More Sources Point to a Touchscreen Apple Netbook in 2009

[meagain]

With the keyboard up, there's too little screen left. And when you want to watch a video and set it down, you'd have to deploy a stand from the back. I rather have a "clamshell" with a real keyboard...

It's called a laptop.

Anyone want to weigh in on heat with this thing? Even my iPhone gets a bit warm. Comfortable sure, but would a tablet have an issue with heat?

 

[kzin]

It's called a laptop.

no, laptops don't belong anywhere in this discussion. they're dinosaurs, and they're not "mobile devices" in the same way that a 10" or smaller device is. Laptops, as opposed to netbooks, are more like today's equivalent of the "luggable" device.

What the pro side of this discussion wants is a mobile device that is bigger than a pocketable. That basically means a 5" to 10" screen tablet or netbook.

I don't think ANYone here is advocating another dinosaur (ie. 12"+ screen laptop).

As for the person you replied to... a pure tablet that supports USB and/or bluetooth keyboards would lend itself to cases that improvise a netbook format. I am guessing that this is as close as Apple will come to a netbook product.

 

[dhowden]

Where do I sign? :-D

 

[ckiyan]

..

 

[MikeDTyke]

Warning!!!

This thread has reached it`s moron quotient. Any more nuts on here believing that Apple will release a clamshell netbook running Mac OS X with an Atom will cause this thread to implode under it`s own stupidity.

I look forward to the day when you`re all back on some other thread bemoaning that Steve Jobs doesn`t listen to your whiny pouting and you`ll see hell freeze over before you`ll buy that `oversized` ipod touch.

Apple is a business, out to make money and in the interests of disclosure i`ve been long on aapl stock for the last 5 years. Your fantasy specs are so out of tune with what Apple will offer it`s cringe worthy.

If and it`s a big if aapl decides to play in this field it`s device will look nothing like current netbooks, will not contain a desktop class OS, will not use a processor that kills battery life in 3 to 5 hrs and certainly will not have a hardware keyboard as standard. What they do release will be elegant, simple and cost effective to produce.

M.

 

[xhambonex]

If and it`s a big if aapl decides to play in this field it`s device will look nothing like current netbooks, will not contain a desktop class OS, will not use a processor that kills battery life in 3 to 5 hrs and certainly will not have a hardware keyboard as standard. What they do release will be elegant, simple and cost effective to produce.

M.

Well I don't want to offend you but, Apple and cost effective??

I hope Apple opens there eyes to a solution that no one has thought of, except this guy...(sorry if its been posted)

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/04/29/macbook-touch-maybe-just-maybe/

Here's just a taste of his idea...

 

[Bye Bye Baby]

Sounds great. But what am I going to use it for?

Doesn't matter- I'll buy it anyway.

 

[MikeDTyke]

Well I don't want to offend you but, Apple and cost effective??

I hope Apple opens there eyes to a solution that no one has thought of, except this guy...(sorry if its been posted)

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/04/29/macbook-touch-maybe-just-maybe/

Here's just a taste of his idea...

I said cost effective to produce, ie. Not cost effective for you and me.

The point about it being keyboardless is especially important, this is why iPhone and iPod touch are the first truely international products of their type. There`s no need to produce a 8 or so different keyboard designs like they have to on a macbook. When every one of them is identical coming out of 1 big factory in china then the cost is lower for Apple and makes it much more likely that they`ll take a chance on a riskier product. This is also why they don`t want to waste time on a CDMA iPhone.

Imagine if appletv had to have a localised keyboard & different IO depending on region? Steve would have killed it ages ago.

M.

 

[MikeDTyke]

Sounds great. But what am I going to use it for?

Doesn't matter- I'll buy it anyway.

Imagine a 10" tablet based on a tweaked ARM + iPhone OSx. Skinny as you like with a full days battery life, not a 6 hr with extended lunch break sorta near full working day, but a real gods honest full every waking hour day.

With 802.11n onboard your tablet is Wirelessly updated with mail/rss/podcasts/tv/movies/music/ebooks anywhere on the local subnet and you can access any file via back to my mac whilst on the road.

Keep a dock beside your computer and use the tablet as an aux screen, using remote desktop you could show your itunes or mail window always in front, not hidden under everything. Wander away from the computer and that App is still in your hand. You can show your wife that funny mail that`s just arrived or instruct itunes to stream to the speakers in the living room. With a gesture you could switch to seeing your mac`s entire desktop and control any other app that`s still runnning on the machine.

The device will do ebooks like a champ with full colour and the ability to make notes in the corner with either a popup keyboard or newton ink. Books can be delivered with an embedded audio book or text to speech remembering exactly where you are. So switching from reading to having it read is completely seemless.

If newton ink is considered important enough then why not go the whole hog and provide pressure levels and then use the device as a graphics tablet alongside your imac, sketch out ideas, touch up your fakes in photoshop.

Deliver all the apps from the app store with a relatively simple update to the nib files and sprites. So an app on the iphone shows less information with less functionality and when loaded on the tablet shows more data and reveals more options for the user to select. With a bigger display the use of more fingers become a reality allowing multi hand gestures.

I really don`t think they`ll deliver all of this in v1, but the technology is there to deliver all this at a price point that`ll surprise the even the strongest of haters. By making this multipurpose just as the iPhone and Touch are multipurpose there will be plenty of reasons for this thing to sell. By keeping a couple of these unique to the tablet (ebooks, remote desktop/aux monitor) you provide a reason for someone to own this and an iPhone and a mac. Anyone who says the touch can do all this already really doesn`t get the benefit of a larger screen, it really is a game changer.

M.

 

[MikeDTyke]

I know i`m out on a limb mentioning stylus input, considering Jobs` comment when revealing the iPhone but i`d just point out that Apple was still looking for handwriting recognition folks just 18 months ago and the tech still works great if all you want to capture is the strokes, not necessarily converting them to words.

There`s also another `interesting` patent that apple has for locating items via bluetooth, they suggest keys, phones and whatnot. But what about if you wandered away with your tablet leaving the stylus on the desk or vice versa? I could envisage some stylish but incessant whining from the device. A stylus would have to maintain an electrical field to work with a capacitive screen like they use for multitouch, so why not make it recharge when plugged into the tablet and maintain a bluetooth link when in use to communicate pressure on the screen and let the tablet know when some idiot wanders off with it.

Microsoft make a big deal of handwriting in their onenote product and it seems to be the one useful thing to have on their tablet PCs, particularly if you are quickly scratching out notes in a meeting or during a lecture.

M.

 

[meagain]

There won't be any stylis. I see no need for a built-in keyboard either. Why add the weight, parts, hinges, etc. No. If you need to use a keyboard, just use the wireless one via bluetooth.

I'd be happy with just a gutless multi-touch pad to port the iPhone stuff. Safari, etc.

 

[MikeDTyke]

There won't be any stylis. I see no need for a built-in keyboard either. Why add the weight, parts, hinges, etc. No. If you need to use a keyboard, just use the wireless one via bluetooth.

I'd be happy with just a gutless multi-touch pad to port the iPhone stuff. Safari, etc.

If this thing is to hammer the Kindle in the education market, it`ll have a stylus, cost is minimal, it`s quicker than an onscreen keyboard and writing notes is still the primary way of studying. Plus less intrusive than clicking away on a keyboard. Visited a Uni in Edinburgh last year that was computer sci students, all had laptops. Background noise was unbearable, ergonomics of the auditorium was crap and at least 4 of them where reduced to writing anyway as their laptop`s battery had run out.

I agree that if there`s a physical keyboard it`ll be a bluetooth external one. But it will be an OPTIONAL extra.

M.

 

[kzin]

Imagine a 10" tablet based on a tweaked ARM + iPhone OSx.

If that's all it is, it will suck and I wont buy it.

It had better have physical keyboard support (doesn't have to be built in, but it better be available). Bluetooth KB is barely acceptable, and USB is highly preferred.

It had also better be more open than the highly draconian app store.

It would be far easier for them to sell me on a full OSX device, with a tweaked Finder/Front-Row that has an iPhone like UI, and upon which I can install any random OSX application ... than it would be to sell me on a glorified iPhone.

The former I will buy. The latter I will not.

 

[kzin]

There won't be any stylis. I see no need for a built-in keyboard either. Why add the weight, parts, hinges, etc. No. If you need to use a keyboard, just use the wireless one via bluetooth.

Assuming it has BT KB support (or USB KB support), then I agree on the keyboard.

For the stylus... it doesn't need to have one built in, but it would be far better if it supported them as an option.

 

[MikeDTyke]

If that's all it is, it will suck and I wont buy it.

It had better have physical keyboard support (doesn't have to be built in, but it better be available). Bluetooth KB is barely acceptable, and USB is highly preferred.

It had also better be more open than the highly draconian app store.

It would be far easier for them to sell me on a full OSX device, with a tweaked Finder/Front-Row that has an iPhone like UI, and upon which I can install any random OSX application ... than it would be to sell me on a glorified iPhone.

The former I will buy. The latter I will not.

You sir, are a nerd. You are therefore NOT Apple`s target market.

Do you really think after the success of the touch platform and Apple`s app store that Apple will shoe horn Mac OS into a tablet, throw some multitouch API`s over the top and call it job done?

Your random app has not been designed for a touchscreen, it`s icons are too small, it`s dependent on a set of tiny menus, it may even use the second mouse button. It needs a processor that`s between 10 and 40 times more power hungry, wads and wads of RAM and may even not fit on an interface that`s physically 10" across.

So all that work on defining a multi-touch based platform on power efficient embeded cpu and a tiny amount of ram just gets thrown out the window in place of something that`ll be twice the price to implement, half the battery life (estimates, but very comfortable ones). seriously

 

[kzin]

You sir, are a nerd.

Actually, I'm a geek. Learn your proper vocabulary.

You are therefore NOT Apple`s target market.

On the one hand, that is not in stark contradiction with my own statement: "if it doesn't fit my needs, I wont buy it." That is not an attempt to coerce Apple into addressing my needs, it is a statement of how I will spend my money (or not) based upon whether or not the product meets my needs.

While I love OS X (and have since it was called Nextstep), I am not a fanboy. I have too many brain cells for that. If Apple doesn't want to sell a device that meets my needs, I will buy one of the devices that does, and briefly lament that it only runs a version of *nix that is 80% as good as OSX.

Do you really think after the success of the touch platform and Apple`s app store that Apple will shoe horn Mac OS into a tablet, throw some multitouch API`s over the top and call it job done?

Are you really so daft to think that that's all my statement embodied?

Your random app has not been designed for [... blah blah blah ...]

You seem to know an awful lot about that random app. Please, go on. I'd love to hear how much you know about this random app.

My requirement for an open market isn't specifically so that I can run a desktop app on a 10" touch-screen-only device. It is so that _I_ can choose my app selection, and not Apple. For example, the Trent Reznor NIN app, which doesn't fit your criticisms at all, yet is not available for me to choose to run, either.

However, if I so choose to run a desktop app on a 10" touch-screen-only device, that's my choice ... and should also not be Apple's choice. Maybe I'll run it while I'm mobile (doubtful), but maybe I'll run it when I plug the tablet into a KVM, and display it on a 20+" screen, and type on it with a full size keyboard.

Like other devices in the mid-size mobile market can do. And like the device that I buy will be able to do, whether it comes from Apple ... or not.