Would the rumoured/anticipated Tablet be a full Mac OS X system?
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From: JF Mezei on 21 Dec 2009 16:33 What would a tablet be used for ? (I ask naively !) The size/form factor may be influenced by the target markets. Something that is usable in a wharehouse/store environment (inventory, pricing etc) would be different from a keyboard-less laptop you put in your briefcase. The later would likely be letter sized. the former would be in between letter and the iphone form factors. Is it to be held with one hand or two hands ? Mostly for reading, or mostly for interacting ?
From: Jochem Huhmann on 21 Dec 2009 16:38 Davoud <star(a)sky.net> writes: > alan.browne(a)gmail.com: >> Let's begin with my desired configuration for a tablet Mac. > > Smart money at the moment is on a large (10-inch) iPod Touch @ $1k or > so. I would guess at $800. It needs to be clearly cheaper than the cheapest MacBook, but not by much to leave healthy profit margins and Apple is good at healthy profit margins. As I said, the real value is not in the hardware anyway but in the ecosystem and nobody else has this. And I'm pretty sure that Amazon already has a Kindle.app for this thing in a beta version and is sweating about what to do with the Kindle. They'll probably sell it for $99 then... Besides, Stanza for the iPhone and iPod touch (an ebook reader), which was bought by Amazon earlier this year, got bumped to version 2.0 a few days ago. I was very much expecting Amazon to starve that piece of code after buying it. That they didn't is a clear indication that they just don't know how to proceed and want to keep all options. Interesting times... Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
From: Jochem Huhmann on 21 Dec 2009 17:57 JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot(a)vaxination.ca> writes: > What would a tablet be used for ? (I ask naively !) Everything that does not require you to type much more than you would on a phone, a TV, a radio, a book, a magazine, a newspaper, when in a movie theater, or on a game console. And with "not much more" please consider a virtual keyboard like the iPhone one on a 10" screen. And then extrapolate this to the general population and not the average writer or programmer or geek. How much need for a real keyboard does the average consumer have? I think that the physical keyboard is about to go the way of the floppy disk. Writers, programmers, office clerks, yes. The consumer, no. An on-screen keyboard on a tablet is enough for 95% of general computer use. When the keypads of phones are enough for millions of text messages a day, a good virtual keyboard on a large and good touchscreen should be good enough, too. > The size/form factor may be influenced by the target markets. Something > that is usable in a wharehouse/store environment (inventory, pricing > etc) would be different from a keyboard-less laptop you put in your > briefcase. The later would likely be letter sized. the former would be > in between letter and the iphone form factors. > > Is it to be held with one hand or two hands ? Mostly for reading, or > mostly for interacting ? I think that the iPhone is very clearly optimized for one-hand use and such a tablet probably for use with two hands, holding it or laying on a desk or in your lap. Jochem -- "A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
From: Tim McNamara on 21 Dec 2009 20:09 In article <m2ws0gp3ed.fsf(a)revier.com>, Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > Maybe, but don't be surprised if what you get is an oversized iPhone > with an OS based on the iPhone OS. I think that is probably more likely than a full OS X installation. I want one that is 8.5 x 11" or A4 size so that I can digitize all my music lead sheets and just take that to gigs and rehearsals instead of a pile of fake books.
From: Tim McNamara on 21 Dec 2009 20:13
In article <m2oclsovmx.fsf(a)revier.com>, Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > Davoud <star(a)sky.net> writes: > > > alan.browne(a)gmail.com: > >> Let's begin with my desired configuration for a tablet Mac. > > > > Smart money at the moment is on a large (10-inch) iPod Touch @ $1k > > or so. > > I would guess at $800. It needs to be clearly cheaper than the > cheapest MacBook, but not by much to leave healthy profit margins and > Apple is good at healthy profit margins. $899 at intro and $799 three months later, and then the iTouch at $599 and iTouch Pro at $799 a year later. Plus a 3G data plan, possibly from Verizon. Or maybe Sprint, who would be as desperate as AT&T was two years ago. |