Would the rumoured/anticipated Tablet be a full Mac OS X system?
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From: A+ on 21 Dec 2009 13:15 Ramble post. Maybe off topic. Perhaps not. Let's begin with my desired configuration for a tablet Mac. - A dual-core Atom running up to 2 GHz with at least 2 GB of DDR2/1066 RAM. - A hard disk. Yes, you heard me! A hard disk. eg: 250 GB Toshiba 7mm thin drive. - Mac OS X 10.6 - 1920x1080 screen of at least 10" diagonal - WiFi 802.11n, Firewire 800, 2 x USB 2.0 - A 12 - 18 channel GPS receiver. Okay, a low power consumption 8 channel GPS will do. - 8 hours battery life (I'll settle for 6). - stereo headphone jack (or something more exotic), microphone and grudgingly, a camera. - not sure if Bluetooth is of any value - Phone not needed - however, I'm sure Apps for the iPhone will appear to link for the tablet. Importantly, other than what is needed to make this run in the tablet form, I want this to be a full OS X 10.6 implementation. [It would be great for example, if VMWare Fusion could run on it, I'd even pay for another WinXP license to have that additional capability. With a full OS X in there, that should not be an issue, though 'pointing' and 'keyboard' might.] Feb 2010 @ $899 is my guess.
From: Jochem Huhmann on 21 Dec 2009 13:50 "A+" <alan.browne(a)gmail.com> writes: > - Mac OS X 10.6 > - 1920x1080 screen of at least 10" diagonal You'd need a needle-sharp stylus for that. Even with a much lower resolution and a larger screen there's no way to use plain OS X with your fingertips. Try your fingers on a 13"-screen with 1280x800 -- everything is too small, OS X just *needs* a mouse (or a trackpad) and a keyboard. And you can rely on Apple *never* to require a stylus for such a tablet. No way. > Feb 2010 @ $899 is my guess. Maybe, but don't be surprised if what you get is an oversized iPhone with an OS based on the iPhone OS. And I think this is the way to go. 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 is a media player, magazine- and ebook-reader and a game platform. Not a Mac stuffed into a tablet, requiring the user to poke around in menus and to herd dozens of windows with a stylus. I expect some kind of grown-up iPhone and/or iPod touch, with an extra section in the AppStore and deals with publishers to sell magazines, newspapers and books in the ITMS. And the latter (the business side of all this) will be what makes this thing special, not the hardware and not the OS. Publishers are *craving* for such a platform and Apple has everything they need. And what they need is not a Mac in a tablet. 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: Tom Harrington on 21 Dec 2009 15:25 In article <m2ws0gp3ed.fsf(a)revier.com>, Jochem Huhmann <joh(a)gmx.net> wrote: > "A+" <alan.browne(a)gmail.com> writes: > > Feb 2010 @ $899 is my guess. > > Maybe, but don't be surprised if what you get is an oversized iPhone > with an OS based on the iPhone OS. And I think this is the way to go. > 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 > is a media player, magazine- and ebook-reader and a game platform. Not a > Mac stuffed into a tablet, requiring the user to poke around in menus and > to herd dozens of windows with a stylus. > > I expect some kind of grown-up iPhone and/or iPod touch, with an extra > section in the AppStore and deals with publishers to sell magazines, > newspapers and books in the ITMS. And the latter (the business side of > all this) will be what makes this thing special, not the hardware and > not the OS. Publishers are *craving* for such a platform and Apple has > everything they need. And what they need is not a Mac in a tablet. I think that's a pretty good analysis-- if a tablet is released, look for it to be a sort of super iPod touch. I'm guessing they'd adapt iWork to run on it in some fashion, probably limited compared to desktop versions. But they could work in syncing to desktop via MobileMe, so you could use the same documents on both platforms. -- Tom "Tom" Harrington Independent Mac OS X developer since 2002 http://www.atomicbird.com/
From: Davoud on 21 Dec 2009 15:51 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. Davoud -- I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that you will say in your entire life. usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm
From: Jochem Huhmann on 21 Dec 2009 16:29
Tom Harrington <tph(a)pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> writes: > I think that's a pretty good analysis-- if a tablet is released, look > for it to be a sort of super iPod touch. I'm guessing they'd adapt > iWork to run on it in some fashion, probably limited compared to desktop > versions. But they could work in syncing to desktop via MobileMe, so > you could use the same documents on both platforms. Yes, they would be silly to leave out a straight way to view and edit things like text documents, spreadsheets and presentations and to sync them around. On a 10 inch screen this would be a quite useful thing to do when travelling and a real motivation to buy such a beast and leave the actual computer at home or at the office. 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 |