iPhone Started as 'Safari Pad'?

[Digital Skunk]

I'd buy a iPhone Nano in a hearbeat. I love my Touch, would like the iPhone but i think it's a bit too big. Get an iPhone Nano or wait til they make a thinner iPhone? The mock up in the above posting of a tablet is very cool. Having something like that would make me want to switch up my set up. iMac and iTablet.

Same here, but I don't mind the iPhone's size, just the network that it's on. When is that contract with AT&T up again... another 3 years? It's like waiting for Bush to get out of office

Either way It'd be nice to grab my iPhone and iTablet and hit the road with a very lightweight setup.

 

[olternaut]

I agree with the article authour that they'll release one, and I think this will usher in a new computing era.

I just got an iPod Touch and am blown away by it. It has become the singular most cherished piece of technology I've ever owned. I thought the onscreen keyboard would be annoying, but it's truly amazing. And I couldn't imagine how web browsing could actually be tolerable on a screen that small. But, around home, I've pretty much stopped using my MacBook for web & email, and use my Touch. It's freaking amazing, and I am someone who's extremely critical about the technology I use.

A larger one would, IMO, replace many, many people's needs for laptops. The iSafariPad would become a desktop extender. One that you carry everywhere, like a day planner.

eBooks, office documents, spreadsheets, audio, video, web - everything you look at, would be at your fingertips, instantly accessible. These things will be in use everywhere.

The Star Trek tablet is exactly the right comparison.

If I had more money, I'd be buying even more Apple stock. No other company has ever eclipsed what I imagined I'd like to own.

I know right??!!! That star trek tablet is the right size imo. Look how well he holds it in his hand? And with multitouch it would be cool because you can hold it either horizontally or vertically and it will reconfigure itself. And it will configure itself to whatever app its running. All they got to do is install a spectrograph analyzer and we'll have our very own tricorder for real!

 

[Kar98]

The key phrase here is "come and go". If there was an insatiable market for these devices, Palm never would have gone. That's the point - isn't it?

No, Palm quit innovating pretty much right after the initial Palm Pilot. Just about a decade of nothing but adding a bit more memory every few years and finally a color screen; more or less.

I get that YOU are really interested in such a device - heck I am too - but there really aren't that many of us around.

Well...there's the potentially huuuuge market of selling e-books through iTunes to be read on pocket-sized devices. Hell, even newspaper subscriptions could be done that way. Games. Social networking applications. Applications, period. There are tens of thousands of apps for Pocket PCs out there.

Apple needs to be wary of introducing a tablet - unless the device touches on something that resonates with a wide variety of people, it could end up being a albatross.

Apple needs to lose the freaking attitude that's repelling potential customers.

 

[Tosser]

A lot of people seem to think that if you don't have constant 3G coverage (as some of us do – at least around where live and work, haha) you're screwed. But the thing is, any and all 3G phone will have a fall-back. In Europe it's usually GSM (but could be anything, really), so your phone will still work no problems.
If it did not fall back to a "proper" connection, then those early adoptors of 3G four or five years ago (can't remember, it's been a while) would have never bought into 3G either.

 

[Phrasikleia]

My dream machine

I would buy such a product in a heartbeat. Right now I'm still carrying around a Palm Tungsten T and a collapsible keyboard for it (which I use when I'm taking lecture notes or doing library research). I'm dying for Apple to release something that can replace this combination.

I need to be able to type at full speed (around 70wmp), so an iPod Touch + bluetooth keyboard + app that can handle Word documents = dream come true. Make that a device with a screen that is half again the size of the current Touch and I'll be sooooooo thrilled.

I refuse to schlep a laptop around everywhere I go, even one the size of a MBA.

 

[jhande]

Oh my, sign me up for a Safari Pad. Currently I have a mix of phone, ipod, Palm TX, and Sony PRS 500 e-book reader. If I could merge some of that to the PRS 500 form factor, and have an iPhone on the side, that would be great!

 

[twoodcc]

cool. would love to see a tablet mac

 

[dgdosen]

Can we get some mock-up pics people? Seriously I have been trying to find one I saw a few months ago. It was posted on some guy gadget site I think laying on a red backdrop with a disc drive and a hot leopard looking iPhone style glass home screen with iPhone icons vertically lined up on the left and right sides of the screen. Anyone know the one I'm talking about? Can someone post that pic please? It was by far the best mock-up I have seen so far of an Apple tablet. Thanks!

Makes me think of a saying:

"Time (magazine) is for people who can't think. Life is for people who can't read."

 

[dgdosen]

One.
That mockup, minus the optical drive, is the kind of device I could get excited about.

Two.
There is a LOT of talk about the second generation iPhone: 3G this, cut & paste that, disc mode, iChat (not happening any time soon), blah blah blah. And while the iPhone will evolve to include some of those (and other) nice features/functionality, at the end of the day (and for the near to at least next 5-year future), it's still a phone - that, by nature, has certain physical parameters to adhere (fits in one hand, against ear, etc.).

This leads me to suggest that all of this next gen iPhone noise is just that - noise. It's the Trojan Horse for Apple's real attack, the touch. Unlike the iPhone, the touch doesn't have to adhere to as much (if any) of the physical parameters, making it a more flexible vessel in almost every single way.

Which is why I have a hunch that the next gen touch is slated (hehe) to be Apple's official 'tablet'/Newton device. And while we're still a solid year or two from this evolution, it's coming. And this iPhone users says "bring it."

I'm with you and I've been thinking this way for a while. It's like a UMPC, only done the right way. I've had an iPhone since June and I think it's too small to be that ultimate device. I'll carry that with me just about every where I go anyway as I need a phone, but sometimes it's a pain because it's too small.

I wouldn't mind something else, a bit bigger - like the mockup - that does what the iPod touch can do, plus make it a bit better for the knowledge worker and make it easier to implement personal productivity stuff. Apple could help create a new generation of what I'll call the anal retentive types who always walk around with a planner. This should be a platform for that, and much more.

I can see the commercial already - the PC guy toting around some UMPC with vista, and the mac guy doing something with a new device. The mac guy gets it done in seconds, and the PC guy, says "oops, vista drained my battery..." Priceless!

I also think that Apple will release something because they introduced the 32 GB iPod Touch. That's someone's idea of milking the iPod Touch market before they release this thing. Kind of like they did with the MBA and MBP updates...

 

[olternaut]

i would be in complete shock if that happened in the next few months. They can turn the Touch and iPhone into a decent PDA with the SDK. A brand new device is not practical at all. (in the next few months)

I'm sure Mr. Jobs has duly noted your opinion. Thank God though that Steve has his own view on things.

 

[Pigumon]

What about e-ink.

Bring it on.

Exactly. This very thing always bothered my about the mind-numbingly thoughtless
acronyms added to every new technology in the 90's.

A PDA could've so easily been called a PAD, and made 4 Billion x more sense.

But yeah, I'd prefer a color e-ink tablet made by apple or by me.

 

[RiverFox]

Unless VZW is the cell carrier I'm not even gonna hold my breath.