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Apr 12, 2001
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Silicon Alley Insider issued a brief report yesterday sharing secondhand information of an Apple engineer's increased trips to Asia of late and apparent additional upcoming trips during the usually-slow holiday season.
Indeed, a source tells us a system integration engineer friend of his at Apple has been ramping up his travels back and forth between China lately, broadcasting word of his travels over the Internet.

There's even a few weeks scheduled during the Christmas holiday season.
Recent signs have continued to point to a first quarter 2010 launch for Apple's much-rumored tablet, and speculation regarding increased trips to Asia of course centers on the finalization of that device as a possible cause.

Article Link: Apple Engineers Increasing Trips to Asia Ahead of Tablet Launch?
 
I can only imagine this :apple: Tablet competing against the NetBook hardware, other than that its seems limiting in purpose.

It's going to be underpowered to conserve battery life and will have a screen in the 10-13" range to be portable yet functionally usable for every age group.

NetBooks are great and I have one as well, however its not for all ages as the screen and resolution can be straining on some age groups as well as those who suffer from poor eye-sight. It is also not practical to stare at a small screen for long hours.

Let see what this :apple: Magic Tablet has to offer. Though I am not inclined to drop some coin on it.
 
Must be a nice life being an Apple engineer with all the trips to china. I wonder if we'll see it in January or later in the quarter. If it is launched just after Christmas we may be on version 2 by Christmas 2010!
 
I can't wait to see this thing, I hope it lives up to all the hype(although it won't, but it will be a good product):D
 
Must be a nice life being an Apple engineer with all the trips to china. I wonder if we'll see it in January or later in the quarter. If it is launched just after Christmas we may be on version 2 by Christmas 2010!

It will be Q1 2010, the product line-up for the Holiday Season is set. According to Phil.
 
Of course the engineer could just be Chinese and visiting a sick relative but that wouldn't really lend itself as much to Macrumors. :rolleyes:

In fact, I heard there's also an engineer who has been making trips back and forth to Peoria, IL and will be going there during both the Thanksgiving, Christmas AND New Years holidays but that's just because he likes his mom's cooking. :D
 
I can't wait to see this thing, I hope it lives up to all the hype(although it won't, but it will be a good product):D

The moment you have to balance an object, screen, tablet on your forearm, you are going to run into problems. The handheld devices worked because a person can grasp it easily. Try holding and balancing that Tablet on your forearm for 10+ mins, you will find yourself placing it on a desk or table and if you are going to do that you might as well have a more powerful notebook.

Curious to see the :apple: marketing spin on this. Love the hype it only makes it more interesting. :D
 
Really? really?

This is so absurd.

It's like trying to read tea leaves to read the future of Apple products...No, wait. That's what the Apple Engineers are doing. They are traveling to Asia to find the right person to read tea leaves and see what Apple should do next.

Given Steve's dislike of leaks and being outted, I wouldn't be surprised if he & Apple don't just cancel this project.
 
This is so absurd.

It's like trying to read tea leaves to read the future of Apple products...No, wait. That's what the Apple Engineers are doing. They are traveling to Asia to find the right person to read tea leaves and see what Apple should do next.

Given Steve's dislike of leaks and being outted, I wouldn't be surprised if he & Apple don't just cancel this project.

or maybe just maybe they really like authentic Chinese Cuisine. ;):D

Cost is nothing when you have a craving. ;)
 
More likely putting the finishing touches on Arrandale MBPs

A tablet is possible, but I think the (expected) Arrandale MBP update is a more likely reason. All the signs point to a Q12010 release for the processor, and this wouldn't be the first time that Apple had secured early access to a new architecture.
 
Silicon Alley Insider is Henry Blodget.
from Wikipedia (others aren't as kind):
"In 2002, then New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, published Merrill Lynch e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which conflicted with what was publicly published.[5] In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.[6] He settled without admitting or denying the allegations and was subsequently barred from the securities industry for life. He paid a $2 million fine and $2 million disgorgement.[7]"
 
Uh,

This has to be one of the lamest rumors I've ever read on MR.

Friend of a source???
ramping up trips to China???

Yep. Clearly, could only point to one thing. :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong. I think an Apple tablet is coming in the first half of 2010. But this rumor has absolutely zero impact on that prediction.
 
The moment you have to balance an object, screen, tablet on your forearm, you are going to run into problems. The handheld devices worked because a person can grasp it easily. Try holding and balancing that Tablet on your forearm for 10+ mins, you will find yourself placing it on a desk or table and if you are going to do that you might as well have a more powerful notebook.

Curious to see the :apple: marketing spin on this. Love the hype it only makes it more interesting. :D

I can hold a book of a similar size very easily, but I'm not equating a Apple Tablet with a netbook or laptop. I guarantee you it WILL be something that addresses our digital lifestyle. When I look at the percentage I use my iPhone as a phone, it is less than 3% of its total use.
 
This is like techno-paparazzi. Made me just think of that Intel commercial with the co-inventor of USB walking through the labs like he is a rock star.
 
I can't wait to see this thing, I hope it lives up to all the hype(although it won't, but it will be a good product):D

Every time I try not to get myself worked up over mention of the tablet, the exact opposite happens. Sheesh. :rolleyes:
 
Monitoring their travel?

Will we soon be seeing news based on reporters going through Apple employees' household trash, or following them in cars?
 
Uh,

This has to be one of the lamest rumors I've ever read on MR.

Friend of a source???
ramping up trips to China???

Yep. Clearly, could only point to one thing. :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong. I think an Apple tablet is coming in the first half of 2010. But this rumor has absolutely zero impact on that prediction.

Meh, what can you do. Enjoy the buzz while it lasts. Cause soon it will be here and then . . well you know. :D

This is so absurd.

It's like trying to read tea leaves to read the future of Apple products...No, wait. That's what the Apple Engineers are doing. They are traveling to Asia to find the right person to read tea leaves and see what Apple should do next.

Given Steve's dislike of leaks and being outted, I wouldn't be surprised if he & Apple don't just cancel this project.

If the project was cancelled, I would go banana leaves. :D
 
10” sounded huge and unportable to me, but that’s about paperback book size apparently. Maybe this will be a new “experiment” like AppleTV, only for publishing. Another step toward touch-based daily computing! I don’t see it being as widely popular as the current pocket size, but I can see there being a niche to fill—a niche to fill now BEFORE it’s a big one.

If it’s more than an experiment, then games would have to be key. (Web and email too, but people already have tons of ways that they use those, so carrying a bigger screen around just for that wouldn’t be any bombshell. That would compete against netbooks, but that segment seems pretty limited for now anyway.)
 
Steve has said that he's not interested in making a tablet in the past.

Thats the boss... saying he's not going to make one.

And yet, some employee's suposedly book more trips to China and the internet goes wild with anticipation :confused:

Anyhow... I dont see the point... it would be like releasing a smaller macbook, but being so small that it couldnt have a CD drive.... who in their right mind would buy on of them?!?

Oh wait...:)
 
Must be a nice life being an Apple engineer with all the trips to china.

This was a joke, right? If not, then I assume you've never traveled on business (especially long-distance). It ain't a vacation, and the factories aren't exactly in tourist zones.

Anyway, this whole tablet thing is quite fascinating. How are they going to address one-handed, balancing-it-on-your-arm operation? How are they going to justify something $800 based on the iPhone OS, unable to run Mac programs or even Flash-based websites? What's going to be the killer app?

I continue to assume they have something up their sleeve to surprise us, or else I would predict the product to lack mass-market appeal. But they'll still sell some, because at minimum they'll be dead-sexy.
 
Anyhow... I dont see the point... it would be like releasing a smaller macbook, but being so small that it couldnt have a CD drive.... who in their right mind would buy on of them?!?

Sigh, it's not going to be like a small MB; it's going to be like a big Touch. And it is going to be a huge seller. I just don't understand why folks can't see that. Apple would not have put so much effort into the App Store and iTunes, if they were not going to leverage it further. SJ has said he isn't going to produce a netbook. Well this won't be a netbook. It's going to be an entire new device class. I know I'm very excited. I was sitting there last night watching a movie on my miniscule iPhone screen and thought I sure would love a device with about 3 times the screen space.
 
I saw a guy at the airport today, he was probably an Apple engineer, he was on his way to China...

I also saw a guy coming back from China, he looked a bit happy too... I think he had a tablet in his hand, but it might have been a sandwich...
 
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