Apple Asking App Developers to Prepare for Large Screen Demos Next Month?

[itsbarry]

That's nice. BUT WILL IT RUN FLASH!?! I wanted full os x bt I at least need flash.

If Flash is all you need, get something else. This ain't gonna run it, buddy.


To all the people wanting a TABLET to run FULL MAC OS X, what's wrong with you? How the heck are you going to use normal desktop applications on a tablet with only touch-based input? This is why you're not making awesome products, because you don't know how people use things. If you want a tablet that runs a desktop OS, go get a Windows tablet. There's plenty of them. And they are all failing. Until then, quit whining.

 

[cmaier]

They didn't ask me

Seriously, though - what's the rationale for limiting app sales for this thing to the appstore? With the iPhone they argued it was to protect the network and make sure the phone functions still worked. Presumably this wouldn't apply to the tablet.

 

[stagi]

Nice, I am starting to get excited! If it does run a OS like the iphone OS with the right apps built I think it could be an excellent device

 

[NetScheduler]

Uh-Huh?

If Flash is all you need, get something else. This ain't gonna run it, buddy.


To all the people wanting a TABLET to run FULL MAC OS X, what's wrong with you?

Yeah what's wrong with you guys??? Why would you want to do something useful on your $1000 iTablet like MS Office or iWork when you can run a modified iPhone OSX and your tablet can play "Tap Tap", make it display "I am Rich", and make fart sounds!!!

 

[50548]

This is it, the Tablet is FINALLY coming...Apple, the moment you release it is the moment I buy it...just do it, will ya?!

And before I forget: MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all (admins and members) at MacRumors..! Here is to a 2010 full of fanboyism and great Apple products..!

 

[aristotle]

If Flash is all you need, get something else. This ain't gonna run it, buddy.


To all the people wanting a TABLET to run FULL MAC OS X, what's wrong with you? How the heck are you going to use normal desktop applications on a tablet with only touch-based input? This is why you're not making awesome products, because you don't know how people use things. If you want a tablet that runs a desktop OS, go get a Windows tablet. There's plenty of them. And they are all failing. Until then, quit whining.

Finally, someone else in this thread who gets it too.

The price of the tablets were not the reason they failed. They failed because you were paying more for a keyboardless laptop with stylus input bolted on rather than being built from the ground up. People figured that they were getting nothing new from the tablets in terms of a UI and software so they were better off getting a laptop instead.

 

[50548]

Finally, someone else in this thread who gets it too.

The price of the tablets were not the reason they failed. They failed because you were paying more for a keyboardless laptop with stylus input bolted on rather than being built from the ground up. People figured that they were getting nothing new from the tablets in terms of a UI and software so they were better off getting a laptop instead.

Exactly. As usual, only Apple is gonna get it for real and reinvent a whole new market, whereas the rest is gonna wither and disappear...

Just wait 'til Windows fanboys come back and utter: "Oh, but tablets existed waaaay before the Apple Tablet, so they did nothing original!"

 

[Bevz]

So the tablet is going to run iPhone OS I guess? Epic fail.

Well... Without sounding like the worlds biggest optimist they could still have the tablet running a scaled down version of OSX with the ability to run iPhone OS apps in windows or in full screen mode..... Even though full blown OSX would have been perfect, this could still easily turn out to be amazingly cool... Something to look forward to now in the new year!

 

[8CoreWhore]

Look, clearly Apple didn't say "full screen" to them, "full screen" is a third hand quote. Don't get hung up on it. The iPhone runs OS X with a GUI suitable for that device. The Newton will also run OS X with a GUI suitable for it. It'll have more power, it'll be larger, so the GUI will accommodate that and the Apps suitable for that form factor. You can't just toss Snow Leopard on there and call it a day. The device is multi-touch, for goodness sakes! But, yes, it'll have the new guts of SL. Imagine your favorite iPhones Apps running on a 10" screen.... The reason we shouldn't call this a tablet is it has more differences with it that it does in common. The average person loved laptops and hated tablets. The Newton will be no more a tablet than the iPhone is a small tablet.

 

[richxps]

I think that it has nothing to do with Tablets, its probably going to be Iphone related.
I really do not think there is a big market for a Tablet type device .You have laptops and net books to cover that area and I cant see Apple creating a Tablet.
But honestly don't you think the Tablet would be kind of uncomfortable to use and hold ?
Unless its going to be some sort of Pocket PC type.
Either way i cant wait to find out what it really is.

 

[mrochester]

Exactly. As usual, only Apple is gonna get it for real and reinvent a whole new market, whereas the rest is gonna wither and disappear...

Just wait 'til Windows fanboys come back and utter: "Oh, but tablets existed waaaay before the Apple Tablet, so they did nothing original!"

You don't have to be a fanboy of anything to state that, because it's the truth. They might stick a multi-touch screen on it, but that wouldn't be original either since we already have multi-touch displays. If it ever happens, I bet it's just a slightly more portable Mac. However, I still can't imagine Apple getting into this market as it's so niche - they''ll be a niche within a niche.

 

[techfreak85]

My other question is, when will they unveil this? Macworld is dead. Kinda funny they would drop out and do their own special event.

 

[50548]

Macworld is dead

Are you using my trademarked statement now?

MACWORLD IS DEAD. MICROSOFT IS DEAD. DELL IS DEAD.

 

[cmaier]

Look, clearly Apple didn't say "full screen" to them, "full screen" is a third hand quote. Don't get hung up on it. The iPhone runs OS X with a GUI suitable for that device. The Newton will also run OS X with a GUI suitable for it. It'll have more power, it'll be larger, so the GUI will accommodate that and the Apps suitable for that form factor. You can't just toss Snow Leopard on there and call it a day. The device is multi-touch, for goodness sakes! But, yes, it'll have the new guts of SL.

I don't understand the controversy. They clearly are referring to the fact that developers often hardcode in 320x480 instead of calling the functions that determine the screen dimensions when they position their UI elements. I do it myself, sometimes.

 

[cvaldes]

The OSX Fragmentation Continues. Mac, iPhone, Apple TV, Tablet! Is every new Apple device going to have it's own version of OSX????

Sounds like google has a solid system with Android compared to Apple's fracture of the year.

The tiered operating system approach seems to be working quite nicely for iPhone/iPod touch and OS X on the Macs.

For that matter, it appears that Google's Android OS is different than ChromeOS.

I still think that a mid-tier operating system geared toward multimedia devices (tablet, TV/DVR, game console) is plausible and even desirable. The Mach underpinnings are similar, it's more of creating a specific presentation layer and support structure. Running a full-blown multiuser desktop operating system may not be the best use of limited resources on a power-thrifty device.

Based on the wildly successful App Store, I'm guessing that Apple would eventually provide developers very powerful tools to accelerate application development for this new tier, hopefully this June/July at the WWDC.

 

[Bat Commander]

Look, clearly Apple didn't say "full screen" to them, "full screen" is a third hand quote. Don't get hung up on it. The iPhone runs OS X with a GUI suitable for that device. The Newton will also run OS X with a GUI suitable for it. It'll have more power, it'll be larger, so the GUI will accommodate that and the Apps suitable for that form factor. You can't just toss Snow Leopard on there and call it a day. The device is multi-touch, for goodness sakes! But, yes, it'll have the new guts of SL.

Making up names now? The Newton is very old and it will never run OS X. It just doesn't have enough power.

 

[nfl46]

I can only imagine how much this tablet will cost...knowing Apple it'll be $1,000+. SIGH.

 

[aristotle]

Yeah what's wrong with you guys??? Why would you want to do something useful on your $1000 iTablet like MS Office or iWork when you can run a modified iPhone OSX and your tablet can play "Tap Tap", make it display "I am Rich", and make fart sounds!!!

Hmm. A more likely scenario is that the tablet will run a modified version of OS X with Coco Touch as the UI so that some iPhone apps and games can run on the device with a recompile and some OS X apps will run as well while others would require changes to their UI and code before a recompile to run on the tablet.

 

[DaveGee]

Yes I did, and I do think it is a tablet, but Apple telling devs "full screen" is a little vague IMO.

Okay but lets think for a second about how Apple operates...

1 - THEY DESPISE LEAKS!

2 - THEY OFTEN GO AFTER LEAKERS WITH A RAFT OF LAWERS IN TOE

3 - They are known to provide different 'items of detail' to different people involved in a project so when a leak is discovered sometimes the details of the leak will point back to the source.

If I were an App developer who was contacted by Apple and given a specific resolution to tune my app for... I might hold back that information (since I know how apple operates) since it MIGHT stick out like a sore thumb and tell Apple that I was the leak.

So instead I'd only provide vague details that wouldn't so easily be tracked back to me. Now if Apple only gave this info to ONE developer then... Well then they are screwed to the wall and could quite possibly kiss their once profitable APP development business goodbye forever and now have to use those profits to defend themselves from the sharks known as Apple Legal.

So if the details aren't as precise as you'd like them this could very well be the reason.

 

[cvaldes]

My other question is, when will they unveil this? Macworld is dead. Kinda funny they would drop out and do their own special event.

It works for Apple because all the attention is focused on them and they get total control about when/where/how the announcement takes place.

At CES/Macworld/NAB/E3/IBC/etc., you're just one of a thousand companies making product announcements and you have zero flexibility about timing.

My guess is that this announcement would be in the second half of January, thus either the 19th or the 26th.

 

[Cleverboy]

Hmm.

Did I miss Apple adding new simulators in an SDK update?

Have they given us the ability to test with multiple screen sizes, as other SDKs do?

Or are we supposed to guess if our apps will look okay on a different screen?

Turn your iPhone sideways and the dimensions of your screen will "change". If your application can adapt to different widths and heights in the screen when the phone reorients (and isn't hardcoded to simply handle the exact dimensions in the two orientations, you're on the right track. Sounds simple.

~ CB

 

[cvaldes]

To all the people wanting a TABLET to run FULL MAC OS X, what's wrong with you? How the heck are you going to use normal desktop applications on a tablet with only touch-based input?

It is plausible that a tablet would be able to accept external input devices via USB and Bluetooth.

 

[DaveGee]

My other question is, when will they unveil this? Macworld is dead. Kinda funny they would drop out and do their own special event.

Are you kidding?!!?

Apple has done 'Invitation Only' (read as press) events for years... Heck the initial iPod is one example... it was introduced in the late summer-fall time frame and Apple invited press to their campus (i believe) for a formal presentation of the product.

Apple has even done LARGE invitation only events where they would rent out space at the Moscone Center in SF (not far from Apple) when the number of invites grew too large for an 'on campus' introduction.

 

[bpd115]

What I've always thought would be very Mac-like if Apple made a tablet would be something along these lines:

1. You have a tablet running something similar, if not identical to the current iPhone/TouchOS.

When you're walking around, on the couch, in the bathroom, using the tablet, and Touch Versions of Pages, Numbers, iPhoto, Keynote, etc your data is stored on the tablet in a shared space.

But, there may be times when you *need* more.. ommph.. or a full sized KB or mouse for more intensive data entry.

at this point we move to step 2..

2. Dock the tablet to your Mac and the data is THERE. No syncing w/ iTunes, no copying, you see the tablet data immediately and can chose to open the Desktop apps to edit/modify the files as you need. A new Finder Window showing this data would open automatically.

The iMac-like Mac with a dock inside it would be idea, but in theory, any Mac with a Light Peak connector would do... (yes I went there)

3. Tablet owners with USB/Firewire only Macs would dock the Tablet as they currently dock their iPods/iPhones, and would have to sync before accessing tablet data...

I see this as the direction Apple is most likely to take a tablet.. I think any release of a tablet is tied very strongly to new methods of moving large amounts of data to and from your Mac and the tablet. (Light Peak) Any demo of a tablet will include a demo of of this tech as well.

I don't see why Light Peak would be a necessity for data. USB2 would be plenty fast for accessing documents or data files stored on such device. No different than a USB hard drive today. 1080P HD Video you may not want to edit over USB, but no need for Light Peak.

Not only that, the $$$ factor to add in a brand new technology like that would not keep this thing cheap....

 

[jdechko]

Hopefully the extension of this is that a higher-resolution large screen will also result in a higher-resolution screen being used in the next iPhone/iPod Touch. Some of the WVGA (800x480, if you didn't know) screens in new phones are absolutely amazing. Imagine how awesome it would be on an iPhone compared to the HVGA (480x320) we have now. I mean, 3 years ago, when nearly everything used QVGA, the iPhone was the cream of the crop, but it's pretty inferior now.