Amen. Amen. Amen.
I've wanted a full Touch Tablet for so long - I don't care if it has the iPhone OS or OSX, I'm buying it. All this speculation on components and performance is fueling the firestorm of ideas in my mind.
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Tablet Mac Coming in Fall 2008?
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Amen. Amen. Amen.
I've wanted a full Touch Tablet for so long - I don't care if it has the iPhone OS or OSX, I'm buying it. All this speculation on components and performance is fueling the firestorm of ideas in my mind.
It is a tablet, a tablet phone, with an OS. A complete tablet that has the ability to do heavy computing will follow if not sooner than later. I pray for the former.
I agree completely with both of you. The touch technology will just get better and better. I can't wait to one day touch interact with programs like PS and Sketch up.
Slate form factor. The convertible tablet form factor is no good; insubstantial swiveling hinge is the primary weak point. Convertibles necessitate the inclusion of keyboard and mouse.
Keyboards and touchpads suck. The exclusion of a mouse is obvious in the slate form factor. I carry a HHKBPro2 keyboard with my MacBook everywhere because the keyboard on it (and every other notebook) is painful to type on for more than a minute. For those who don't mind the notebook keyboard, throw a bluetooth apple keyboard in your bag (most will absolutely keep the slate in a bag or something).
Give the tablet a stowable leg that stabilizes it at normal viewing angles while working at a desk.
Wacom dual-input RRFC/EMR. Wacom's EMR pen technology is great; AFAIK RRFC should be able to detect multi-touch. If not (forcing Apple to use an alternative) the likeliness of incoporating pen sensors and a pen-friendly surface decreases dramatically. The target consumer group decreases in size with that exclusion.
Brighter LED backlit 10 inch screen above 1024x768. Apple's notebook screens have low pixel density and brightness. The current 13 inch screens have resolutions that make them troublesome to work on; exacerbated by the tendancy of mac apps to use windows that are only a fraction of the viewable area (and provide scroll bars for viewing all the content). Pixel density needs to increase at least 20% while maintaining touch/pen tracking accuracy. I'm thinking 140-160ppi (visual acuity at less than around 60cm, approximately typical tablet/notebook viewing distance. My typical viewing distance is 40cm/approx 250ppi visual acuity. iPhone is 160ppi). Ever worked on a 15 inch 1920x1200 (147ppi)? It's great.
Much larger viewing angles would be great too, but priorities must be made. Wide screen format is not terribly important, but pointless for non-video use at low resolutions (so I can fit one more toolbar row on the side...um, okay I guess).
Continue the magnetic power connector but make the cable more substantial and give it better stress boots; Every day I unwrap the cable on my MacBook adapter is the day I think it will fail on me.
Ditch the integrated optical drive in all portables. Mounting disk images or drives for installing stuff over the network is fast, easy, and reliable. Grabbing an external optical drive when sitting at the desk is no problem.
Some kind of card reader or expresscard slot. Slip in flash chips containing a bunch of movies rather than reaching for disks or filling the HD. The major concern here is the situations where this storage would be used; away from home/work mobile situations where anything hanging off a port would be broken.
DVI-I port.
There is plenty more that could be done but these are at least the major thoughts that I'm having.
Keyboards and touchpads suck. The exclusion of a mouse is obvious in the slate form factor. I carry a HHKBPro2 keyboard with my MacBook everywhere because the keyboard on it (and every other notebook) is painful to type on for more than a minute. For those who don't mind the notebook keyboard, throw a bluetooth apple keyboard in your bag (most will absolutely keep the slate in a bag or something).
Give the tablet a stowable leg that stabilizes it at normal viewing angles while working at a desk.
Wacom dual-input RRFC/EMR. Wacom's EMR pen technology is great; AFAIK RRFC should be able to detect multi-touch. If not (forcing Apple to use an alternative) the likeliness of incoporating pen sensors and a pen-friendly surface decreases dramatically. The target consumer group decreases in size with that exclusion.
Brighter LED backlit 10 inch screen above 1024x768. Apple's notebook screens have low pixel density and brightness. The current 13 inch screens have resolutions that make them troublesome to work on; exacerbated by the tendancy of mac apps to use windows that are only a fraction of the viewable area (and provide scroll bars for viewing all the content). Pixel density needs to increase at least 20% while maintaining touch/pen tracking accuracy. I'm thinking 140-160ppi (visual acuity at less than around 60cm, approximately typical tablet/notebook viewing distance. My typical viewing distance is 40cm/approx 250ppi visual acuity. iPhone is 160ppi). Ever worked on a 15 inch 1920x1200 (147ppi)? It's great.
Much larger viewing angles would be great too, but priorities must be made. Wide screen format is not terribly important, but pointless for non-video use at low resolutions (so I can fit one more toolbar row on the side...um, okay I guess).
Continue the magnetic power connector but make the cable more substantial and give it better stress boots; Every day I unwrap the cable on my MacBook adapter is the day I think it will fail on me.
Ditch the integrated optical drive in all portables. Mounting disk images or drives for installing stuff over the network is fast, easy, and reliable. Grabbing an external optical drive when sitting at the desk is no problem.
Some kind of card reader or expresscard slot. Slip in flash chips containing a bunch of movies rather than reaching for disks or filling the HD. The major concern here is the situations where this storage would be used; away from home/work mobile situations where anything hanging off a port would be broken.
DVI-I port.
There is plenty more that could be done but these are at least the major thoughts that I'm having.
$799? What Mac with a screen costs under $1000?
But anyway I wouldn't be interested.
what these "experts
" are referring to is things such as the MBA, apple tv, and rumors like these.'its not my opinion, and its geared towards where apple is supposedly heading, not what theve done.
Yes, it's getting better and better. You should have seen Microsoft's multi-touch demos in Mountain View yesterday....
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9950674-7.html
Education market
You folks are missing the really point here -- the education market. That's Apple's bread and butter (remember, on campuses Macs are number 1, Pee-cees are "number 2"). The idea here is to be able to take notes, access info, and acts as an e-reader. As an academic, this is what I want. Many of my colleagues say, I won't buy a mac because they don't make a tablet version. Lots of people want to draw pictures, equations, etc, and laptop is just not right for that. It's really aimed as a being a PDA in the traditional sense.
You folks are missing the really point here -- the education market. That's Apple's bread and butter (remember, on campuses Macs are number 1, Pee-cees are "number 2"). The idea here is to be able to take notes, access info, and acts as an e-reader. As an academic, this is what I want. Many of my colleagues say, I won't buy a mac because they don't make a tablet version. Lots of people want to draw pictures, equations, etc, and laptop is just not right for that. It's really aimed as a being a PDA in the traditional sense.
Thank you
I've noticed some people calling for things that are typically associated with a tablet. By now you must have learnt that Apple take no notice of the stereotypes in technology - iPhone doesn't have a stylus or a physical keyboard and we all know how bad THAT worked out.
So why does a tablet NEED a DVD drive, stylus or a hard disk?
It doesn't, for exactly the same reason.
I donno about any of you, but I can't wait to see how Apple solve the problems the tablet has faced so far...the technical and interface boundaries are both gone only it's position in the market is the mystery.
Z
I would totally get one, but only if it ran full OS X had 80Gb or larger HDD or Flash storage, it would also have to have all the ports that the macbook has, minus the ethernet. An finally it would have to have support for a stylus and multi-touch. I know I'm picky.
If the tablet has all the features of a Macbook, then why bother?
A 13" screen? Thats nuts - you might as well buy a laptop and get a full-sized and useful keyboard.
Whats the POINT of a tablet? It serves no useful purpose for 99% of consumers at all.
This smells of O'Grady/Powerpage, once a big Mac site, now much reduced in popularity due to bad writing, boring articles, uninspired approach, etc, trying to drum up hits.
We have the Touch already - most people surfing on laptops in cafes seem to have Macbooks/pros - who needs the tablet?
A 13" screen? Thats nuts - you might as well buy a laptop and get a full-sized and useful keyboard.
Whats the POINT of a tablet? It serves no useful purpose for 99% of consumers at all.
This smells of O'Grady/Powerpage, once a big Mac site, now much reduced in popularity due to bad writing, boring articles, uninspired approach, etc, trying to drum up hits.
We have the Touch already - most people surfing on laptops in cafes seem to have Macbooks/pros - who needs the tablet?
Thank you
I've noticed some people calling for things that are typically associated with a tablet. By now you must have learnt that Apple take no notice of the stereotypes in technology - iPhone doesn't have a stylus or a physical keyboard and we all know how bad THAT worked out.
So why does a tablet NEED a DVD drive, stylus or a hard disk?
It doesn't, for exactly the same reason.
I donno about any of you, but I can't wait to see how Apple solve the problems the tablet has faced so far...the technical and interface boundaries are both gone only it's position in the market is the mystery.
Z
The iPhone/Touch is useless for the Medical/Education/Artist market segments that need direct to screen input with high resolutions and complete OS application support.
A tablet shouldn't need a stylus. It would benefit from a pressure sensitive (wacom?) EMR pen as a secondary input option to touching. Excluding that option would kill this device for a large portion of the target niche market. Multi-touch can never replace the function (and FEEL) that this sort of pen provides.
The Modbook doesn't provide touch input at all. Wacom pen is the primary and sole input method. Coupled with some supply issues, it is not a viable option for many.
Thank you
...the technical and interface boundaries are both gone only it's position in the market is the mystery.
Z
No mystery - it has almost ZERO position in the market.
It could be considered the only product worth getting in that part of the market though. The profit margins could be huge and it would still sell the same number of units. The MBA has a much less clear market position (executive notebook? hot toy?)...and it seems to be doing okay.
Markets for this device:
Public Safety; police patrol vehicles, fire trucks, etc.
Healthcare; mobile carts, wall mounts, physician reference
Education; people say this is a potential market but I don't see it so much...the teachers don't know how to use computers in a way that enhances the learning process. Much training is needed here before progress can be made.
Artist; 3d sculpting/painting, 2d painting/drawing, photo retouching/restoration, video editing, animation
Gamer; unique interface
Websurfer; many possibilities, not much probability of large sales
Industrial Control Systems;
Home Theater; programmable remote with bluetooth or wifi IR blaster (could dominate this market segment with the right capabilities), direct control of Apple TV
Executive Notebook; next big thing...of course they will buy it
Developers; completely new capabilities that can create brand new markets
of course some of this could be done on the iPhone/Touch but most of the software is already available for general-purpose OS
Sounds to me, like I should buy a bunch of AAPL stocks before WWDC... What do you think?
Apple's stock tends to drop slightly just after these conferences. Then it drops more. There were a couple exceptions IIRC. Mostly the stock just rises until the day before then starts dropping. It gets inflated by those kinds of thoughts then everybody panics to sell when it does nothing or drops on the first day.
I got it @120 back in Feb after it tanked.
I'm not sure if I would rather have a tablet sized iMac or a larger-than-iPhone PDA. I think I would rather go for the latter, so I could bring it with me. Really, unless Apple plans to eliminate the laptop computer, I think most people would rather have that than an equally sized tablet. (unless they make it really easy to use, which they probably will)
I want one
I just don't get why so many people are so negative about a tablet form factor.
If you build a desktop stand with a built in magsafe connector it is virtually an imac. If you pick it off the stand you can walk into a meeting without having to lug in papers, if you can do inkwell and iphone like browsing you can take notes and retrieve information while you are in a meeting and you can take it on a plane and use it in the economy cabin which is something which is impossible with most laptops because you can't open them far enough. The big advantage over an iphone is screen size. The advantage over a laptop is you can leave the keyboard behind and save weight or if you need the keyboard a separate bluetooth keyboard would allow you to do all a laptop can do. A removable fold over cover for the screen could be used to prop it up on a desk at a useable angle on a desk. Where is the donwnside? Sure it won't fit in your pocket but I always have to carry papers into meetings so where is the problem. If you have a bluetooth headset you don't even need a separate iphone
I just don't get why so many people are so negative about a tablet form factor.
If you build a desktop stand with a built in magsafe connector it is virtually an imac. If you pick it off the stand you can walk into a meeting without having to lug in papers, if you can do inkwell and iphone like browsing you can take notes and retrieve information while you are in a meeting and you can take it on a plane and use it in the economy cabin which is something which is impossible with most laptops because you can't open them far enough. The big advantage over an iphone is screen size. The advantage over a laptop is you can leave the keyboard behind and save weight or if you need the keyboard a separate bluetooth keyboard would allow you to do all a laptop can do. A removable fold over cover for the screen could be used to prop it up on a desk at a useable angle on a desk. Where is the donwnside? Sure it won't fit in your pocket but I always have to carry papers into meetings so where is the problem. If you have a bluetooth headset you don't even need a separate iphone
Hmm, all this talk of a tablet, why don't apple consider copying the design of the OLPC XO gen 2 computer?
So basically it can fold in half, with 2 multi-touch screens, where one can act as the keyboard, the other the screen, and when required, you can flatten the thing out to get a normal tablet?
So basically it can fold in half, with 2 multi-touch screens, where one can act as the keyboard, the other the screen, and when required, you can flatten the thing out to get a normal tablet?
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I would definately buy a tablet Mac if one came out in WWDC. The problem is that if it would be announced in WWDC and released sometime in the fall, i don't know if I could wait I'd prolly get an iPhone or iPod Touch instead... I need a new toy NOW
Joshua.
I'd prolly get an iPhone or iPod Touch instead... I need a new toy NOW Joshua.
Maybe something like this?
I know it is just a quick (yet clean) PhotoChop, but with all that space on the 'forehead' (yeah, iMac has a 'chin', I am calling all that space above the screen on your mockup the 'forehead' ) you need to integrate an iSight camera/microphone & possibly perforations for stereo speakers I would like to see a second iSight camera on the backside of the tablet, for 'point & shoot' photo taking.
I would rather see the 'forehead' made smaller though
" have a slot loading Superdrive,"
And yet be smaller than an MBA? Yeah, right.
There's already a tablet Mac - it's called the Mod Book - looks great, works great, has integrated GPS even. Hands up if you bought one...
oh.
And yet be smaller than an MBA? Yeah, right.
There's already a tablet Mac - it's called the Mod Book - looks great, works great, has integrated GPS even. Hands up if you bought one...
oh.