2010 - the (rumored) year of the Apple tablet dawns

[ben schmidt]

No one outside of Apple knows the facts about the rumoured but unannounced Apple tablet computer. When will it ship? 7" or 10" display? Will it run OS X, iPhone OS, or a new iTablet OS? Cell or just wifi networks? Handwriting recognition? How much will it cost? And who among us will want one? And why?

Two giants in the Mac blogosphere share their speculations:

• The Tablet by John Gruber, daringfireball.net, 31 Dec 2009
  


• Antacid tablet by John Siracusa, Ars Technica, 1 Jan 2010

[Michael Humphrey]

Thanks, Ben, they were both good reads.
Just have to wait til the 24th.(?)

-Mike

[ben schmidt]

Well perhaps not Sunday January 24th <grin>, but sometime during the week that starts then. No official announcement yet from Apple as to an end-of-the-month media event, but here is a posting representative of the rumour mill:

   Major Apple Product Announcement Set for Wednesday, Jan. 27
   John Paczkowski, All Things Digital   
   Posted on January 4, 2010

[Dan Millar]

I'm putting my money on the 26th, as it is a Tuesday, and for some unknown reason, Apple has always held these little affairs on Tuesdays. Maybe it's two-dollar Tuesday at the Yerba Buena? - I dunno, but holding it on the 27th would be a tradition-breaker, as will be the device they will be showing, so who knows! All I do know is I can't wait to see it, I'm getting overwhelmed with all the so-called insider info, and have an absolute jumble of ideas as to what to expect.

Regardless, here's my prediction. The Steve is going back to his original conception of the Mac - an appliance. The "tablet" (iSlate?(yucchy name)) will have an OS the users will not interact directly with - like the iPhone (iPhone SDK 4.0 hints at this). The data will live in the machine, but will be synced with your desktop/laptop as well as a cloud provider (Apple's recent acquisition of a super-server farm in North Carolina is another hint?). The apps will include the usual iPhone internet tools, Safari, Mail, Contacts, etc., as well as some form of iLife/iWork suite, and of course some social networking apps. Software will be available only from an "App Store", and updates will be applied auto-magically. Users will never have to worry about "drivers", or plugging things in as all connections will be wireless(maybe one USB port?). I doubt a stylus or pen will be included, but I don't doubt some form of handwriting/gesture recognition will work its way into the OS.

Most computer users don't want to interact with the OS directly, or as Steve would say, they don't need to. And, he would be right. Consumer surveys show that about 80% of North American users do not want to fiddle with their computers, they just want them to work. Couple this with Steve's belief that a computer should be like any other appliance in your house, it just works until it breaks, then you replace or repair it, and I think you can get an idea of what's coming.

Well, now I can't wait to see how wrong/right I am. Apparently, Apple is now in full dis-info mode, and with the non-event that is CES, they are maximizing their free press on the subject. Every tablet-like device announced is immediately compared with the Apple tablet in some way - and the product doesn't even exist, yet the expectation is that Apple can do no wrong here - this impression strengthened by the success of the iPod and iPhone.

Any other predictions folks? Am I in Mac fanboi lala-land? What if the big event isn't even about a tablet?!

Happy Mac'ing!

Dan

[Michael Humphrey]

re: the date: I was being lazy again and not going back and reading the rumours pages to see what they were predicting, though a little check of the calendar widget would have told me the 24th would've been dead wrong. :D

I think the 2 articles are probably going to hit the nail on the head.

It'll probably be a device that gives you your "essential" computing, and in particular, media functions, and does it amazingly well, while being portable. And the "laptop for the rest of us", who really don't need a laptop, but want something better/does the essential better than the netbooks that are currently available.

Surfing the web, checking email, social networking, listening to music, watching movies, reading docs/books. Do you really need a laptop for that, and does the current crop of netbooks do those very well?

I think that the App store apps would probably be able to be easily ported to the new device, just tweaked to allow for the device's new capabilities and size - to allow the iPhone App makers to leverage the time they've already put into their Apps, and further encourage them to write Apps for both platforms. It would be up to the developers to decide whether you would get cross-licencing/bundle-pricing etc.

And you're probably right, Dan - you would probably just get stuff from the cloud/iTunes/Apple updated seamlessly.

I would hope it would have some USB ports, so that you plug things into it directly for input/output if you don't have access to a network sometimes.

-Mike

[Dan Millar]

Okay, first thing wrong with my prediction - it appears Apple will be making the announcement on a Wednesday - Jan. 27th. Perhaps it has something to do with their quarterly results being released on Monday, Jan. 25th? Historically, Apple has always done these shows on a Tuesday, and the hall (Yerba Buena Center) has been booked from the 26th thru the 28th, so some doubt remains... typically Apple only sends their invites out a week to to ten days before these events, so we should have clarity soon!

Happy Mac'ing!

Dan

[Dan Millar]

It's official - well, something's up anyway - Apple has announced a media event for January 27th, and the tagline is "Come see our latest creation". Hmmmm... what could it be? Only nine days to go...

Happy Mac'ing!

Dan

[Dan Millar]

It's an iPad!

http://www.apple.com/ipad

Happy Mac'ing!

Dan