all have these!
And what happens to the poor mug who is the first in his circle of friends to buy one? It's bad enough being the only Mac user I know, but at least I can swap documents with my PC mates.
Not sure many people write books on their sofa. Clearly if you are going to be inputting long text, keyboard is still quicker even than pefect handwriting recognition, but you will probably be at a desk anyway - hence the picture frame stand.
Do you suppose that all writers buy laptops just so they can sit at a desk?
I'm sorry but this is insane. What the hell is the point of having an ultra-portable device that needs you to carry around a separate keyboard and can only be used at a desk?
How about digital dictation built in? Or for the train a bluetooth flexible roll-up or fold-up keyboard (advance on some of the palm keyboards out there)
How about a keyboard conveniently built into the casing, and a screen mounted with an adjustable angle for comfortable viewing.
And hey, stop being so practical, some people are fantasising here!!
Myself included. I am fantasising about a computer I would buy and could be built tommorow, you are fantasising about a machine that cannot be built with present day technology except at impossible prices, and would not be as good for most users as the laptops we can currently buy anyway.
You don't have to like my idea, you don't even have to agree with my points, but to critisise me on the grounds that I'm not being pie-in-the-sky enough for you is about the lamest thing I've heard yet on these forums.
Can somebody else please kick this guy's ass now so I don't have to?
Socrates