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What is the Ultimate Role of the Apple Tablet?

4look4rd said:
Regardless of what the tablet is meant to be, I have a related question: How would you type on a tablet?
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There's also speculation of a magical haptic keyboard which will somehow rise up creating the feel of buttons when you want to use this Tablet with a (better than) virtual (touch screen) keyboard. How that is going to work through a (probable) piece of glass is a great mystery. And it's even harder to picture a glass surface for the screen and some kind of softer, flexible (able to work haptically(?)) surface for this keyboard looking very good. Don't even get me started about having to bend your neck way down to see the screen on which you are also typing on this haptic keyboard... or bend your wrists way up so that you can type on the keyboard hanging (somehow) on the screen at eye level in front of you.

There's speculation about speech-to-text, which could work very well for dictation by the Tablet's owner, but won't be practical when you are in a meeting or lecture listening to someone else doing the talking (you're not going to be able to talk your notes into this Tablet at the same time as some other speaker... and be allowed to stay in the meeting or lecture).

There's speculation of bluetooth and similar option, so that you can carry along a separate real keyboard and use that when you need it... kind of like a laptop split into 2 pieces: a screen and a keyboard. While this seems to cut into the mobility, and the many arguments of how this Tablet can replace the laptop for practical use, this is the one that seems "best fit" in my imagination in terms of covering the spectrum of scenarios (though it certainly seems to lack on the "elegant" front).
 
If only they weren't banning laptops concurrently with the introduction of the tablet. :(

(Oh wait... they're not! ;) )
 
Tricorder/Communicator et al

The new islate or whatever its final name will NOT be just for surfing the web or for reading. Apple as we all know will push the boundaries or open whole new product areas. Looking at the list of categories in the App store gives us a hint - education, medical, navigational, health, weather, entertainment ...The new islate will allow us to interface partially through itself and through 3rd-party peripherals with the outside world at a more personal level - think blood pressure and blood sugar levels, alcohol levels and temperature, exercise/heart rate,nutrition, GPS, weather, finance, of course music and movies and books too. Yes augmented reality as well. You may say that the iPhone/iPod touch in many ways does this already and is much small and portable. But here is a reason that the islate will have a 10” screen the exact size of the outstretched palm of your hand - for feedback based on apple’s new tactile screen. Security Plus no more passwords. The BAT chordic keyboard allows input with a single hand and has been around for over 2 decades but never had the technology to evolve but now interesting the new magic mouse and its sensor array...just throwing out possibilities here...
 
bclark525 said:
The new islate or whatever its final name will NOT be just for surfing the web or for reading. Apple as we all know will push the boundaries or open whole new product areas. Looking at the list of categories in the App store gives us a hint - education, medical, navigational, health, weather, entertainment ...The new islate will allow us to interface partially through itself and through 3rd-party peripherals with the outside world at a more personal level - think blood pressure and blood sugar levels, alcohol levels and temperature, exercise/heart rate,nutrition, GPS, weather, finance, of course music and movies and books too. Yes augmented reality as well. You may say that the iPhone/iPod touch in many ways does this already and is much small and portable. But here is a reason that the islate will have a 10” screen the exact size of the outstretched palm of your hand - for feedback based on apple’s new tactile screen. Security Plus no more passwords. The BAT chordic keyboard allows input with a single hand and has been around for over 2 decades but never had the technology to evolve but now interesting the new magic mouse and its sensor array...just throwing out possibilities here...
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Maybe someday that stuff will find its way into various similar hand-held devices, but IMHO you're going to be disappointed if you expect all of that in version 1,1. No one is going to go with broad-based development of all that specialized hardware because the market for it is too small, and no one can pay for it.
 
Apple will change forever the method of inputting and accessing information. The QWERTY keyboard should have died a long time ago. Think I can now sit in front of my keyboard and through the internet access and process a great amount of information using the mouse through menus, and when using my iPhone/iPod touch swiping and stretching, copying and pasting. The hand is an amazing underutilized input mechanism. Apple is about to change that. Did not anybody pick up on the comment "You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet."

There is a reason that Apple has not updated their iPod touch with no camera as it did the nano especially when is has been their biggest selling iPod to date with more downloads from the apple store than the iPhone and other ipods. Check out once again the preferences for the magic mouse - is it such a leap to envision a new total input device? Maybe it will at first be just a fancy ereader but it certainly won't stop there.
 
If it is as advanced as being wirelessly usable as cintiq/intuos screen (using your macbook/imac/macpro system sending the image signal to the tablet which interprets the touch input back to the computer to let you paint concepts in photoshop for example) to enhance the experience of your main machine additionally to being a "netbook"-like device with bigger gaming and app capabilities, I`m definately in for one.
bring it on :D:apple::apple::apple:


It can be a game changer like the iphone in my opinion (remote for tv /input device for mac,future gaming console/netbook,tv-like device,reader itself). It`s going to help Apple to build up an ecosystem of Apple products in many households this way.
 
Benzy said:
I'll only buy the Apple Tablet if it's designed for business. Right now the MS courier tablet is looking extremely interesting and I'm sure Apple will address MS with their own Tablet. If it's just a beefed up iPod Touch then no thnx.
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Neither of these products actually exist yet.
 
bclark525 said:
Did not anybody pick up on the comment "You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet."
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Could mean anything, from what you use to interact (voice, hand, stylus, paintbrush) to where you do it (onscreen, aerial) to how you do it (typing, gestures, handwriting) to the hardware (haptics, textures, cameras, etc) to what the UI does when you use it (automatically search the world for related into, etc).
 
bclark525 said:
You may say that the iPhone/iPod touch in many ways does this already and is much small and portable.
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I do say that.

But here is a reason that the islate will have a 10” screen the exact size of the outstretched palm of your hand - for feedback based on apple’s new tactile screen.
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Huh? How big is is your hand? My iPod touch fits exactly in the palm of my hand.
 
And the killer app for this large-screen device will be <drumroll>....

Large-type books for the old folks! (And maybe a few apps like big button calculator and big button phone. :))

And just think, with nifty OTA delivery of newspapers, no more walking down that long, wet slippery driveway to the mailbox! No more surprise trips to the ER!

Yep, this device is for the oldsters. They have the money and still subscribe (aka, "dependable revenue stream") to their periodicals.

Can you hear me now Grandma!
 
This thread is full of wishful imagination that it is going to do everything short of raising the dead.
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Nope. It will do that as well. :eek:
 

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HobeSoundDarryl said:
There's also speculation of a magical haptic keyboard which will somehow rise up creating the feel of buttons when you want to use this Tablet with a (better than) virtual (touch screen) keyboard. How that is going to work through a (probable) piece of glass is a great mystery. And it's even harder to picture a glass surface for the screen and some kind of softer, flexible (able to work haptically(?)) surface for this keyboard looking very good. Don't even get me started about having to bend your neck way down to see the screen on which you are also typing on this haptic keyboard... or bend your wrists way up so that you can type on the keyboard hanging (somehow) on the screen at eye level in front of you.


).
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I believe the keyboard will be accessed via the back of the device. With a transparent keyboard overlay displayed on the screen
 
Pigumon said:
This is the item I've been waiting for.

I have a mac mini that does all my main work, and a powerbook 12" that's been relegated to an email machine.

I'd use a slate for email, video chat, browsing, books, magazines, comics. Taking quick notes, hopefully an app like (circus ponies) Notebook would run on it.

I'd really hope that you could draw on it. It would be AMAZING if it was like a Wacom Cintiq.

But as someone said, as with all Apple products, "it'll do way less than you'd imagine", even the really obvious stuff won't be there... so I'm gonna keep any excitement under wraps.

Now to my signature: I can't stress this enough. EVER SINGLE TIME YOU WRITE IT'S it's the EXACT SAME THING AS WRITING IT IS. It's from the same group of possessive pronouns as HIS and HERS, there are no apostrophes there. Go through just this single thread, and you'll see it misspelled nearly every time you see it.
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If you're going to join the ranks of the grammar police, you might want to make sure *your* post is grammatically correct.

Ahem...

1. It's a 12" Powerbook; not a Powerbook 12".
2. Beginning a sentence with, "Taking quick notes" is improper grammar.
3. You should capitalize "circus ponies."

Last, but certainly not least, you began a sentence with the word, "But." I will agree that, despite the common myth, one *can* begin a sentence with "But." But you better know what you're doing when you do it. Capesh?

:p
 
Arran said:
And the killer app for this large-screen device will be <drumroll>....

Large-type books for the old folks! (And maybe a few apps like big button calculator and big button phone. :))

And just think, with nifty OTA delivery of newspapers, no more walking down that long, wet slippery driveway to the mailbox! No more surprise trips to the ER!

Yep, this device is for the oldsters. They have the money and still subscribe (aka, "dependable revenue stream") to their periodicals.

Can you hear me now Grandma!
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Hardly. Us oldsters prefer actual print.
 
Arran said:
And the killer app for this large-screen device will be <drumroll>....

Large-type books for the old folks! (And maybe a few apps like big button calculator and big button phone. :))
Click to expand...

I love it. Big print iPod touch apps. Could make millions.

Throw in an automatic picture frame mode, where the grandkids can just email pics to, and it'll sell like hotcakes.

Apple reinvents... the digital picture frame!

Seriously, there's a huge, huge untapped market out there of non-techie seniors (and others) for whom the iPod touch is too small and still not intuitive or useful enough.
 
guet said:
The Nokia 810 is better as at least it's adapted properly for mobile use, but it is closer to a phone, still has a keyboard, has 2GB flash, browser isn't as good etc.
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Your other points about Windows are conjecture and subjective, I won't argue against you. I personnally prefer the HP format, as a I much prefer a laptop's typing position to a pen and paper writing one, and much less trying to type on said piece of paper. I still wouldn't buy a HP tablet because I would never use it in tablet mode.

However, the bolded part is just false and FUD. The Nokia N810 uses Mozilla as its rendering engine for its mobile browser. Full Mozilla. The same full Mozilla used in Firefox, the 2nd most popular browser around. It is very much just as good if not better than mobile Safari.
 
Eric S. said:
Hardly. Us oldsters prefer actual print.
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Sorry, this oldster has mislaid his eyeglasses. Could you type that a bit bigger for me?

(Hmmm. If only I could do that fancy "pinch to zoom" on this darned PC. And where can I buy the nifty iSlate zimmer-frame docking kit? Is it in stores yet?)

Just kidding. :)
 
wishful thinking...

... whatever it does, was thinking it would really would support ALL web standards out there. As much as some people hate flash, once HTML 5 becomes fully supported, people will have some of the same complaints. i.e. You'll still have the same popup DIV ads, etc., etc.

It would be nice if the tablet's web browser supported Flash. Although Apple always has their own way of thinking. (Sometimes right, sometimes wrong).

I just want to surf and not say, crap, I can't view this site.
 
bclark525 said:
Apple will change forever the method of inputting and accessing information. The QWERTY keyboard should have died a long time ago... The hand is an amazing underutilized input mechanism.
Click to expand...

You type with your nose ?

I doubt keyboards are going anywhere when they are one of the most efficient text input mechanism there is. :rolleyes:

(No, handwriting recognition is not it. Seriously, most people's hand writing is atrocious, the Palm gesture alphabet is not handwriting recognition, it's stylus gestures, and I can type much faster than I can write, without any hand cramps).
 
tgc said:
... I just want to surf and not say, crap, I can't view this site.
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Agreed. The great thing about the web is that it's constantly updated: Both the content and the mechanisms to render that content. That's also a huge disadvantage, since it's easy to get disorientated through no fault of your own (example: a great website article you read last year just disappears and you can't refer back to it later.)

The joy of conventionally published static media (newsprint and particularly magazines and 'heavyweight' periodicals) is that you can build up a static library you own and are thoroughly familiar with. I'd like it if the tablet supports that model and provides much-needed stability to e-publishing.
 
These things are gonna bomb. Forget the fact that a netbook costs a fraction of what these will. The real problem is that you're going to look really stupid playing with one of these things in public.
 
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