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Apple Tablet Launch to Coincide With iTunes Digital Album Enhancements in September?
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e-reader with fold-out keyboard
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Pixel Qi
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all of Apple's greatness
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killer/revolutionary product introduction
see:
http://gizmodo.com/5272479/pixel-qis-magical-hybrid-e+paper-lcd-coming-this-fall
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7ZErQ5Kl6w#t=06m06s
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Pixel Qi
+
all of Apple's greatness
=
killer/revolutionary product introduction
see:
http://gizmodo.com/5272479/pixel-qis-magical-hybrid-e+paper-lcd-coming-this-fall
+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7ZErQ5Kl6w#t=06m06s
Don't forget the Star Trek LCARS menu systemMy good man!! Have you NOT seen Star Trek?!?!?!?
Only half kidding btw....
Tablet is for use in places where you wouldn't necessary expect to see nor want a desktop or laptop computer.
- Kitchen comes to mind
- Living Room
- Deck/Patio
- Bedroom
- Reading Room*
* Substitute any other room that happens to come to mind...
1. Most of those places are not exactly conducive to desktops/laptops
2. Most are places where you mostly interact with other people and walking away to use a desktop or even a laptop would be considered antisocial.
3. Tablets unlike laptops are much more conducive to 'passing around the room' (like photo albums once were... photo albums? Yea, ask you're folks they'll tell you all about em).
- No hinged screen/keyboard, just a slate..
- no CD/DVD (yea people will flip over this but knowing Apple, expect it)
- USB? I like to think so.. but again... not gonna bet money on it...
- WiFi yea sure
- FireWire not gonna hold my breath
- iPhone / iPod Touch accessory port.... now that would make sense but watch they hold off till v2.0 for that to be included.... its SO like them.
Well if its anything close to that for a reasonable price, I'm good for 2 or maybe 3.
I just want it to have an accelerometer so I can play the CHIRP noise from Star Trek whenever I pick it up... Well at least till I or more likely my wife got sick of hearing it.
I really hope it does have 3G, then media can be syphoned down at any location...
target market
I'm a computer professional owning 3 machines and an iPhone ... I likely won't run out and buy a "bigger iTouch" for myself.
However - I do have parents-in-law ... and these folks are / were tech-phobic.
I bought them an iPod touch so we could keep in touch by email - and they could browse the web and wikipedia in a controlled environment that wouldn't require my administration. At the very least, they'd have a music player.
This has worked out FANTASTICALLY well. The only issue is that the display is very small.
I know many older people who tried windows - but shut the machines off after they were unable to administrate the machines - and the cost of browsing the web slowly with a million pop-ups was too great.
I know that's not likely a market large enough to justify a product launch. I just mention this market - to add to the kindle competitor - as a possibility.
I know I'd buy a bigger iPod touch in a second - for my parents-in-law. And it's precisely the more-controlled / admin-free environment I'm looking for ... a laptop is a bit too complex for them.
I'm a computer professional owning 3 machines and an iPhone ... I likely won't run out and buy a "bigger iTouch" for myself.
However - I do have parents-in-law ... and these folks are / were tech-phobic.
I bought them an iPod touch so we could keep in touch by email - and they could browse the web and wikipedia in a controlled environment that wouldn't require my administration. At the very least, they'd have a music player.
This has worked out FANTASTICALLY well. The only issue is that the display is very small.
I know many older people who tried windows - but shut the machines off after they were unable to administrate the machines - and the cost of browsing the web slowly with a million pop-ups was too great.
I know that's not likely a market large enough to justify a product launch. I just mention this market - to add to the kindle competitor - as a possibility.
I know I'd buy a bigger iPod touch in a second - for my parents-in-law. And it's precisely the more-controlled / admin-free environment I'm looking for ... a laptop is a bit too complex for them.
Don't forget the Star Trek LCARS menu system
I really hope it does have 3G, then media can be syphoned down at any location...
I don't understand why companies have to re-invent the touch screen interface and gui display. Star Trek TNG already invented it. Why don't they just copy the LCARS system.
It is the ultimate touch screen interface in the world!!!
They just need to hire that guy who created it for Star Trek TNG or go back and watch every episode and copy it.
The LCARS was one of the reasons why I kept watching the series. I just loved how the LCARS worked. It was perfection. It was so beautiful.
That is untrue. I work in hi-tech selling to the healthcare industry. You've been watching too much Star Trek.
More like 5% of hospitals/clinics/doctors' offices use such devices...and even then, they are more beta-testing and field-testing rather than some kind of mass rollout/adoption.
Healhcare needs to fix their Business Process problems first (by computerizing and removing paper for examples) and then will go mainstream into individual tablet-thingies later.
Your quote should really be re-written as "most uses of a tablet are in the hands of individuals like hospital staff to replace a clipboard"...but that brings up my earlier point that there really aren't many uses for a tablet to go mainstream into consumer land.
-Eric
I work at one of the larger hospitals in our region, and we have two Tablets just in my department.
Hay, I resemble that remark
Posted from my couch with a MacBook while my wife watches the Red Sox
Attachments
Apple has found such a feature -- in the iPhone. I'm finding myself getting impatient using a mouse with my desktop. I'd much rather flick the screen, like I do on my iPhone. And I'd like to pinch and rotate on the screen as well. On a desktop or laptop, that type of interaction is cumbersome, basically confined to a trackpad. But on a tablet, the whole screen is your playground. Maybe that was the real reason behind the development of the oleo-phobic screen; it would be a pain to have to keep wiping a tablet.
So if Apple takes the great user interface of the iPhone and adds a more extended OS X environment in a tablet form factor, I think they'd have a winner.
Just Because You Don't Need It...
As a healthcare provider I agree that most medical facilities do not have tablets. This is precisely why I think this product has such potential. The main reason places don't have tablets is because they stink. Too heavy, too cumbersome, too difficult to input data on, and using an OS not designed for touch.
I can tell you that right now our IT is working on a database to hook into our EMR for use on a tablet (and I'm really hoping Apple comes out with this one fast!). At present we are using iPod Touch's, but the screens are too small.
The other thing folks are forgetting is the ever-encroaching power of the internet over hardware. A tablet utilizing server-based/internet-based software and storage is all you really need for most computing tasks. I think the users on this forum (like me) tend to still be married to consumer-side performance hardware - I don't think this is necessarily where the general public is. More and more we will see these smaller gadgets with little horsepower taking advantage of the internet's computing power.
So, yes, a tablet makes a lot of sense and not just for couch potatoes as some have posited.
That is untrue. I work in hi-tech selling to the healthcare industry. You've been watching too much Star Trek.
More like 5% of hospitals/clinics/doctors' offices use such devices...and even then, they are more beta-testing and field-testing rather than some kind of mass rollout/adoption.
Healhcare needs to fix their Business Process problems first (by computerizing and removing paper for examples) and then will go mainstream into individual tablet-thingies later.
Your quote should really be re-written as "most uses of a tablet are in the hands of individuals like hospital staff to replace a clipboard"...but that brings up my earlier point that there really aren't many uses for a tablet to go mainstream into consumer land.
-Eric
As a healthcare provider I agree that most medical facilities do not have tablets. This is precisely why I think this product has such potential. The main reason places don't have tablets is because they stink. Too heavy, too cumbersome, too difficult to input data on, and using an OS not designed for touch.
I can tell you that right now our IT is working on a database to hook into our EMR for use on a tablet (and I'm really hoping Apple comes out with this one fast!). At present we are using iPod Touch's, but the screens are too small.
The other thing folks are forgetting is the ever-encroaching power of the internet over hardware. A tablet utilizing server-based/internet-based software and storage is all you really need for most computing tasks. I think the users on this forum (like me) tend to still be married to consumer-side performance hardware - I don't think this is necessarily where the general public is. More and more we will see these smaller gadgets with little horsepower taking advantage of the internet's computing power.
So, yes, a tablet makes a lot of sense and not just for couch potatoes as some have posited.
Wow, you still have one of those RS Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
I hear they still sell those in England
No 3G?
Just thinking... I don't think it would likely have 3/4G in the first cycle to avoid impacting iPhone sales...
Unless Apple believe their iPhone market is mature enough to cope.
Or
Could there be 2 versions? one with 3G for January and one which is purely a reader...
Just thinking... I don't think it would likely have 3/4G in the first cycle to avoid impacting iPhone sales...
Unless Apple believe their iPhone market is mature enough to cope.
Or
Could there be 2 versions? one with 3G for January and one which is purely a reader...
Why are you going to use a fast and expensive SSD on a MID ?The huge cost is in the large touch LCD and SSD.
Lets see ipod touch with 32GB of memory and 3.5-inch (diagonal) display is $400.
So, what do you think a MacTablet with 64GB or 128 GB SSD and 9.x-inch (diagnonal) display would be? Let me take a guess, how about $800.
Run of the mill NAND flash like the other flash based iPods is enough. You're drawing additional cost out of thin air.
Why are you going to use a fast and expensive SSD on a MID ?
Run of the mill NAND flash like the other flash based iPods is enough. You're drawing additional cost out of thin air.
You're right. SSD is out. I think its going to be a combination of cheap NAND flash and 120GB or 250 GB PATA drives.
And the CPU will be an ARM dual-core Cortex A9-CPU!!!
few years back MS had a special version of Windows XP called Tablet edition that went on special laptops. the LCD screen would turn to face away from the keyboard and you could write on it with a special pen. people liked it, but the laptops were very expensive and it didn't go anywhere.
i can see this in a lot of professional organizations like hospitals and other places where an ipod is too small and a laptop is too large. a lot of hospitals are already using electronic charts, but it's a PITA to write first and then transcribe into a computer.
wouldn't it be ironic if Apple licensed more MS patents for this?
the way I see it, this (if real) would be Apple's take on a netbook. meant for email, web browsing, music, video, but not really as a full on computer. so yeah it would likely run on the iphone os. wifi only for the first run but perhaps once all cell data services aren't locked with ATT they might add a 3g/4g/whatever it is up to for those that want that option
Apple doesn't do "Keynotes" for products anymore...supposedly
then what do you call what happened the first day of WWDC.
what they aren't doing is Macworld.
How about a virtual keyboard (with a small pull-out stand for the tablet)?
That doesn't make a lot of sense for a Tablet, in my mind. It's not really a table-top kind of device. (Again, not in my mind.)