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Speculation About a 'MacBook Touch' Builds
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Touchscreen NOOOOO
Personally, until someone designs a touch display that does not show fingerprints, I DO NOT WANT ONE...
Personally, until someone designs a touch display that does not show fingerprints, I DO NOT WANT ONE...
I don't mean to sound condescending, but isn't that somewhat of a facetious statement? I think it will be extremely hard to find a material that has the ability to repel the oil on our skin so that it not come off while still having the sturdiness that would be needed.
What does it matter anyway? I've been using devices for a long time that get fingerprints on them. Wipe them off!
Why wouldn't it just come with a tiny stand and then you would use the currently produced wireless keyboard and mouse? That's what I am banking on. I have both and would love to see a tablet available that could replace me 5 year old ibook.
Imagine an iPod Touch with a 7 inch 720x480 screen (is there such an LCD?) which will pair with a bluetooth keyboard/mouse and have a stand so it can act like a monitor when you want, runs all iPod Touch apps, with a few more advanced apps (say an iWork Touch), has a front (rather than back) camera with video recording/video chat capabilities, can run BackToMyMac, and can stream from iTunes like an Apple TV. Price it $799 or $899 (sans keyboard and mouse). Are you telling me you wouldn't buy that?
I for one... I don't want a bigger iPod Touch, I was a touch machine I can touch that can run REAL software. Most especially, I want to run free (as in speech) software which is not so shiny when it comes to the iPod Touch/iPhone and I, for one, find that deplorable. (Story about that, from slashdot) If the MacBook Touch (I like Gizmodo's conceptualization and nomenclature) cannot run Firefox, Thunderbird, Adium and VLC I will be quite disappointed as these are the four programs I use the most often.
You're not thinking glass either, are you?
ahh yes, burn off those fingerprints
Forgot about that, then lets call them smudges... seriously I love my itouch and also own a tablet. I HATE the constant smudging of the displays. If the technology exists to build a tablet, then someone has to be smart enough to come up with an anti smudge surface... FWIW.
The simpler solution would be just to get rid of your fingerprints then.
Forgot about that, then lets call them smudges... seriously I love my itouch and also own a tablet. I HATE the constant smudging of the displays. If the technology exists to build a tablet, then someone has to be smart enough to come up with an anti smudge surface... FWIW.
Forgot about that, then lets call them smudges... seriously I love my itouch and also own a tablet. I HATE the constant smudging of the displays. If the technology exists to build a tablet, then someone has to be smart enough to come up with an anti smudge surface... FWIW.
It definitely would be a handy complementary technology for these types of devices, that's for sure.
OK, but why do you need a tablet?
These are nice features, but why a Touch/Tablet?
A 7" screen means I can't carry this in my pocket all day like an iPod Touch or an iPhone. If I want to use it as a monitor, and I need an Apple wireless keyboard and mouse, then why not just carry around a laptop?
Honestly, everything you said can be done with a mini-laptop, without the reinvestment of my time and money in new apps. I would buy something like an HP Mini-Note for $800 if it ran OS/X as a companion to my iMac, because I can see using Back to My Mac and MobileMe web apps on it. It makes a lot of sense.
If you were to tell me that the next great Apple touch device was going to be a merging of the iPod Touch and the iPod Classic - basically, an iPod Touch with a hard drive - I can believe that. Because it will be that mobile device that has a lot of compelling features. App Store. Safari. My music, pictures, and videos etc, and very portable. I would put my 5th gen iPod to bed for something like that.
These are nice features, but why a Touch/Tablet?
A 7" screen means I can't carry this in my pocket all day like an iPod Touch or an iPhone. If I want to use it as a monitor, and I need an Apple wireless keyboard and mouse, then why not just carry around a laptop?
Honestly, everything you said can be done with a mini-laptop, without the reinvestment of my time and money in new apps. I would buy something like an HP Mini-Note for $800 if it ran OS/X as a companion to my iMac, because I can see using Back to My Mac and MobileMe web apps on it. It makes a lot of sense.
If you were to tell me that the next great Apple touch device was going to be a merging of the iPod Touch and the iPod Classic - basically, an iPod Touch with a hard drive - I can believe that. Because it will be that mobile device that has a lot of compelling features. App Store. Safari. My music, pictures, and videos etc, and very portable. I would put my 5th gen iPod to bed for something like that.
I'm curious to see what the target usage/application will be of such a device. I see many situations where it would be very handy, but I think such a product would reside in a tricky space, in that it is small enough and portable enough to indeed be a mobile tablet device, however it will be too big for people to simply carry it wherever they may go, in their pocket let's say. And if the idea is to carry it with you wherever you go, well, that's basically what a laptop is for! Further to that, would Apple then market this as a mini laptop with touch functionality, or would they still market it as something completely new and presumably to slide into a different product niche?
So many directions this type of device could go - it will be interesting to see what Apple's vision is on it... when (and if) we ever see it of course.
So many directions this type of device could go - it will be interesting to see what Apple's vision is on it... when (and if) we ever see it of course.
Slightly different target markets - one, a super-portable "true" laptop, the other, a multi-touch device (not just a laptop) and even more super-portability!
Among other differentiators as well...
I truly hope this the case. An iTablet would be the ideal platform for a building an electronic school, mainly for high schools and college students. Such a platform could be generally used for text ebooks implementation and distribution. If this could be worked out by the publishers of textbook curriculum each student could be loaned a device like this and assigned a temporary license for the book assignments. This would seriously reduce the weight of their backpacks that some students now tow in order to keep up with all the subjects they have to manage. Then the student would have full access to copy/paste, manipulated, and save important keynotes to assist them in managing their homework, calendars, and projects. The tablet could also be used for non-textbook material as well, such as, assigned general reading, geo-tagging items on field trips, etc.. The possibilities are extreme, but may not apply so much in the business world. We'll just have to wait and see.
These are the reasons why I would buy this device over a mini-laptop running Mac OS X.
- I want a device that has more functionality than an iPod touch (iLife, iWork).
- I don't want to carry around my laptop everywhere.
- I don't want to pay extra for the hardware required for a Mac OS X device over a iPhone OS device with comparable "snappiness."
- I don't want a thicker device for the above hardware.
- I don't want a subpar user experience on a device with a resolution / text size too small for Mac OS X, not to mention the GUI was not designed for a multi-touch screen.
- I don't want a subpar user experience on a device with limited hardware specs (Atom? That's G4/G5 level) for the OS.
- iPhone OS would solve the last four points.
If there's going to be GUI modifications or application limits to solve points 3 and 5, then the advantage of Mac OS X over iPhone OS is limited.
And it doesn't look like Apple is going the "cram Mac OS X into a smaller device" way, as evidenced by the MacBook Air, the lack of a "true" subnotebook, and the 12"~13" screen size of the rumored tablet.
That sounds like something that looks like this:
BOH!
Actually that was a very good idea that was a little ahead of its time. They can obviously do a lot better now. I'm talking about a large iPhone that is like a trimmed down AirBook with base station area....
But, who knows what those sick people at Apple are making. As long as they ARE making something. I've been waiting for some further revolutionary computer devices spawning from the iPhone technology.
Yeah. I am sick of the whiner-wipers on here. As if the iPhone is repulsive and doesn't sell because it is touchable and gets 'finger prints'....I've been using devices for a long time that get fingerprints on them. Wipe them off!
Get a pair, people. Stop eating your sick ass potato chips all the time and keep clean like real humans.
OK, I used to be one of the people who wanted a Mac tablet. But now I realize how truly useless that would be. I have everything I need in a "tablet computer" in my iPod touch. It gets email, browses the "real" web, plays/stores media, runs a variety of 3rd party apps, I can take quick note, basic PDA functions (contacts, calendar), etc etc. Sure, it's a tiny bit smaller than ideal for a "computer" but it gets the job done and it fits in my pocket with room to spare.
What I DO want is a subnote. And not a MacBook Air, which is a product aimed at a market that I just don't get. It's too expensive, doesn't perform all that well, and just isn't generally something that makes sense to me.
What I would really like is a little 10" or so laptop, something eeepc size. But, what I really want is a 10" subnote that docks my touch (or an iPhone) as a touchpad.
Think about this: a laptop shell with a 10" 1024x800 or so screen, a sub notebook sized keyboard (90% or so of full sized), stereo speakers, a couple USB ports, video and headphones out, maybe a mic and VGA webcam. A big battery (relative to the iPod/iPhone battery), onboard charging adaptor, a 1.8" harddrive port for either a 80gb+ microdrive or a chunk of flash RAM, and a slot on the front to fit an iPhone/iPT in a flat, widesreen position right where a trackpad would go.
The rest of the laptop "guts" would be a second XScale CPU that matches the one in the iPhone and a slightly better GPU to drive the bigger screen. The basic idea would be to have two iPods working together using something like the way XWindows separates the client and server portions of the desktop. The "laptop" XScale chip could run the "X windows client" and the iPod the Xwindows server. The iPod GPU would handle its screen, the laptop GPU the larger.
Network and flie system functions handled on the iPod, application execution, USB host control, etc on the laptop. An XGrid like system could divide up some tasks between the two CPUs as well.
The iPod CPU is underclocked from 620mhz, presumably for battery and heat reasons, so with a larger battery and a larger area to act as a heat sick both could run at full speed while docked, so it would be decently fast for basic computing.
The multitouch trackpad could customize itself based on which app you're running, with all sorts of buttons and gestures, as well as informational widgets to make the best of a small 10" screen.
The app store would be a all the more useful if you could buy desktop class software on it (you'd have to since apps would need to be written for StrongARM CPUs). Mobile iLife and iWork, etc. Apps could have a handheld mode for undocked use (say document previewing) and a full mode for when docked (document creation, etc).
Should be decently cheap, under $400-500 easily, since a good chunk of the computer is in the iPod already. Anyways, I think it'd be a cool way to offer up a very basic subnote to a huge crowd of iPhone/iPod owners, and a sort of roundabout entry in the budget laptop market... the iPod touch starts at $300, so if they could get a basic "shell" out for the same price it would be a $600 laptop with a "free iPod". Not bad.
What I DO want is a subnote. And not a MacBook Air, which is a product aimed at a market that I just don't get. It's too expensive, doesn't perform all that well, and just isn't generally something that makes sense to me.
What I would really like is a little 10" or so laptop, something eeepc size. But, what I really want is a 10" subnote that docks my touch (or an iPhone) as a touchpad.
Think about this: a laptop shell with a 10" 1024x800 or so screen, a sub notebook sized keyboard (90% or so of full sized), stereo speakers, a couple USB ports, video and headphones out, maybe a mic and VGA webcam. A big battery (relative to the iPod/iPhone battery), onboard charging adaptor, a 1.8" harddrive port for either a 80gb+ microdrive or a chunk of flash RAM, and a slot on the front to fit an iPhone/iPT in a flat, widesreen position right where a trackpad would go.
The rest of the laptop "guts" would be a second XScale CPU that matches the one in the iPhone and a slightly better GPU to drive the bigger screen. The basic idea would be to have two iPods working together using something like the way XWindows separates the client and server portions of the desktop. The "laptop" XScale chip could run the "X windows client" and the iPod the Xwindows server. The iPod GPU would handle its screen, the laptop GPU the larger.
Network and flie system functions handled on the iPod, application execution, USB host control, etc on the laptop. An XGrid like system could divide up some tasks between the two CPUs as well.
The iPod CPU is underclocked from 620mhz, presumably for battery and heat reasons, so with a larger battery and a larger area to act as a heat sick both could run at full speed while docked, so it would be decently fast for basic computing.
The multitouch trackpad could customize itself based on which app you're running, with all sorts of buttons and gestures, as well as informational widgets to make the best of a small 10" screen.
The app store would be a all the more useful if you could buy desktop class software on it (you'd have to since apps would need to be written for StrongARM CPUs). Mobile iLife and iWork, etc. Apps could have a handheld mode for undocked use (say document previewing) and a full mode for when docked (document creation, etc).
Should be decently cheap, under $400-500 easily, since a good chunk of the computer is in the iPod already. Anyways, I think it'd be a cool way to offer up a very basic subnote to a huge crowd of iPhone/iPod owners, and a sort of roundabout entry in the budget laptop market... the iPod touch starts at $300, so if they could get a basic "shell" out for the same price it would be a $600 laptop with a "free iPod". Not bad.
Laptop with Touch Screen and No TrackPad...
Sorry, just dont see it.
What I would expect is a laptop with a touch screen and a keyboard. Lets kill the track pad off and for people that need a finer level of cursor control they can add an external mouse.
Ive tried tablets and typing documents on them is a serious pain. I couldnt imagine trying to do image or video editing with a on screen keyboard. Also, I would hate to have to carry a keyboard with me.
I for one always ignore the trackpad and use a usb mouse. But I never use the apple mouse, I have a number of favorite mice and they are always from the pc market!
So, remove the trackpad, slide the keyboard down a little and fill the space in with great speakers, multi-media controls, a multi-player docking station or a bigger battery.
And the changes for the developers in the API wouldn't be that radical.
Regards,
ran6110
Sorry, just dont see it.
What I would expect is a laptop with a touch screen and a keyboard. Lets kill the track pad off and for people that need a finer level of cursor control they can add an external mouse.
Ive tried tablets and typing documents on them is a serious pain. I couldnt imagine trying to do image or video editing with a on screen keyboard. Also, I would hate to have to carry a keyboard with me.
I for one always ignore the trackpad and use a usb mouse. But I never use the apple mouse, I have a number of favorite mice and they are always from the pc market!
So, remove the trackpad, slide the keyboard down a little and fill the space in with great speakers, multi-media controls, a multi-player docking station or a bigger battery.
And the changes for the developers in the API wouldn't be that radical.
Regards,
ran6110
Its coming, and it will be dockable into this that Apple patented a while back that was mentioned here....
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/03/apple-creating-imac-like-docking-station/
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/03/apple-creating-imac-like-docking-station/
If you ever seen iPhone and a Anti-Glare Cover on it, you wouldn't post statement such as this. Third parties will solve this very easily. The thin cover, like for iPhone, doesn't attract any oil or smudges. It's pretty scratch resistant and does not stick to display.
Or Apple could just come up with a way of having that build in.
Its not like we're living in a fingerprint-free world. Look at any fridge, microwave, counter tops and 1000 more things around your house. I get around these things very easily and don't complain that i see marks and smudges everywhere.
I love how people want EVERYTHING possible to fit in a notebook smaller than macbook air. Guys we're not in micro-architecture yet. That's 2020.