Would the rumoured/anticipated Tablet be a full Mac OS X system?
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From: Wes Groleau on 22 Dec 2009 15:55 Fred Moore wrote: > what an Apple tablet would be. I never 'got' the Touch. Perhaps someone > can enlighten me. Take away the phone from an iPhone and what have you > got? I don't own an MP3 player. I don't want to watch movies on a > postage stamp. I don't browse the web in coffee houses. I don't want to > compose emails with my thumbs. What's the point of a stand-alone GPS > without a phone? It's big enough to be tolerable for you-tube, but not full-length movies. Reading e-mail--not bad. Calendar--useful. Web-well, when out and about, if you NEED something, not bad. Keyboard sucks but it is usable. I needed a PDA calendar, so a used $100 iPod touch gave me the other stuff as a bonus. And how did I ever live without the app that makes lightsaber sounds when I wave it? :-) -- Wes Groleau Rant on using folk wisdom in the classroom http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1015
From: Doc O'Leary on 22 Dec 2009 13:24 In article <m2oclsovmx.fsf(a)revier.com>, Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > 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. I'm not sure why you think new technology must necessarily be cheaper than old technology. It seems perfectly reasonable for them, if they wanted to make tablets, to offer a parallel product line for iTouch devices at the same price as normal notebooks. But I maintain the same thing that I have for years: a wireless monitor makes a lot more sense than a tablet. A larger device built on the iTouch technology would be nice, but the size limits the portability, and what I'd *really* pay for is the ability to just grab my work off my desk and take it to a meeting. Make it a direct connection when it's at my desk (possibly using MagSafe-style connectors), but it instantly becomes a Screen Sharing WiFi thin client when I need it to. Might not work so well with the larger monitors these days, but if Apple is doing *anything* tablet-esque, that is what I want more than anything. It's really the only thing that makes sense to me in the spectrum between the existing mobile, notebook, and desktop markets. Bonus points are, of course, that it could be a thin client *all* the time. So instead of a business with modest needs having to buy 10 people $1500 iMac setups, and maybe forcing them to settle for cheap Dell boxes instead, you sell them on 9 $599 thin clients that share to one $3000 Pro. It works at the consumer level, too, where a parent could give each child their own "Mac Protege", allowing them to maintain control from their desktop Mac. -- My personal UDP list: 127.0.0.1, localhost, googlegroups.com, ono.com, and probably your server, too.
From: Fred Moore on 22 Dec 2009 13:35 Alan, the techie in me completely agrees with you (though I want to know where the FireWire 3200 port is in your specs ;) ). But the marketer in me KNOWS that Joachem is spot on. (My complements on your perspicuity, Joachem!) Apple built 'the computer for the rest of us' once upon a time; they will build 'the tablet for the rest of us' now and ignore gripes from you and I that the device is too 'dumbed down'. Apple may be a niche player as some Dozeheads claim, but Apple still wants to and must sell millions of units. They do this by making complicated technology easy to use by the technologically clueless. I think Joachem's point and his tie-in with Apple's business model is so accurate it bears repeating: In article <m27hsfq5kw.fsf(a)revier.com>, Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > I mean, you might not like it when you're looking for a PC or a Mac in a > tablet. But I think many people aren't looking for that. They are > looking for something straight and simple which delivers what they're > after. Music, movies, photos, newspapers, magazines, documents, all of > the web, email, games, simple apps. You don't need OS X for that and > you don't need a real keyboard, a mouse, menus and windows. You get 80% > of it with an iPod touch right now and having a much larger screen and > more CPU-power and more memory would go for 95%. Adding all the > complexity of a "full" OS for the remaining 5% would be silly. Michelle put it even more simply: In article <michelle-4C860F.18490821122009(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Michelle Steiner <michelle(a)michelle.org> wrote: > I don't care which OS Apple's tablet will use: a modified Mac OS, a > modified iPhone OS, or one written just for it. So long as it can do what > I want it to do, and I can afford it, I'll buy one. If Apple can do that they'll sell TENS of millions! What you and I want is a MacBook Air that's half a millimeter thick, weighs 5 grams, and can leap tall buildings at a single bound while connected though every data exchange protocol in the known universe. That's not gunna happen till the 24th century, okay maybe 2050. An Apple tablet _will_ likely be an overgrown iPod Touch, with its limited OS X. That's probably why I've never properly conceptualized what an Apple tablet would be. I never 'got' the Touch. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. Take away the phone from an iPhone and what have you got? I don't own an MP3 player. I don't want to watch movies on a postage stamp. I don't browse the web in coffee houses. I don't want to compose emails with my thumbs. What's the point of a stand-alone GPS without a phone? But once you give me a decent-sized screen to go along with the connectivity...it's 'Well, hello beautiful, can I take you home with me?' That's one of the reasons I'm certain Apple will have Bluetooth in any tablet it produces. There's too much connectivity and neat things to do with Bluetooth. And since it's the week before Christmas, here's a technological haha, hoho, and heehee gift (a speculation on an Apple tablet form factor): <http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7H0K1k54t6A>
From: Wes Groleau on 22 Dec 2009 15:37 Jochem Huhmann wrote: > Desktop operating systems are just wrong for such devices. This was a > major reason why tablet PCs were such a failure. What Apple is aiming at Failure? Could it be that _some_ of them were a failure because the UI sucked? Looks to me like the Motion Computing device did well. The Modbook seems good, too, though I can't get my hands on one to be sure of it. -- Wes Groleau Learning Another Language is Hard! http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/russell?itemid=1013
From: Wes Groleau on 22 Dec 2009 15:43
JF Mezei wrote: > What would a tablet be used for ? (I ask naively !) Modbook (http://www.axiotron.com) is aimed at artists. Motion Computing is aimed at health care workers and any other profession that requires making lots of notes and looking up things without being tied to a desk. Either one seems like it would meet the needs of my wife, which is to be able to use the thing with only one hand. (opening a netbook and twisting the screen around? no thanks) -- Wes Groleau Methods meddling by amateurs http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/WWW?itemid=889 |