Of iPhones and Apple Tablets

[arn]

International Herald Tribune has an article with excerpts from an interview with Steve Jobs. Jobs is asked some questions about potential products:

Q: Will there be an iPhone?

Jobs: "One never knows. We don't usually discuss products we haven't announced."

Q: What do you think of the tablet PC?

Jobs: "We're not sure the tablet PC will be successful. It's turned into a notebook that you can write on. Do you want to handwrite all your e-mail? We have all the technology ourselves to do that - we just don't know whether it will be successful.

[nickmcghie]

If Apple ever makes an iPhone, I'd be first in line to get one. I recently got a Motorola v60. Its a decent phone, but thats it.. just a phone. I can't sync it to my Mac, can't store any addresses (only phone numbers), and can't organize anything. It'd be awesome to see a smart-phone from Apple because I have yet to see a smart-phone out there now that really appeals to me, and I'm counting on Apple to blow away the competition and release a killer product that will revolutionize the market (think iPod...)

[Nipsy]

Originally posted by nickmcghie
I'm counting on Apple to blow away the competition and release a killer product that will revolutionize the market (think iPod...)

Take an iPod, which has oodles of storage space, and a DSP. Give it Inkwell, Telephony, and an input LCD, and you have my pants dream...one empty pocket!

The tech is all there, it is just a matter of merging things successfully into one killer device.

I've said before, and will say again, if Apple can consolidate all my pocket junk (phone, iPod, PDA), I'd pay $999, and average consumers would likley pay $699.

[gopher]

Tribute? Don't you mean Tribune?

[iAryeh]

I think that what Jobs said clearly states that an iPhone will be coming out in the near future. I just hope that the price is less than what the Sony phone that works with iSync and Bluetooth. I guess that only time will tell.

[daijones]

Interesting contrast. On the iPhone, Steve says they don't comment on unannounced products. On the tablet, he makes a comment. Sounds like the iPhone is on the way (existant but unannounced) while the tablet isn't going to happen. Pity about the tablet: I'd love to have a cheap device I can sit in bed or in front of the TV with while working. Doesn't need to be a laptop without a keyboard, it just needs enough grunt to send data over airport/rendevouz to communicate with a desktop: let the desktop do the processing, and have the tablet control it. The technology is indeed all there: Apple Remote Desktop, airport, rendevouz and inkwell add up to a very nice remote control device. Please can I have one?

Changing the subject, when are they going to release an iPod with a colour screen and the ability to play movies? Archos have stolen a march on them with the multimedia jukebox, which is ludicrous - a multimedia ipod should have appeared months ago.

[robodweeb]

Q: What do you think of the tablet PC?

Jobs: "We're not sure the tablet PC will be successful. It's turned into a notebook that you can write on. Do you want to handwrite all your e-mail? We have all the technology ourselves to do that - we just don't know whether it will be successful. [/b]

Just because we may not want to write all our email by hand does not mean there aren't an awful lot of daily situations where handwritten input makes more sense ... such as meetings and classes, when you don't want to interrupt what's going on with the click-click of keys while typing, or you may not want to display what you're looking at/workling on to any casual person walking behind you. I'd love to use my Powerbook on the subway, but popping up it's beautiful screen is like advertising "Hey! I've got a pretty expensive, yet lightweight and thin (ie easily concealed), laptop in case anyone wants to snatch it and run away."

There's no reason, with a tablet PC/Mac, to not support both handwritten and keyboard input. You could plug in a separate keyboard, have one built-in, or even use the tablet's display to use a virtual keyboard (the display is presumably pressure sensitive in order to accept handwritten input). You may not write much by hand in Cupertino, Steve, but you really should go out into the *real* world and watch how people actually do things ... then provide them with an elegant way to do it that makes money for Apple.

If you don't want a tablet PC, I'd settle for a Bluetooth pen as an accessory to an iPhone, which coulkd store my handwritten input for subsequent iSync'ing to my G4 for Ink recognition creation of PDFs of my input, as long as:
-- the iPone had some iPod-like storage (I probably don't need gigabytes fo storage on my iPhone, though)
-- the iPhone were a digital recorder (like my Olympus DM-1: 20+ hours of recording on a 128 Mb SmartCard) that iSyncs to iTunes (but use the DSS format instead of the bulky mp3)
-- design the Bluetooth pen so that it doesn't require special paper ... re-brand an OTM Technologies pen <http://www.otmtech.com/vpen.asp>

As long as things will iSync up, I don't necessarily need continuous net connectivity ...

[ibjoshua]

"We're not sure the tablet PC will be successful. It's turned into a notebook that you can write on. Do you want to handwrite all your e-mail? We have all the technology ourselves to do that - we just don't know whether it will be successful.

RIP iWalk

thanks steve, we were in need of the extra nails in that particular book-sized coffin.

[ibjoshua]

Originally posted by robodweeb
I'd settle for a Bluetooth pen as an accessory to an iPhone, which coulkd store my handwritten input for subsequent iSync'ing to my G4 for Ink recognition creation of PDFs...

sounds like anoto to me

i_b_joshua

[theaz]

sounds to me like he is saying that that the iPhone is in development. Of course, Jobs is not stupid, and he could just be playing games with the interviewer.

[robbybogers]

they already have a Bluetooth pen. Here is the link

http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?page=gis

[Tue12]

I agree with the notion that the trend is toward hybrid Phone-PDAs. iPhone will likely be something Apple will create with the collaboration of Ericsson. Although, it will be like the iPod, a product sold to Windows and Mac. The more elegant solution being on the the Mac of course. Mac market is too small by itself fir tge iPhone to just be a Mac product.

[Wry Cooter]

Originally posted by Tue12
I agree with the notion that the trend is toward hybrid Phone-PDAs. iPhone will likely be something Apple will create with the collaboration of Ericsson. Although, it will be like the iPod, a product sold to Windows and Mac. The more elegant solution being on the the Mac of course. Mac market is too small by itself fir tge iPhone to just be a Mac product.

Also, it being a dual platform product (yet more elegant with a mac) would help distribution - if it don't do windows, the big chains ain't buying, and if it ain't on every corner as its competition is, the public ain't buying either.

[szark]

Originally posted by robodweeb

There's no reason, with a tablet PC/Mac, to not support both handwritten and keyboard input.

This is the PC world's attempt at having all input devices in the same unit. Basically a laptop with a rotating screen. Seems like it would break very easily at the hinge...

[Escher]

Great article. The Herald Tribune reporter seemed very well prepared, and ready to ask the right questions. I agree that Jobs' answers leave the door wide open for an iPhone. On the other hand, his statements seem to make a Tablet very unlikely, unless somebody else first demonstrates the viability of the tablet market.

The question for me now is: To buy or not to buy, a T68i, in the meantime?

Escher

[InstantCool]

I really would like to see an Tablet PC of some sort. Yes. I do want to handwrite my email. It would be great to just have lying around your computer. Think about how much you probably still use paper around your computer. Taking notes and what not. A Tablet PC would help keep things electronic, but still have the advantages of paper.

I want one!

[medea]

Jobs also stated that "in three to four years you wont even think about using a cell phone without a computer." looks like the iPhone is a possibility, but how soon we dont know. As long as my cellular provider will support it (cingular) then Ill definitely pick one up....

[Gelfin]

Originally posted by Total OS X
Jobs also stated that "in three to four years you wont even think about using a cell phone without a computer." looks like the iPhone is a possibility, but how soon we dont know. As long as my cellular provider will support it (cingular) then Ill definitely pick one up....

That strikes me as the biggest problem with the whole idea of an iPhone. Unless they struck deals with all or nearly all of the major wireless providers they'd have a problem. Almost everyone who buys an iPhone will be a Mac user. If the phones only operate on a single network you wind up with a projected user base of a couple of percent of that carrier's market share.

I'm afraid they would go with Cingular, which is one of the two providers I wouldn't switch to for anything, even an iPhone (the other being AT&T, because they're just evil -- I'm trying to reduce the amount of money I give to those freaks). I wouldn't be so hard on Cingular except their service (both customer service and technical reliability) sucks flaming monkey ass in San Francisco.

[Wry Cooter]

Originally posted by Gelfin

I wouldn't be so hard on Cingular except their service (both customer service and technical reliability) sucks flaming monkey ass in San Francisco.

I think this varies from market to market, to be truthful. In some places it may be Sprint or whoever that is sucking monkey butt. It can depend how strong their network is in that area. In fact a lot of bad deals in service or promises to customers can be strongly affected by the strength of their coverage area, and how they had to market themselves to grab what they could.

Someone else defiled them for having CellularOne apparently in their family tree. I share an ill opinion of CellularOne, but I think of Cingular more as a former Baby Bell, from whom I have always had excellent and reasonable service, compared to the CellularOnes and Verizons.

[Nebrie]

Originally posted by robodweeb


Just because we may not want to write all our email by hand does not mean there aren't an awful lot of daily situations where handwritten input makes more sense ... such as meetings and classes, when you don't want to interrupt what's going on with the click-click of keys while typing, or you may not want to display what you're looking at/workling on to any casual person walking behind you. I'd love to use my Powerbook on the subway, but popping up it's beautiful screen is like advertising "Hey! I've got a pretty expensive, yet lightweight and thin (ie easily concealed), laptop in case anyone wants to snatch it and run away."

There's no reason, with a tablet PC/Mac, to not support both handwritten and keyboard input. You could plug in a separate keyboard, have one built-in, or even use the tablet's display to use a virtual keyboard (the display is presumably pressure sensitive in order to accept handwritten input). You may not write much by hand in Cupertino, Steve, but you really should go out into the *real* world and watch how people actually do things ... then provide them with an elegant way to do it that makes money for Apple.

If you don't want a tablet PC, I'd settle for a Bluetooth pen as an accessory to an iPhone, which coulkd store my handwritten input for subsequent iSync'ing to my G4 for Ink recognition creation of PDFs of my input, as long as:
-- the iPone had some iPod-like storage (I probably don't need gigabytes fo storage on my iPhone, though)
-- the iPhone were a digital recorder (like my Olympus DM-1: 20+ hours of recording on a 128 Mb SmartCard) that iSyncs to iTunes (but use the DSS format instead of the bulky mp3)
-- design the Bluetooth pen so that it doesn't require special paper ... re-brand an OTM Technologies pen <http://www.otmtech.com/vpen.asp>

As long as things will iSync up, I don't necessarily need continuous net connectivity ...

Yeah, I can think of a million uses for a tablet. That doesn't mean it's going to be successful. "I'd love to buy that tablet... but for a little less I'd rather have a powerbook" is going to be your biggest obstacle. It's going to be another cube if that happens. Or maybe the internet appliance. Remember how hot it was and how everyone said Apple was doomed because they didn't have one out? Apple wasn't sure it was going to be successful and at the end of the day, they were right. Sure, it's ideal for some situations, but at the end of the day, how many broke college students are going to saw off their legs to get one?

The syncing pen that works on normal paper exists. It's not wireless but it's been out for a while. The technology is not there yet, and thus is a flop.

[foniks2020]

Touch sensitive on-screen keyboard.

Tablet PCs won't be useful until you can have it.... now it isn't all that far fetched on the software side, there are plenty of shareware apps and commercial options available for onscreen keyboards targeted at disabled people for use with the mouse or other input device as well as touch sensitive kiosks. All that is holding it back is the hardware and it's price. Actually i haven't looked at any of the current offerings, they may have the hardware down and just haven't thought to use a virtual keyboard with it (your welcome..).

Summation: use a LCD about the size of a PB on a machine about half as thick (half-inch) with a large flash memory drive for OS and another PC slot flash memory for storage. Provide wireless card as well as ethernet, usb/firewire and external monitor connects. 8 - 16 MB VRAM, 500 MB single slot DDRAM. CPU? Anything that can run fast enough and is super cool. voila.

Allow for portrait and landscape on the fly via a hardware button. Portrait is for hardcore typing, landscape for everything else.

Stylus works but isn't required... fingertip and tap control works fine.

Those are my product requirements for a functional tablet pc.

[Wry Cooter]

Originally posted by Nebrie


"I'd love to buy that tablet... but for a little less I'd rather have a powerbook" is going to be your biggest obstacle.

I think it is more than technically feasible to create a tablet that costs LESS than a notebook. So far I think there has merely been a bit of marketing gouging included with the prospect of offering such. I'm sure the margins on Wacom's touchscreen input tablet are very healthy, but the sales follow suit inversely.

I would think that if you DID add a keyboard to such a device- then it would cost more than an iBook. I always liked the idea of the notebook you could fold completely 180 that would then turn off keyboard input and become a pad, or even a removeable screen.

[medea]

Honestly from what Steve said, it makes sense that if Apple was going to do anything with tablets soon, it would be an integration of a tablet and notebook or tablet and mac (flat-screen imac makes sense) rather than just a tablet. Just my opinion though.
-Richard

[Wry Cooter]

Originally posted by Total OS X
Honestly from what Steve said, it makes sense that if Apple was going to do anything with tablets soon, it would be an integration of a tablet and notebook or tablet and mac (flat-screen imac makes sense) rather than just a tablet. Just my opinion though.
-Richard

Thats the "might cost more than an iBook" scenario. Which is fine, but it would be competing with the iBook itsel, (or the iMac, if you are thinking of a flatscreen iMac with a removeable screen) You could have an iBook SE, that could have a detachable writable screen having its signal sent via bluetooth (Is that possible bandwidth wise?), or have the keyboard that opens one 180 degrees when the outside of the notebook is flush, the keyboard is made unactive and its in tablet only mode, which might be handy for 'walk around' entry. It could have a digital camera of sorts like the VAIO notebooks.

The "cost less than iBook" scenario might be a 12 inch screen that is more of a client than a standard standalone CPU. It may have an Ipod sized 20 gig drive within, and airport, bluetooth, firewire and USB, and a low power chip for long battery life. If you want a keyboard, you buy one, extra cost. If you want to use an external drive you can, but it may have less horsepower to rip multimedia, CDr or DVD. Or that might be crippled so you would have to use another mac. It would 'rendezvous' with your other macs, letting the bigger machines be the server, and primary storage; you only keep local what is needed when you are away from your other macs. It might only be a mirror of a desktop or other notebook even much of the time, but would have some standalone functionality, between present day PDAs and full blown 'computers'. It could be the super PDA or a thin client. iClipboard.

And keeping with the thread title- all macs should have some sort of telephony- this could be a voice mail app, or merely something that can catch caller ID via its modem, or merely something that can massage whatever data your Cell Phone can catch. I thought for sure this was what was planned for the Cube, when we knew what it was, but hadn't been told the price. A small footprint mac that might be attractive to businesses that have to interact on the phone all day, and already has plenty of monitors to use.

[Hammond]

This is the first thread that its 90% of my own ideas.
No one has mentioned the wireless video server.

I could live with a home network only phone, I won't change cellular providers.
However if steve culd get a few people to switch providers its big money.

Surfing in bed is a must on a big; 10" min screen. The phone must be small, perhaps a controler for the system ( an ultimate remote ( inc TV Music: all streamed to a tablet and a regular TV with a wireless airport thingie(TM).

great thread, why have I read this a thousand times, Things like iphone get mentioned but I can feel it coming (start puting those pennys aside)