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Apple Issues Invitations for January 27th Media Event

cvaldes said:
I The only "revealing" thing might be the presence of a new device. Apple has occasionally let references of unreleased product IDs show up in its codes, but nothing that really described in detail what the capabilities of those devices were.
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No they have been follow-on product IDs. Those really reveal nothing because an "next version" of the products are always coming along. You think Apple is going to jump up and say no more iPhone and iPods next year??? Those IDs are easily predictable in advance.

An ID for a new line of product would be information. The product line name is going to be part of the id. As badly a kept secret this is... something that confirms as brand new product line : Slate1,0 , Newton5,0 , or whatever would remove all doubt and spoil a bit of the "Ta-Da!" factor. The name is going a part of the grand revealing.
 
Awesome. Let the wildly unrealistic expectations and the subsequent anger and disappointment BEGIN!
 
An orange tablet on 24, a possibly controlled leak from Orange, and orange bring the central color behind the apple logo on the invite. It would be interestingly awkward if Apple takes the old metaphor to a new level and names this thing the Orange - a completely different way of computing from the Apples you have known. :p

Steve: "One more thing...introducing the Clementine." :D:D:D
 
slimjim40 said:
it'll be beautiful to look at with a fantastic user interface.

but horribly over-priced, outrageously under-specked and the 1st generation will be about as reliable as a french car.

I WANT I WANT I WANT
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Laughed at work at this, BTW.
 
Eric S. said:
Sub-$500? This is Apple we're talking about.
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The Kindle is a premium status symbol and it's less than $500, if that's what it's competing with. If not, then it might be competing with the macbooks and iphones and people are getting gadget heavy.

Have you seen a guy with an iphone, kindle and macbook? that might be a turn off and getting into nerd territory. the iphone was successful because it crossed into hipsters and business, nerds and gamers. It had a wide market.
 
My guess is, maybe something touch-ish. iSlate or something like that, although I will laugh my ass off if it doesn't exist. Also, I think the MacBook Pros will recieve an update with iX-CPUs. I am very interested in seeing what will happen with intergrated GPUs, though.
 
Name: iSlate
Price points: $799 & $899
GUI: Unbelievably cool and NOT just a "big iPhone"
WiFi: Yes
Bluetooth: Yes
Built-in cellular data: Optional
Ability to be legally tethered to iPhone data: Yes (with additional cost monthly tethering plan)
Ship date: March 26, 2010

Mark
 
Significance of Invitation Design

Hi - this may be just 'me' - but as soon as saw the invitation for 27 January, I thought that the paint splats represented the attempts made by other manufacturers to produce a 'tablet' and the dead centre 'mustard' splat represented Apple 'cutting the mustard' or being 'the proper mustard' i.e. 'the real thing' (apparently an old cowboy phrase).
 
We have waited so much... hopefully, we will not be disappointed.

Sarcasmo said:
Awesome. Let the wildly unrealistic expectations and the subsequent anger and disappointment BEGIN!
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They already have. On the one hand, people 'demand' OLED, fast processors, stylish and expensive finish, camera on both sides, 3G, Bluetooth and so on.

Meanwhile, we KNOW that as a new genre, a new product line AND a first generation Apple product, it will have its quality issues. Also, this time Apple might have left the waiting game for far too long. The competition is coming out with really good products and Apple is losing its lead.



iSlate Fanboy said:
Maybe it's an e-reader, color kindle if you will - called it iBook (bring the iBook back?):D
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In ten days, we'll see if you have a great nickname or a cold turkey.
 
Yr Blues said:
The Kindle is a premium status symbol and it's less than $500, if that's what it's competing with. If not, then it might be competing with the macbooks and iphones and people are getting gadget heavy.

Have you seen a guy with an iphone, kindle and macbook? that might be a turn off and getting into nerd territory. the iphone was successful because it crossed into hipsters and business, nerds and gamers. It had a wide market.
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Mate, anyone reading this has already reached and surpassed nerd territory...

Come the 27th let us nerds rejoice, or cry, or both.
 
zarusoba said:
Let's call it the iRate.

That's what I'll be if I have to sign up to another plan.
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I lol'd

I'm off work on the 27th and by the time this thing gets underway it will be late afternoon here.

Commence me watching text updates on this site unable to sit still with the wife saying 'WTF is it you are doing on that lap top'
:D
 
The question is.. if this ad is meant to foreshadow a Apple Tablet with some awesome art abilities, did they actually make the ad with the tablet itself?

If they didn't then I predict it will be bust.

If they did then I predict it will be a huge success.

My hunch is they did. I can easily see a very sophisticated art app coming by merging this old video and Apples' art capabilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sz8ExZndc

I could imagine using 2 fingers and a spray paint tool to make different sized spray patterns - small and large.

Is there also a "drip" tool that works the same way? some look like sprays and some look like big drips/splatters.
 
chgough said:
Hi - this may be just 'me' - but as soon as saw the invitation for 27 January, I thought that the paint splats represented the attempts made by other manufacturers to produce a 'tablet' and the dead centre 'mustard' splat represented Apple 'cutting the mustard' or being 'the proper mustard' i.e. 'the real thing' (apparently an old cowboy phrase).
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Very very interesting interpretation of the invitation design. That could be very well right too.
 
Ok how about we have a real discussion about price point.

Something I have noticed about the tablet rumours has been that always the latest rumour is considered to be the most accurate one. Even if multiple rumours one week suggest one thing, a single contrary rumour the week after automatically becomes the one everyone considers most likely.

Take for example the $1000 price point rumour, this came after weeks of comments like "it will be surprisingly cheap" and "$600" "$800" etc.

Is there any reason to believe $1000 over any of those previous rumours? We have only heard $1000 once and we haven't heard any other price rumours since.

But if Apple expects to sell a large number of these machines, and if it expects sales of magazines and e-books etc. on it's store to impress publishers at all, it's going to have to be priced at around $500-700. $800 at the absolute max.

The iPhone never really took off until the price dropped, wasn't Apple supposed to have learnt this lesson?

If Apple circulated the $1000 price rumour to gauge reaction, they must have noticed that that reaction was unanimously negative with many people saying they can't wait for the device but simply won't buy it at that price. Launching at $1000 will do a lot to fizzle out the hype surrounding this project.

I could buy CERN if I had enough cash, it's not all about the technology, a good product provides technology that's both easy to use and affordable to the public. You could charge $10,000 and make it 5mm thick with a HD 3D screen, proprietary everything and a case of pure tungsten but it'd have no impact.
 
if they want to sell subscriptions from media-outlets, it needs to be ubiquitous. That can only mean cheap as hell. Even the Kindle at $259 isn't exactly in everyone's hands. I've only seen a couple in the wild.
 
Yr Blues said:
if they want to sell subscriptions from media-outlets, it needs to be ubiquitous. That can only mean cheap as hell. Even the Kindle at $259 isn't exactly in everyone's hands. I've only seen a couple in the wild.
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$400-$600 on launch and you've got an instant game changer. The thing would be everywhere in a few months, everywhere. The vast majority of publishers would start producing versions of their mags for the tablet.

$600-800 and you have a slow burn, only really taking off a year later if Apple drops the price.

$800-1000 Apple would still sell a bunch and the device would have a lot of publicity, but sales would be restricted really only to the Apple faithful, publishers would be slow to provide their stuff on the store and by the time Apple dropped the price low enough for mass consumption a lot of the buzz would have fizzled out and competitors would have jumped on board. Apple would no doubt still be the market leader but with a much smaller percentage and in a much less spectacular way.


not to mention the second Steve says $800-1000, Apple stock on the 27th will fall very, very sharply.
 
I'm thinking the paint splatters are supposed to be ink splatters. Ink on an Apple invitation? That can be explained two-fold, I think. One explanation is that it stands for Ink, the handwriting technology built into Mac OS X. The other explanation is that ink will go digital. As in, the traditional print media will go digital, and Apple is the party to spur this trend.

And that only leaves one conclusion: the tablet is indeed coming next Wednesday.
 
Frazzle said:
Oh, and because 2009 was the Darwin year, and 'creation' is hinted, the device will be called Darwin. Harks back to Newton. Shame they've used it already though. Some other scientist's name then
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Newton was specifically applicable. The Apple name derives from Sir Isaac Newton observing gravity while sitting under a tree, hence the Newton.

The Macintosh was named after Bill Atkinson's favourite type of apple, the McIntosh, but they changed the spelling for legal reasons. Better than calling it the Granny Smith I suppose.

The Lisa and the iPod are the two product names not apple or Newton related. Lisa being Jobs' daughter and the iPod named after the pod bay doors in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The iBook was just a development from the Macintosh PowerBook name, and ditto the iPhone from the iPod name.

So no scientists' names. A name like iSlate would be only because it's a further development of the iPod/iPhone line and runs iPhone OS. If it runs OSX, it has to be a Mac name like Mac Slate or sMac or TabletMac etc. Or if it's a unique enough product maybe another type of apple altogether, the Red Delicious. ;)

Edit: They haven't used 'iSaac' yet.
 
Yixian said:
$400-$600 on launch and you've got an instant game changer. The thing would be everywhere in a few months, everywhere. The vast majority of publishers would start producing versions of their mags for the tablet.

$600-800 and you have a slow burn, only really taking off a year later if Apple drops the price.

$800-1000 Apple would still sell a bunch and the device would have a lot of publicity, but sales would be restricted really only to the Apple faithful, publishers would be slow to provide their stuff on the store and by the time Apple dropped the price low enough for mass consumption a lot of the buzz would have fizzled out and competitors would have jumped on board. Apple would no doubt still be the market leader but with a much smaller percentage and in a much less spectacular way.


not to mention the second Steve says $800-1000, Apple stock on the 27th will fall very, very sharply.
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A compulsory, expensive data plan will also be really inimical to this device.
 
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