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As someone who works in the comic-book industry, and who's been VERY resistant to the idea of digital comics so far, I'm curious to see if such a tablet might finally change my mind. It would be portable enough to read comics in bed or on the subway (something I really don't want to do with a laptop or iPhone), and a decent size.

The only advantage print comics would still have is the double-page spread, though...

When i look at your avatar i have this urge to touch my screen with both hands and try to line a crosshair up against its head to stop it from hugging me :p
 
<satire>If the Tablet doesn't have e-Ink, OS X, firewire, matte display, discrete graphics, Blue-Ray, floppy drive, FM tuner, quad core, it's a FAIL</satire>

Personally, I hope for a well-designed and useful product that provides positive net value. I will leave the implementation details to the people developing the product.

Could not agree more.
 
now print media brought to the digital age. I wonder how Apple proposes to create revenue for the traditional content providers?

Do you mean magazines? If yes, magazines, which are TOTALLY different than music in EVERY SINGLE WAY YOU CAN THINK (those those would will say it is) could have a subscription service where you automatically pay for each new one that comes out.

Meaning that you only pay twice a year if it is only published twice a year. It wouldn't be a monthly subscription unless the magazine came out once a month. It would be, "as it comes out" subscription". Or could be. That would work well. Plus you may get a discount if you pay a yearly amount ahead of time like you do with magazines now.

As for books and everything else that doesn't have a standardized "sequel" you would also pay as it came out but would not have a way to way, except maybe by author, to always buy when it shows up in the catalog. Maybe you could have the option to be notified when a new book by your favorite author came out with the chance to buy it.
 
Not having any inside knowledge of Apple at all and therefore no information or guarantee that what im going to say is evenly slightly accurate or correct i forecast that this is real and will be released next june :D

The release date will be April 29, 2010. Absolutely.
 
I can see this as a first true 'notebook' =p. That is to say that I love the idea of not having to carry around 2-3 textbooks and a notebook everyday. Package this along with either a cellular provider with a data plan of $20-$30 a month ONLY. Either that or being able to tether my iPhone to this device FOR FREE, after all I only see this as a device to download textbooks, newspapers, magazines, and other printed media as well as surfing the web. I also don't expect this to be a powerhouse or even up to Macbook specs. As long as it has the following consider me a customer

Screen - 10"
Bluetooth with Wifi (forgot the exact name)
2x USB 2.0 (3.0?)
7 hour battery or more
Universal MagSafe port so I can carry one charger
ExpressCard slot to add multicard reader or more USB/Firewire!
FULL OS X! iPhone OS is for iPhone! >.< (& iPod Touch >.>)

Nothing huge...after all this is a 'netbook'.
 
I just hope it runs OS X.

The appeal of such a device running the iPhone OS is pretty limited to me personally as I would be limited to app store purchases which won't do 1/2 of what I would want to do with it.
 
I like the idea of print media being easy available on a portable device.

However... I do most magazine reading at places where the magazine is going to be left behind for some else to flip through such as at the beach, by a pool, on the tube, a plane or a train. So convenient as such a device may be, in some circumstances it would be a pain in the arse.

Textbooks... well if I were in school, I'd much rather carry one of these around then a stack of overpriced books. So that's a no brainer. Fortunately I never went to school so I'm not missing out.
 
I just don't see how Apple can shake their image as making "entertainment" devices to an "educational device." Seriously, would any of you actually want to read on one of these tablets? Most people would probably be watching YouTube of playing music or games; anything but actually reading.

However, some people mention it's lack of interaction that a book has such as page marking and flipping pages and more than one book open at a time. This is something that (with a little creativity) can probably be alleviated on a multi-touch interface. They could incorporate a GUI and touch gestures to simulate doing all of these things.

The biggest drawback I see is potential battery life. Books last forever in your bag you don't need to charge your books or replace the battery after XXX cycles, etc. If there is an electrical problem, you don't need a new book.
bad LCD or pixel issue? Your book is faulty.

Do any of you ever think about the negative effect of "digitizing" everything? Granted, it saves time and allows us to be more productive, but it also takes some sort of element away from the experience of receiving a letter in the mail from a loved one (instead of an e-mail) or finding an old book you read 10 years ago that still has the pages crinkled from where you marked it or stumbling across that CD under your car seat that you thought you lost forever. /tech impact on our lives rant. It's early...
 
Hybrid LCDs

My thinking is the tablet will have to have some type of revolutionary screen, one that is both easy to read like eink, but also can show color and video. It must be something spectacular for Steve Jobs to be so involved, something that hasn't been done before and will be a game changer. If the tablet is merely an oversized iphone, no one would really want to read too much on it, since it would hurt your eyes after awhile, especially reading entire books. I really think the key to the tablet is the screen, get the screen right, and it will be a revolutionary device that will change publishing and electronics in one fell swoop.

I think that at some future point in time we will see hybrid displays that will function as E-Ink for easy reading but will have the speed and performance of LCD.


That future is now.

But I doubt SJ would be using it...
 
Content via iTunes Store

Yes, I would pay $.99 to DL local digipapers (St. Petersburg Times, USA Today) using iTunes every day. Even better, I['d like a push subscription service that automatically loads the news wirelessly overnight. Browse the iTunes store for National Geographic or even (gasp!) People magazine. Wake up. It's 1984!:eek:
 
Kindle is text only... not even close.

I guess you've never seen one?
Image right from Amazon's website.

I have to admit though color would be nice, and I would like to see more of a Wacom tablet interface than just a multi-touch glorified iPod.
 
What's funny is that once the product is released, everyone will forget their woes and go and buy one immediately. Thus this thread will end up being buried in the "threads one wishes to forget" bucket. :p
 
Id like the option to be able to use it as a graphics tablet with a mac as well

And that would be awesome, however it would have to accept pen input and anything less than what Wacom offers in their tablets wouldn't be worth it for me. But if it did have that level of pen input, then I could actually justify buying one at anything less than $1000, which is what a 12" Cintiq costs.

But that's not what I see happening for this product, if it exists. I expect it to be more of a day to day mainstream media content provider which now seems to include a new kind of digital text.
 
Id like the option to be able to use it as a graphics tablet with a mac as well

Seems like Jobs':apple:Apple's vision it to provide tools to manage our emerging digital content filled life. This will be a purely consumer oriented device. Video/ text/music/email/web. All of which suits me without it becoming an input for work devices.
 
perhaps the tablet device will have a two layer screen. the top being an E-ink reader the bottom layer a full fledged OLED / LCD screen to view anything other than text only.

This would reduce teh strain to read textbooks and save battery while offering a screen that allows content viewing in a way we all like.

This reminds me of Google's E-reader or whatever it is called that allows you to quickly flip and scan multiple newspapers almost like CoverFlow but a lot smoother and clearer.
 
now print media brought to the digital age. I wonder how Apple proposes to create revenue for the traditional content providers?

If the existing pricing model is translated to electronic distribution, all of a sudden these guys are profitable, and have a budget for more content creation. It also could monetize the back dated library.

This is real.

Rocketman

And can avoid government managed health care too. :)
 
And that would be awesome, however it would have to accept pen input and anything less than what Wacom offers in their tablets wouldn't be worth it for me. But if it did have that level of pen input, then I could actually justify buying one at anything less than $1000, which is what a 12" Cintiq costs.

But that's not what I see happening for this product, if it exists. I expect it to be more of a day to day mainstream media content provider which now seems to include a new kind of digital text.

Yeah im not sure that it will happen, maybe not on the first revision anyway but in future revisions who knows. People seem to want to be able to use Photoshop on the device which is ok but what about once your back at your desk. You could easily export the work to your mac and continue working on it using the tablet as well. :apple:
 
An LCD/LED type screen is fine for brief reading sessions such as reading a five page news story, a magazine article, etc.

For actual book reading an LCD/LED screen is really a horrible way to go. Reading for several hours on such a device causes severe eye strain, headaches and general irritation in most people.

That time is not now though, so I don't expect to be buying any books for a new Apple Tablet.

It's not the LCD/LED display that's the problem, it's the constant focus on a single plane. E-ink is no different. Neither is reading ink on paper. Look away once in a while, focus on something else. The headache / irritation (if they occur) come from sitting in the same position and holding your head in the same position. Stand up, stretch, grab a drink. Really not that hard, guys.

And, absent any information whatsoever on screen clarity, resolution, brightness, color, contrast, and backlighting controls, how do you know how hard it will be to read?

And there were lots of people who were never, ever going to buy a portable, digital music player and buy downloaded singles.
 
I think that at some future point in time we will see hybrid displays that will function as E-Ink for easy reading but will have the speed and performance of LCD.

You mean like this, this and this? (edit: jeznav had already pointed this out)

The technology exists.
Please Apple give us an hybrid display tablet.
 
It's not the LCD/LED display that's the problem, it's the constant focus on a single plane. E-ink is no different. Neither is reading ink on paper. Look away once in a while, focus on something else. The headache / irritation (if they occur) come from sitting in the same position and holding your head in the same position. Stand up, stretch, grab a drink. Really not that hard, guys.

I don't think that's right. It has to do with the way the screen refreshes ("flickers"), or doesn't (e-ink and paper screens have a static image, reducing eyestrain). From personal experience, I can definitely read longer with either a book or my kindle before feeling discomfort than on any LCD type screen.
 
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