Apple won't take tablet to September iPod event, says mole Desperate for iTablet news, World+Dog is reporting that Apple will host a music-centric event on 9 September. And... er... that's it. Yes, all Apple has to do is issue an invite and bloggers' pants moisten with anticipation. Actually, it has yet to issue the invite, but sources close to the company have told one Wall Street …
Would someone please explain why anyone is excited by the idea of Apple making a tablet? I still can't work out the target market. After all, the Tablet PC was hyped to death, it came, it didn't conquer (and I had one and used it a lot, but never gave up the desktop, laptop, DVD player and Balckberry, it was the tablet that eventually got dumped), and has become very niche. Are there really enough fanbois out there willing to shell out for an outsized iPod? At ten inches it's too big to replace an iBone and that already does as much as what the proposed iTablet would seem capable of, and the idea of an unprotected screen without a keyboard won't lure many netbook users. The Kindle is good because it just does one task very well at a reasonable price, so I can't see the iTablet winning that war either, especially given that the iTablet is very likely to come with a hefty dose of Apple's fashion victim tax. If it comes with full Leopard then it will take sales away from other Apple lines and provide less of an "experience" than the proper Apple desktops/laptops. If it doesn't come with full Leopard then it will be an overpriced and outsized iPod replacement.
Any fanboi got a calm and reasoned answer?
"Someone" already has released a tablet computer. In fact, practically every major computer manufacturer (apart from Apple) has released some form of tablet. Examples:
Toshiba - http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/ebtext.to?page=tabletMicro&seg=HHO
Dell - http://www.dell.com/tablet
Sony - http://www.engadget.com/2004/05/10/sonys-wireless-tablet-pc/
Acer - http://www.acer.co.uk/acer/news_detail.do?LanguageISOCtxParam=en&sp=page8e&ctx2.c2att1=17&kcond9.c2att193=4001&CountryISOCtxParam=UK&ctx1g.c2att92=842&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=4294612710
Gateway - http://reviews.cnet.com/Gateway_M275_tablet_PC/4505-3121_7-30591541.html
Even companies that don't specialise in PC manufacturing are selling tablets:
Archos - http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/archos-launches-archos-9-tablet-607886?src=rss&attr=all
Nokia - http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/editorial/nokia-n800-internet-tablet
There are tablets for Windows, tablets for Linux, even tablets for Symbian! Nobody needs to talk about Apple vapourware any more... nobody ever did.
...bothering to read The Reg....
"The days of passing round album sleeves to admire the Hipgnosis artwork are long since past. Sleeve notes even more so."
So how come
" 64 per cent cited the simple desire to have a physical object, 57 per cent like to have artwork and sleeve notes"
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/11/music_survey/
Fail.
Look, it's been rumored for a looooong time that the iTablet would come out in 2010, and no sooner. Such a new product also calls for its own event, not taking the limelight away from new pods and accessories. Look for a preview anouncement in November if not into late January, with a product hitting shelves late spring at the earliest.
this is the new imac, not a tablet, don't you?
apple cannot release a 'tablet' because the concept of a tablet is just a large ipod touch.
it needs to be a whole new way of using a device. the imac is on its way out. remember the apple laptops that you docked into a monitor?
think different.
"When was the last time you saw an album with sleeve notes?"
All the Porcupine Tree reissues/remasters have copious sleeve notes, something I'd have totally missed had I chosen to download instead. Mind you they are prog so what do you expect?
Your point's mostly valid, but still a pretty big generalisation :)
Clam.
said it elsewhere..... here my take
itablet will come in 3 sizes.... the existing ipod touch (3.5in) and a new 7inch and 10-12inch
WIll have iphoneOS. Stream media from your apple tv. Use "back-to-my-appletv" tech when you are on the move to stream your library.
Different libraries for each user or a shared one.
So daddy can be in the study streaming a movie/music to his itablet, sonny-boy in his bedroom streaming to his touch etc.
plus all the app store apps for whatever.
also @AC :10.00
" Windows 7 is as good or even better than MacOSX"
thats a joke right? Snow Leopard hasnt even hit yet.
"- inovation is seriously lacking in their desktop/laptop designs."
oh , please.. now you are trolling !! Unibody is barely out of nappies
"- they're destroying developer goodwill with their App store antics."
You have a point but at least they are addressing it and considering there was nothing like this from anyone before hand and all others have similar probs now, they are not doing too bad
"- they have no serious replacement for Jobs"
Get over it. While he is important to apple, its not like he does all the work there. He likes you to think he does, but any company exec at that level of such a large company does not do it by himself. He has a good team in place that does things his way. And whos to say that a replacement might not be even better. *** Change CAN be good. (repeat 100 times)
People are excited about Apple releasing a Tablet like device because:
a. They got it right with 3D animated movies - Pixar
b. They got it right with the iPod
c. They got it right with MacOsX
d. They got it right with the iPhone
Feel free to replace "got it right" with "released something that didn't suck"
The odds are most definately in Apples favour for releasing something that will make everything else before it seem lacking.
As I posted when El Reg first reported on this latest round of Mac tablet rumors -- which you may not have seen -- for me, it all depends on whether it runs OS X or the iPhone OS.
As a professional illustrator/graphic designer, having a tablet that can -- even adequately -- run my copies of Photoshop, Freehand, etc. means that I have a sketchpad for taking along when I go to talk with clients, to do quick sketches, mockups, etc., then download them when I get back to the office, With (ideally, wireless) connectivity and a basic office app, I could even leave hardcopies of the roughs with a cost estimate, all sent to the client's network printer while onsite. Remember that, as a sketch pad, it doesn't HAVE to be as powerful as my office machine; it just has to be good enough for what I need it to do when I'm AWAY from the office and save files in formats that I can open when I get back there.
As a visually-impaired, trifocals-wearing 50-something, having a large paperback/small magazine sized page for working/reading on is MUCH better than a standard PDA-sized screen -- I CAN read my Palm's screen, and I like having color, but, even having just a gray-scale display, my old Newton 2100's larger screen was MUCH easier to read.
As a non-driver who travels on public transit and has a lot of time to read, again, the larger screen would make reading e-books, NYTimes.com, etc, MUCH easier than on a PDA-sizes screen and wouldn't require that I carry all those extra wodges of paper around with me. Add in color, which the Kindle doesn't have, and the Zinio-style e-magazine subscription model for magazines that I currently buy in dead-tree format becomes much more attractive. And while it is certainly POSSIBLE to do all of these on a laptop, consider again the "visually-impaired" part, mentioned above. Reading on a laptop on a moving bus/train involves, for me, bending my spine into a pretzel shape in order to get within reading-range of the screen while the laptop is, in fact, on my lap, or holding it up in front of my face with one hand while scrolling with the other. Neither is an ideal solution for relaxing reading.
Now, I will admit that my particular needs make up a rather small market niche but, if the groups into whose intersection I fall are taken separately -- people who would find a portable, networkable drawing pad/notebook ideal for work or school; people who want a large but still portable color-screened e-reader; and the visually-impaired who find reading a PDA/smartphone screen an exercise in frustration -- I would guess that you're beginning to get into a commercially-viable market demographic. And that's even BEFORE you get into the group of people who might want it just because of any perceived "coolness-factor"! ;-)
As noted, this all works for me if it runs OS X. If it runs iPhone OS, then probably not so much. It depends on whether the larger size and -- presumably -- larger storage, makes it an attractive enough platform for developers to port OS X apps to or to create adequate equivalents for (much like Seascape/Inkscape are to Photoshop/Illustrator). If it does, then it might suit my needs and I'm there. If not, then I'm probably not.
Does that explain it for you?
(Damn, that was a long one... Now where did I put my beer...?)
'Any fanboi got a calm and reasoned answer?'
Yes I'll bite. I'll even try to correct or buff a few things for you. First a Modbook (iPad / iTablet) c/o Steve Wozniak: http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook . You heard of him. You can't get any more Apple than him. Let's move on.
Now. I'm with you on this. I like and enjoy Apple products FAR MORE than MS. There are times Apple's stuff do piss me right off (iPhone, TELL me someone called 20 min. ago for I'm one of those people that's able to hold my cock in my hand than a phone 'cause ...I can; shiny iMac screen...), I can connect my 1G iPod mini to ANYTHING (USB/FW) with no complaints; Cube is a Geek (chick) magnet. And my maxed-out iMac does Autodesk w/VMware, no problem. If this thingo does come out, it won't be for me at any cost. MS did the Tablet thing and Apple's comment (or really SJ) said - in so many words - it would be a dud. And it was. Years later, now, there are heaps of people that want this thingo. Why? Isn't the iPhone enough? People are creating a market for something that does not exist yet (Music, games, movies, GPS, light reading, Internet); analyst pulling figures out their arse saying Apple will make squillions! The Kindle has mild problems with purist with reproducing text visually; 'No matter what book you're looking at on that thing, it uses the same text'. Not a good look (pun). The iTablet would shit all over the Kindle in that visual department.
It'll turn into a hobby like the Apple TV. People say that's a failure. Wrong. Apple did not spend a billion $ propping ATV [Xbox]. It didn't fail. It'll grow like the ATV; just slowly. MS just went too fast and hit a wall. The tech and the soul wasn't there; it died. What's stopping other companies from properly resurrecting their own Tablet. And when they do...* I've said it before; MS, they're spending BIG on ads and promos about W7, MS stores, new Zunes, Natal; items that DO exist in several forms. But the interweb's abuzz about 1 product from Apple that does not exist. They have not placed a single ad anywhere or spent a cent on a self-denied dream and stumps MS out of existence. You can't buy that kind of advert.
*@whiteafrican, I checked those Tablets out: What can I say? See, they shat those things out and moved on. They don't care. If they really cared, they'd get with MS or develop their own 'surface' or touch that makes reasonable sense and push it. You should know how Apple do things; they don't shit products out on a whim. [Cube - you see what happened there but that's polish!] Only companies that use MS tend to do that: storm clouds, damaging wind... But when Apple does it, it's sliced bread, blue skies and green lights.
At no point did I say that MS tablets were particularly incredible - I simply said that MS vendors have already made lots of tablets, in lots of different form factors, so at least customers get some choice (e.g. I chose an HP tc1100 'cos I'm an artist, so most of the time I like to draw straight on the screen -with pressure sensitivity- and I can just ditch the keyboard, but when I want a keyboard, it just clips right on). Apple will have the usual "one design fits all approach" that turned me off the iphone in the first place... consumers will get no choice with Apple - but that's the price you pay for keeping the OS proprietary.
What I cannot see is what Apple realistically think they can do that will be better than the existing tabletpc options at a reasonable price- as noted above, the only way it will work for most artistic/graphics types is if it runs OSX, so that it can use photoshop, etc., and has a pressure-sensitive pen. Otherwise there's no point - and if it runs the iPhone OS then I don't see what the point is at all.
But if it runs OSX, then that means Apple need to basically fit laptop architecture into a 10-12in tablet-size space. It can be done - HP did it with the tc1100. But Apple are starting from scratch much later in the game. If you can by a good tablet PC on ebay for £300 (as I did), why are you going to pay £500 for the same thing from Apple?
Same goes for business users. What IT department is going to buy Apple tablet that costs significantly more and delivers no tangible benefit?
The only reason anyone would do that is the same reason they pay all of Apple's other fashion-victim-taxes...
(Also - whereas you said MS vendors made tablets and moved on, you'll find that, for example, the Archos 9 isn't even available yet, and Acer, Toshiba, HP, Dell, etc. all still make tablets and all still sell them on their websites...)
I am interested in something bigger than a touch, with a 7" widescreen perhaps 8 or 9 so I can type on it more effectively and a sim slot so I can use a mobile broadband service for light useage when I am not near a wireless network. I am not interested in making telephone calls with it. My new Nokia N95 is just fine thanks.
RE: Mike Moyle
Yes, if you have Mac only apps and the iTablet runs Leopard then it would seem like a good fit for you, though my answer would be maybe look at some Windows or Linux apps and try an existing tablet PC first. And as for the Kindle, I'm already hearing rumours of a colour version.
RE: Player_16
If it becomes a hobby then it won't exactly be mass-market. The iPhone was a success because it did a lot of things very well but was also a reasonable phone, the phone being the market segment it hooked into - I don't see the same market segment unless the iTablet is some kind of portable TV/DVD player. I'm not sure it can go into the games market seeing as items like the Nintendo DS and PSP have pretty much got that sewn up. Maybe Apple's aim is to make a jack-of-all-trades tablet. As for the free advertising Apple gets from the fanbois, there is the same for all Apple products whether they are successes or failures, but you may want to take a look at the number of Windows 7 articles on the Web. They seem to outnumber the iTablet articles, which suggests you may just be spending your time on the fanboi sites.
It may just shut-up the noise. It's not just from the 'fanbois site', it's just everywhere: finance (especially), phones, sports, electronic, the evening news. Just when SJ made his return, it was a slug-feast and in MS favor so I had all the sites. Now, I just go to more mature (?), fence-riding, cover-all-bases sites like this (huh?). It's just everyone's riding coat-tails, going ga-ga,... and moles. It generates clicks & hits. Who needs an app for that? MS can't do that.
You originally said "But the interweb's abuzz about 1 product from Apple that does not exist. They have not placed a single ad anywhere or spent a cent on a self-denied dream and stumps MS out of existence. You can't buy that kind of adver". Matt Bryant pointed out you were wrong. Your response makes almost no sense, grammar wise... but it makes snough sens that we can see you are wrong:
Google the following:
"iTablet" - 721,000 hits
"Apple Tablet" - 2,080,000 hits
and then compare:
"Windows 7" - 68,200,000 hits
"Win 7" - 7,220,000 hits
So there are about 75million hits for Windows 7, and about 3million for the Apple tablet. Apple's "free advertising" does not "stump MS out of existence" as you put it - on the contrary, many people (around 72 million hits' worth) seem to want to talk and care more about MS's next big unreleased product than about Apple's... and at least with MS you know for certain that it's a product that's actually real.
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