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I guess my question is how do you carry that and why is that better than a small laptop? It's too big for a pocket, you need to carry it laptop-style anyway, but it'll have a smaller screen than a laptop and probably no physical keyboard and less ports, so where's the advantage?

I would really like one with OS X, that I can run iwork and a few other apps on.

One of the advantages of having this for me is to read ebooks, especially PDFs and email/web browsing around the house or in car/plane/subway/trains without taking out my 17" mbp.

Think more along these lines:

New Apple iMedia Server coupled with the new Apple iTablet which is basically the central control of your home, its network, and all of your media :)

- Control your home.
- Control all of your media
- Read e-books
- Play games
- iWork & iLife mobile come to the App Store finally
- Thousands of Apps available in the App Store, soon available to all Macs as the central software hub for all Apple hardware.
- iChat and iSight
- Throw ANYTHING on the Tablet onto your flat screen TV with Apple TV including all media, iChats and phone calls with iPhone

Now this is all sounding like the iHome of the future I have been dreaming of for years and I would get one to use in that way in a heart beat :D

This wouldn't just be some netbook competitor or laptop replacement, it would be part of the entire plan and Apple ecosystem to your digital life!
 
Why would it run full OS X rather than the iPhone / iPod Touch cut down OS?

USB ports? What would you want them for?

There are a million and one uses for a new iPod Touch that is 3 times or so the size of the current models, primarily for the bigger display. Plus if it is just a bigger iPod Touch the amount of development effort for Apple is pretty much zero as everything is already done.

Apple wouldn't even have to push it much as 3rd party developers would do it for them just by them developing new apps for it, you'd only need a few killer apps and its job done.
 
big ipod, not a small laptop

Everybody else has blown it by trying to turn a small laptop computer into a slate computer. Every talks about them, but almost nobody actually buys them (except a few niche uses: hospital, delivery guy, etc.) Why would anyone want a laptop-like device with a screen too small for most laptop apps, no keyboard which almost every app requires, and a weight too heavy to hold for very long?

But an iPod Touch with a double or quadruple size display? That would be great. The screen would be bigger than most iPhone apps need, not smaller. There will be so many apps in the iPhone app store that most people won't miss their usual laptop/desktop apps, which are unsuitable for touch control and require too big a display to easily use. The device could weigh less than a paperback book. Not pocketable, but at least one hand carryable and usable without a briefcase.

iPhone apps would zoom up in size for all the baby-boomers with declining eye sight.

If it exists, it will run the iPhone Mac OS X on an ARM CPU. No USB ports, just a dock connector.

Add an optional Bluetooth mini-keyboard (or folding or full size!), and some sort of folding stand, and Apple has a netbook killer.

(ooops, was that my cat walking on the keyboard again)
 
Here it is

attachment.php
 
It is very interesting that this tablet will be compatible with the applications for the iPod Touch/iPhone. There is no way it would have the same resolution so either it will scale to fit or those applications are resolution independent and we don't know it. Compatibility with those applications also implies that the OS will be more like that of iPhone than OS X.
 
Everybody else has blown it by trying to turn a small laptop computer into a slate computer.

Yep. Bill Gates has been pushing tablets for a decade. They're just not useful for anything beyond specialized apps. Once the screen gets to be a certain size, you yearn for a real keyboard.

But an iPod Touch with a double or quadruple size display? That would be great.

Which is exactly what the rumor says. A 7-9" iPod touch.

In other words, a MID (mobile internet device) for the home, akin to the Nokia web tablets.

Where everyone else got a portable tablet computer from the original description, is beyond me.
 
Everybody else has blown it by trying to turn a small laptop computer into a slate computer. Every talks about them, but almost nobody actually buys them (except a few niche uses: hospital, delivery guy, etc.) Why would anyone want a laptop-like device with a screen too small for most laptop apps, no keyboard which almost every app requires, and a weight too heavy to hold for very long?

But an iPod Touch with a double or quadruple size display? That would be great. The screen would be bigger than most iPhone apps need, not smaller. There will be so many apps in the iPhone app store that most people won't miss their usual laptop/desktop apps, which are unsuitable for touch control and require too big a display to easily use. The device could weigh less than a paperback book. Not pocketable, but at least one hand carryable and usable without a briefcase.

iPhone apps would zoom up in size for all the baby-boomers with declining eye sight.

If it exists, it will run the iPhone Mac OS X on an ARM CPU. No USB ports, just a dock connector.

Add an optional Bluetooth mini-keyboard (or folding or full size!), and some sort of folding stand, and Apple has a netbook killer.

(ooops, was that my cat walking on the keyboard again)


Here is another markup I found on google, that I think you were refering too. Kinda also like the one I described earlier.

apple_tablet4_desinformado.jpg


apple-tablet1.jpg
 
I would hope it would be more on the 7" side rather than 9" as I want a pocketable device. Or rather a device that doesnt look huge hanging off my belt.

Sounds like an iphone is for me then eh? LoL. But I want the bigger screen! Can't have it all huh, or maybe you can, we shall see! :D
 
I fail to see the point of such product.

7-9"... Too small to be any useful and too big to be any portable.

iPhone/iPod Touch is doing their job well.

If it's 11" - 13" thin-ass and useful touch-interface device, it's going to be mine :)

Hey, what the heck, make it on-par with MacBook Air. And it's MINE :D

I don't mind smaller HDD to keep the cost a little lower, and maybe one more USB :)

11.1" screen, touch screen (multi-touch), MB Air - like spec, $1599 :)

YAY!
 
They may have built a prototype but it's highly unlikely this is going to become a product any time soon.

I'm guessing they are being played with right now on campus.

It is very interesting that this tablet will be compatible with the applications for the iPod Touch/iPhone. There is no way it would have the same resolution so either it will scale to fit or those applications are resolution independent and we don't know it. Compatibility with those applications also implies that the OS will be more like that of iPhone than OS X.

I believe all the apps and icons made by Apple on the Touch and iphone are already resolution independent. And Snow Leopard is rapidly closing the gap with the mobile platform through Cocoa and RI.

I'm just surprised this "iPad" won't be out before summer. It's more likely nVidia is having some problems.
 
- Control your home.
- Control all of your media
- Read e-books
- Play games
- iWork & iLife mobile come to the App Store finally
- Thousands of Apps available in the App Store, soon available to all Macs as the central software hub for all Apple hardware.
- iChat and iSight
- Throw ANYTHING on the Tablet onto your flat screen TV with Apple TV including all media, iChats and phone calls with iPhone

All of which I can do right now with an iPhone and a few new apps yet to be designed, and a couple of OS tweaks, like fixing the broken bluetooth stack.

Seriously, the iPhone has all the computing grunt most people need in a form factor smaller than a laptop. Why lumber it with a bigger screen when you could just add an external projector or external LCD and wireless keyboard given the right OS support?

The only reason I can see for Apple to cripple the iPhone bluetooth stack is to protect Air and <insert future tablet product here> markets. Sucks.
 
At one of the Macworld events (I think), Steve joked about an iPod with a 10" screen. I always felt that he was playing the audience with an inside joke. If memory serves, it's the event that showed the controversial Eminem commercial.

This device certainly exists in some form. And now, considering the netbook rage, I'd bet that something like this could be released as a high end netbook, or basically a big brother to iPhone/iPod touch.
 
I guess my question is how do you carry that and why is that better than a small laptop? It's too big for a pocket, you need to carry it laptop-style anyway, but it'll have a smaller screen than a laptop and probably no physical keyboard and less ports, so where's the advantage?

The advantage is that it gives you a computing device roughly the size of a paperback or hardback book that doesn't have to be put down to use. Every current netbook, in order to use it, still must be placed on some sort of horizontal surface in order to type or use the touchpad and the display is in the lid; essentially nothing better than a half-sized laptop computer.

By making this device essentially a one-hand-use computer, you can walk around and take notes or do other computing in the same manner as a paper-and-pencil clipboard is used today. This eliminates the need to take handwritten notes (run checklists, etc.) and then manually enter the data into a desktop computer. The process eliminates wasted motion and cuts certain process times in half. The value in manufacturing processes can be incredible!

A device like this could also supplement or even replace physical note taking in almost any industry from corporate to public services, including police and fire departments. The larger display would make portable computing easier in the medical fields as well, making it possible to replace current Windows Mobile devices and even replace the full-sized laptop computers currently used by doctors and hospitals across the country with an easier-to-carry device with all the same functionality.

In other words, by making a portable computer even more portable and easier to use, the new device could and likely would be capable of replacing laptop computers in every possible manner. Granted, it may not be capable of wired connections to external devices, but we're already working rapidly to a wireless environment for all our networking.
 
At one of the Macworld events (I think), Steve joked about an iPod with a 10" screen. I always felt that he was playing the audience with an inside joke. If memory serves, it's the event that showed the controversial Eminem commercial.

This device certainly exists in some form. And now, considering the netbook rage, I'd bet that something like this could be released as a high end netbook, or basically a big brother to iPhone/iPod touch.

There's a photo and/or vid out there somewhere of some execs from Apple and IBM(?) playing with an over-sized "iPhone-like-device". Can't remember where I saw it and can't find it, but... I'm almost positive that was real and not some sort of dream. :) I think it was around the time the iPhone was released.
 
I'm not sure about the commercial viability of such a device if it's "just" an upscaled iPod Touch.

I would guess a large part of the Touch's success is due to its size: all of its amazing attributes fit in your pocket. This wouldn't. I would love one for around the house and on campus, but in the real world? I'm not so sure.

I think Netbooks are the direction they should be going: fully functional, though obviously with performance limitations compared to larger laptops. A touch-screen tablet, with optional keyboard and stylus, would be perfect, imo. I would buy one in a second if I could type notes and then draw in graphs and charts, and I think it would appeal to all sorts of engineering fields for similar reasons.

I'm not sure that would be possible on an iPod Touch. IMO you would need a more robust OS, or at the very least, a much less restrictive SDK.
 
All of my major program usage is done at work. I basically use my personal laptop as a simple net device anyway. I would love this.....make it, ill buy it.
 
All of which I can do right now with an iPhone and a few new apps yet to be designed, and a couple of OS tweaks, like fixing the broken bluetooth stack.

Seriously, the iPhone has all the computing grunt most people need in a form factor smaller than a laptop. Why lumber it with a bigger screen when you could just add an external projector or external LCD and wireless keyboard given the right OS support?

The only reason I can see for Apple to cripple the iPhone bluetooth stack is to protect Air and <insert future tablet product here> markets. Sucks.

But.... not everyone needs/wants/has an iPhone. If this new, rumoured, device could work as a remote control for an Apple home media centre, then I could see getting one. I don't care how many bells and whistles an iPhone has - if I don't need it as a phone I'm not getting one.
 
This would be called the MacBook Touch. Well, it makes sense to be called that if it's a combination of the MacBook and iPod Touch. We'll see if I'm right.

Would be nice, maybe this is their answer to the netbook / net-tablet. Lets hope that it has some USB ports. I would really like one with OS X, that I can run iwork and a few other apps on.

No USB = No purchase for me (unless it's considered an iPod and it will actually fit in my pocket). USB 3.0 would be nice.
 
A tablet Mac with a port of OneNote... that's all I want.

I think the TouchOS works well for the phone/iPod form factor, but not for a 7" product.
 
Official ModBook please. pressure and all that jazz. Not a freakin' XL iPod touch. Throw App store in if you'd like but please. Get SOMETHING right

Dud rumour anyway... safely far enough away timepoint to be an educated guess

Mac Pros WWDC 09? Someone I know has already felt one!
 
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