The official: MacBook Touch concept/mock-up thread

[jmack549]

Originally Posted by anti-microsoft

Why?? I guess Apple could have two configurations: one with a keyboard and one with a multi-touch screen. Image the possibilities of having one multi-touch screen...

It would be terrible to type on. Imagine typing in the dark. And if the multi-touch typing screen would also have a backlight, enjoy your 15 minute battery life. It would just be terrible; smudges and all.

[anti-microsoft]

Originally Posted by jmack549

It would be terrible to type on. Imagine typing in the dark. And if the multi-touch typing screen would also have a backlight, enjoy your 15 minute battery life. It would just be terrible; smudges and all.

Yeah I guess....

[lofight]

Originally Posted by anti-microsoft

Always same size (I just didn't want to work with a 1024x800 image).

How big is the screen you use to work with? i had a 17" but now 13" and it's sometimes annoying..

Just made theese in some second,
1. one with blue dock, maybe people could adjust the dock??,
2. One with the dock hiding, when you slightly tap the thin border on the bottom the dock appears with a smooth effect
3. Spaces feauture on Macbook Touch, right-top icon

[anti-microsoft]

[quote=lofight;4524203]How big is the screen you use to work with? i had a 17" but now 13" and it's sometimes annoying..

cool they're nice... I work with 13"

[shuffles]

I found this concept on this site: http://www.newgadgets.info/category/macbook/

He was an Apple Touchscreen Tablet contest winner. I think it looks pretty cool. Not sure aboutthe speakers on the front tho. I know u need them but they just dont look right to me, but sure wat do i know.

[lofight]

Originally Posted by shuffles

I found this concept on this site: http://www.newgadgets.info/category/macbook/

He was an Apple Touchscreen Tablet contest winner. I think it looks pretty cool. Not sure aboutthe speakers on the front tho. I know u need them but they just dont look right to me, but sure wat do i know.

I don't really like that one...

[Digital Skunk]

Originally Posted by shuffles

I found this concept on this site: http://www.newgadgets.info/category/macbook/

He was an Apple Touchscreen Tablet contest winner. I think it looks pretty cool. Not sure aboutthe speakers on the front tho. I know u need them but they just dont look right to me, but sure wat do i know.

If that design won a contest then the entires must have all been terrible. That design if far from creative and in fact it's just a rip off of the iMac bezel with some added cute-ness to it. Not to be harsh, but it's hard to believe that some people can actually call that a mockup.

[shuffles]

yeah i suppose ure right. It is a rip off of the imac bezel Wat i do like about it is the way garageband was had a full touch keyboard

[Digital Skunk]

Originally Posted by shuffles

yeah i suppose ure right. It is a rip off of the imac bezel Wat i do like about it is the way garageband was had a full touch keyboard

Honestly, I think that's the biggest question. All harsh replies aside, I think the biggest question is how will the user interact with the Mac Touch. I really don't think Apple will use bezels and iPhone/iPod Touch designs to create the new Mac Touch.

[anti-microsoft]

Originally Posted by Digital Skunk

Honestly, I think that's the biggest question. All harsh replies aside, I think the biggest question is how will the user interact with the Mac Touch. I really don't think Apple will use bezels and iPhone/iPod Touch designs to create the new Mac Touch.

http://www.looprumors.com/article.ph...tor,3296358789

[Epicurus]

Originally Posted by anti-microsoft

http://www.looprumors.com/article.ph...tor,3296358789

Interesting... I especially like this part:

Apple will gear this new device at those users who already own Macs. The iTablet will run its own version of Mac OS X Leopard, specifically designed for the device. The iTablet will interact with other devices better than an iPhone or iPod. Users will be able to screen share with their home or work computer from a remote location, video conference with other users, and information suggests the iTablet will have beaming capabilities.

As much as I am hoping that this sort of device would run all native Mac OS X apps out of the box, of late I've been of the opinion that Leopard needs a lot of optimization to work with a Touch interface. Existing Mac apps just wouldn't work right otherwise. Screen sharing with full-sized Macs would be handy to keep the memory needs of the device in check (why install Delicious Library on the tablet when I have it on my iMac).

If we consider the iPhone to be a device optimized for use in 3-5 minute chunks, then such a tablet would be aimed at 15-30 minute chunks (a full laptop would be for use on the order of a an hour). I mean this only in the sense of optimization, not actual usage patterns. The iPhone has mainly widgets as its apps, weather, stock, etc. You glance at these quickly and then go on about your business. You check your favorite Web site for the latest news, then you do something else. Sure you can spend an hour reading a long blog entry or playing with the maps, but the interface was built around the quick in-and-out user. A mid-sized tablet would take this up a notch by including more "real apps" that you can use for extended periods.

Take for example the Notes app on the iPhone. It has no bold, italics, or underline features, no font styles or sizes, and no page formatting at all. It is about as basic a text entry system as you could build. If all you want to do is quickly write something down, without thinking about any of that other stuff, then Notes is perfect. On a Mac you have TextEdit, which gives you all of the controls I mentioned above but also adds a hefty layer of additional windows and menus. You can still knock out a quick note in a hurry, but you are now afforded the opportunity to really go to town tweaking the look of the file afterwards. A tablet device would probably find some middle ground between these two extremes in feature sets. At the very least I would hope that cut/copy/paste makes a return.

Still, this is a pretty vague rumor, but it is fun to speculate...

[Digital Skunk]

Originally Posted by anti-microsoft

http://www.looprumors.com/article.ph...tor,3296358789

WOW.... I thought I had seen some fugly mockups but that one is TERRIBLE! I bet the artist spent a lot of time doing that.

[anti-microsoft]

Originally Posted by Digital Skunk

WOW.... I thought I had seen some fugly mockups but that one is TERRIBLE! I bet the artist spent a lot of time doing that.

Thats not even the f***ing point!!! I just want you to know that all the mock ups here are probably close in form factor to the final result!

[Digital Skunk]

Originally Posted by anti-microsoft

Thats not even the f***ing point!!! I just want you to know that all the mock ups here are probably close in form factor to the final result!

But you can't say final result on something that's a rumor to begin with...

Come on AM, you know that it may not be an actual tablet in the end, or it may not even carry any design cues over from the iPhone or iPod Touch. At best it may just be a black MacBook bezel. It may even be an actual tablet MacBook, a Mac Book with a swiveling screen that folds flat and you have a tablet.

We won't know until it comes. I hope it looks good, but I also hope that doesn't look like anything we all can imagine.

[slowpoke]

Yeah, that mockup is terrible for a multitude of reasons...

1 - The text on top sends out warning signals. Ugly.

2 - The form factor, despite being in keeping with Apple's usual recent fare, is bland as hell. Photoshopping together bits of the iPhone just isn't creative.

3 - The reflection effect extends way further down than it should, and looks simultaneously amateurish, pretentious and stupid. Also, it's been cut off at a really odd angle.

4 - the Glossy effect on the screen. Things like this should be kept for small icons, and the portion covering the actual LCD should at least be slightly more translucent.

5 - At least try coming up with a new UI.

In conclusion: Thirteen-year-old boys and pirated copies of Photoshop shouldn't mix.

[jelloyacket]

I like the separate super-slim keyboard idea. The only problem I see with that is you can't use that concept on your lap. I am envisioning something like that, or a full touch-screen. A few other specs I'd like:

Size: 11-12" widescreen.
Bezel: Black like the touch.
Brains: Low-voltage C2D.
Memory: Built-in 1 GB, 1 SODIMM.
Video: discrete 128 MB.
Storage: 64 GB SSD.
Interface: Touch screen, fold-out keyboard.
Ports: some on-board, but also have a small dock. Another option would be to have an iPod-like connector with a breakout cable.
Other: G-sensor, reorient the whole GUI so you can use the screen in portrait or landscape mode.

I don't want a pumped-up iPod touch, I want a slimmed down MBP. Hopefully my 12" PowerBook doesn't see me checking this new toy out...

[Digital Skunk]

Originally Posted by jelloyacket

I like the separate super-slim keyboard idea. The only problem I see with that is you can't use that concept on your lap. I am envisioning something like that, or a full touch-screen. A few other specs I'd like:

Size: 11-12" widescreen.
Bezel: Black like the touch.
Brains: Low-voltage C2D.
Memory: Built-in 1 GB, 1 SODIMM.
Video: discrete 128 MB.
Storage: 64 GB SSD.
Interface: Touch screen, fold-out keyboard.
Ports: some on-board, but also have a small dock. Another option would be to have an iPod-like connector with a breakout cable.
Other: G-sensor, reorient the whole GUI so you can use the screen in portrait or landscape mode.

I don't want a pumped-up iPod touch, I want a slimmed down MBP. Hopefully my 12" PowerBook doesn't see me checking this new toy out...

I like these specs, and to be honest I like the original mockup with just a slimmed down MacBook Pro with a smaller screen.

I hope that it does have a touch sensitive display that uses gestures and what not, but I still would love to see the keyboard and trackpad come with it for anyone that needs to do some heavy input. I am thinking convertible like many other tablet PCs are.

Have the screen flip around or something cool BAM you have your MacTablet/MacTouch. When you want a regular ultra-portable Mac you just flip it back around and there you have it.

I would die if it had a 12" widescreen display just as bright as the MBP.

[olternaut]

Originally Posted by Epicurus

I'm all for a revolutionary new system, but I'm still not convinced that such a leap is necessary or even practical in the near future. When I try to imagine what an Apple tablet will look like, I'm not looking 5-10 years in the future, I'm looking towards this coming spring. With that schedule in mind, Apple would be releasing the tablet alongside the iPhone SDK. Just as Mac developers are starting development on a second platform, Apple would never confuse the issue with a surprise release of a third platform with yet another SDK! Now certainly Apple would want their tablet to have an optimized OS, but that would develop over time. Being able to run native iPhone apps side-by-side with Mac apps would ease the transition. I see no reason why a small tablet couldn't run regular Mac apps without ANY modifications.

The only way I would imagine Apple could push the tablet as a third platform would be if they built it right into the iPhone SDK. Just as you can turn universal binaries on and off with a checkbox, you could also choose to build for a MacBook touch. All the dev would have to do is draw up a second NIB interface file.

Anything more agressive than that would force developers to target three completely different platforms. Cocoa still hasn't completely killed of Carbon, Leopard apps are just now showing up, and the iPhone apps haven't even been sanctioned yet. It would be silly to complicate the matter further.

--- --- ---

A new mockup below, moving further away from the default Mac look but still in line with iPod touch UI elements:

I think you nailed the dimensions wit this one. But can you or someone do me a big favor? Just for curiousity sake can you fold this unit in half like a mock clamshell? Fold it in the middle horizontally. Nevermind that it would mean the lcd would really have to be a flexible full color e-ink type of screen material. But I just want to see what it would be like. Please? I'm just trying to brainstorm ideas.
Thanks.

EDIT: Oh, as a reminder don't forget the overall unit is still relatively thin.

[TheBigS]

Im still stuck on the thought that something with book its name should be able to fold/open/close

[razorianfly]

My mock-up.

I believe OSX, with a big enough screen, is suitable for the touch platform as it is.

[lofight]

Originally Posted by razorianfly

My mock-up.

I believe OSX, with a big enough screen, is suitable for the touch platform as it is.

very nice mockup + high quality picture!! but, if i was as good as you, i would really go for designing a new ui..

[razorianfly]

I'll see what I can do on the UI front, and post back with the results soon. Glad you like it.

R-Fly

[razorianfly]

Ok , I had a first draft attempt at a mock-up of what I think would be a user interface that could work for Apple.

I'll keep thinking and i'll post what else I come up with.

R-Fly

[lil'homunculus]

My biggest issue with most of the mock-ups, including Apple's, is an exposed glass screen during transport. At that size there is no way you'll make it tough enough for everyday handling. And I've seen some pretty sad threads about screen dings, scratches and breakage. I have a feeling that the other tablet manufacturers are on to something with the swiveling screen option, or even the detachable keyboard idea. Personally, i think an iTablet with full functionality, keyboard/trackpad included would be the most prudent option. If Apple pursues an open-faced iPhone style solution, they and these forums are in for a litany of laments. But, given the right specs, i'd probably end up ponying up for one, macSlut that I am...

[lofight]

Originally Posted by razorianfly

Ok , I had a first draft attempt at a mock-up of what I think would be a user interface that could work for Apple.

I'll keep thinking and i'll post what else I come up with.

R-Fly

very very nice!! i want to see more!! but the icons looks so strange.. how come?