Apple Tablet Scheduled to Begin Shipping in March? Two Different Material Casings Being Considered?

[Compile 'em all]

$899-$999 will be a tough sell. Might as well get a MacBook if you're going to spend near $1,000. And MacBook has all the news, games, media you need too.

SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A PHONE????? NO ONE WILL BUY IT!!!!

You guys make me want to kill myself and give up on reading this forum.

Just like any new technology, this iSlate will let you do a subset of things you normally do on your mac but in a very different and more natural way. It WILL be expensive and won't do everything a mac can do. It won't replace a macbook for everyone, now. But it will for some.

The iPhone when it first came out, it didn't do much. It didn't have 3G, no MMS, no copy paste, no 3rd party apps. But what it did, it did in a very very unusual way, compared to what was out there. Add to that it was quite expensive.

The exact same will be with the iSlate. It won't do everything you can do on your Mac. It will be expensive. But whatever it will do, will leave every other tablet/netbook/ebookreader in the dust.

 

[Bear Hunter]

-a netbook-twisted view of things.

How is it twisted? Those same netbooks currently run OSX flawlessly for under $300. I haven't found anything that I couldn't do on the netbook that required me to use my MBP. This includes iChat, image editing, word processing, etc..

Which leads me to my original position. $500 range or it better be totally revolutionary.

 

[Pachang]

I had a dream about the tablet last night. It's not actually a tablet. It's a robot with a tablet as a face. It was pretty crap though. I was this apple female salesman (man IRL) and the first question everyone asked me is if they could have sex with it and if they could they would buy it. Because you couldn't have sex with it I had to let them have sex with me.

what does this dream mean?

 

[lilo777]

Ok a tablet, I think we know there will be a tablet soon, fine.

But what about a new

Apple TV ????

Apple TV is dead. Move on. There are plenty of better products available on the market.

 

[KnightWRX]

SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A PHONE????? NO ONE WILL BUY IT!!!!

Except most phones in the iPhone category are already 600$ dollars and with carrier subsidies, you never have to pay the full price.

Not to mention sales of the iPhone were abysmal before Apple dropped the price and upped the storage capacity, a mere few months after introduction. And 1st gen iPhone sales stayed pretty abysmal. The iPhone 3G is what really put the thing on the map.

Tablets aren't even near 1000$ though. This would put Apple in the premium end of the Market, and their biggest competitor would be the Polycarbonate Macbook.

 

[lilo777]

How is it twisted? Those same netbooks currently run OSX flawlessly for under $300. I haven't found anything that I couldn't do on the netbook that required me to use my MBP. This includes iChat, image editing, word processing, etc..

Which leads me to my original position. $500 range or it better be totally revolutionary.

In Steve's mind it's definitely twisted. Nobody is asking you about your opinion here

 

[trekkie604]

2010 Year of the tablet? I wouldn't mind this Lenovo:

We'll see what Apple does with theirs.

 

[NXTMIKE]

Then again, there are good reasons to say that $1,000 will be a valid price point, and reasons that say that $1,000 will not sell at all.

One thing's for sure, I'm anxious to know wtf it will be, and what it could do. Because even though it's almost certain that Apple's releasing a tablet, there's been sources saying 7inch, others saying 11 inch. Some saying "reasonably low price point", others saying one grand. Even though I love rumors, it's getting a bit burnt. If Apple comes out with a tablet that has functionality that nobody saw coming (which I truly hope happens), then it's a whole different discussion of what the price should be. So I'm setting the countdown widget on my dashboard to January 26th.

 

[lilo777]

I'm thinking "AppleTV Mobile" w/ apps, itunes, HDMI dock, etc.

Apple does not do HDMI

 

[Ultranote]

I'm thinking "AppleTV Mobile" w/ apps, itunes, HDMI dock, etc.

What you describe is an Archos media tablet. Which is still only an evolved PMP with a browser. There are many others already.

The plus is in the tablet being a general purpose computer on top of all the media possibilities.

 

[Bear Hunter]

So you'd like it to be cheaper then the iTouch, just bigger. Not going to happen, sorry.

No I'm saying that I'm not going to pay $600 plus for something that is less functional than a netbook running OSX for half the price. I could give a ratz azz if it has a touchscreen. Hence my position of it has to be something totally revolutionary.

 

[goldenlotus]

Apple is good!!!!

 

[KnightWRX]

2010 Year of the tablet? I wouldn't mind this Lenovo:

We'll see what Apple does with theirs.

Wow, and guess what ? It's 999$ :

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/lenovo-ideapad-u1-hybrid-laptop-by-day-unhinged-tablet-by-nigh/

Now that's worth 999$ and would make me consider a "tablet".

And they say only Apple innovates.

 

[goldenlotus]

I had a dream about the tablet last night. It's not actually a tablet. It's a robot with a tablet as a face. It was pretty crap though. I was this apple female salesman (man IRL) and the first question everyone asked me is if they could have sex with it and if they could they would buy it. Because you couldn't have sex with it I had to let them have sex with me.

what does this dream mean?

Apple is good!!!!!

 

[Chupa Chupa]

It's amazing how Steve Jobs has most of you by the short hairs.

How so? I admit I'm a huge fan of Apple products, have been since my first Mac SE/20. Even still, I only buy what I likes. If Apple only pushed out half-baked products like AppleTV or the Magic Mouse I wouldn't be looking for the next big thing from it. I don't know of any consumer products company that excites like Apple. Most CE today are boring as hell.

 

[Wilbah]

I am pretty psyched about this device.. but I have learned my lesson...

NO MORE FIRST GEN APPLE PRODUCTS FOR ME...

I write this in caps to remind myself how pissed I was for overpaying to be an early adopter of all things Apple... Powerbook 100... Newton...Powerbook 165c...Powerbook 1400cs... original iPod, all the way up to and including the "iPhone 599" as we called it when the price was quickly dropped....

Apple has a LONG and storied history of overpricing products at introduction, only to have them drop precipitously a few short months later, or have the product revised (improved) AND the price dropped.... we over-pay to be Apple's R&D team as early adopters, as well as early promoters.

I'm waiting this one out on a matter of principal PLUS... it's a device that I don't exactly need ... at least not yet!

 

[Chupa Chupa]

2010 Year of the tablet? I wouldn't mind this Lenovo:

We'll see what Apple does with theirs.

A "convertible" laptop would be awesome. So would a docking laptop... like the old Duo, but with some real guts on the desktop dock side.

 

[lilo777]

2010 Year of the tablet? I wouldn't mind this Lenovo:

We'll see what Apple does with theirs.

This one looks nice. I like the idea. The problem is that it runs Windows 7 only when the tablet is docked into clamshell. When detached, it runs ARM/Linux. Having to use two different platforms is annoying.

 

[goldenlotus]

This one looks nice. I like the idea. The problem is that it runs Windows 7 only when the tablet is docked into clamshell. When detached, it runs ARM/Linux. Having to use two different platforms is annoying.

 

[lilo777]

Wow, and guess what ? It's 999$ :

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/lenovo-ideapad-u1-hybrid-laptop-by-day-unhinged-tablet-by-nigh/

Now that's worth 999$ and would make me consider a "tablet".

And they say only Apple innovates.

PCMag already called this product "revolutionary (see this article). How dare they! Only Apple products are "revolutionary"

 

[Compile 'em all]

Not to mention sales of the iPhone were abysmal before Apple dropped the price and upped the storage capacity, a mere few months after introduction. And 1st gen iPhone sales stayed pretty abysmal.

Abysmal? From where the heck are you pulling out these numbers?

In the first month, the iPhone was pretty much sold out everywhere and stock was scarce. Just look up threads here on macrumors of members trying to locate stores stocking the iPhone without longass lines. And yes, $600 was expensive.

lay down the pipe.

 

[goldenlotus]

Suck on this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVzmHsl2FoY&feature=player_embedded

 

[digiguy23]

What happened to Apple's secrecy? Did it fly out the window?

 

[Ultranote]

How is it twisted? Those same netbooks currently run OSX flawlessly for under $300. I haven't found anything that I couldn't do on the netbook that required me to use my MBP. This includes iChat, image editing, word processing, etc..

Which leads me to my original position. $500 range or it better be totally revolutionary.

Well, cheaper isn't necessarily better. You get what you pay for. Which also means they will know how to price it.

They can't deliver something with the low build quality of a $300 netbook to keep their reputation.
They won't use an X86 Core2 Duo for overheating and battery life reasons.
Meaning probably a (dual core?) ARM CPU with adapted/recompiled Mac OS X apps and directly compatible resizable iPhone OS X apps.
They will only market a GUI which is fully adapted to the ergonomics of that screen size: not the plain iPhone black home screen and better adapted than Mac OS X on a small screen.

All in all it should be a very specific new interface, unlike other plain Win XP/ Win7 tablets.

 

[2992]

I'll pay $2000 as long as it's good.

Can you buy couple of them at that price for me, please?

PS: it is not going to be more than 699 USD.