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Apple's new iPad is a big iPod Touch, starts at $499
cloudeagle
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Apologies if I missed this, but I searched back for a month and didn't find anything.
So Apple's long been rumored to release some sort of tablet. The company's revealing "a new product" next week, so tablet rumors are reaching fever pitch. In fact they're starting to hit the mainstream media, so it's looking like there's something to this.
In today's Wall Street Journal, the paper runs down a list of supposed hints about this thing, including:
--It IS a tablet
--Apple's been exploring electronic textbook technology
--Apple's been in discussions with book, magazine and newspaper publishers to distribute content for the device
--Not to mention TV stations, Apple's pitched a "best-of" TV channel service, 4-6 shows per channel
--Electronic Arts will demo games for the thing
--"One person familiar with the matter said Apple has put significant resources into designing and programming the device so that it is intuitive to share. This person said Apple has experimented with the ability to leave virtual sticky notes on the device and for the gadget to automatically recognize individuals via a built-in camera."
--Ships in March, 10-11 inch screen
--Costs as much as $1,000?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703405704575015362653644260.html
Since all the rumors are rapidly starting to crystallize into something real and we'll get concrete details in less than a week, I'm surprised there's no discussion on this. So: does the world need an Apple tablet? How much would you pay for it? Is there any chance this tablet will succeed after so many have failed?
So Apple's long been rumored to release some sort of tablet. The company's revealing "a new product" next week, so tablet rumors are reaching fever pitch. In fact they're starting to hit the mainstream media, so it's looking like there's something to this.
In today's Wall Street Journal, the paper runs down a list of supposed hints about this thing, including:
--It IS a tablet
--Apple's been exploring electronic textbook technology
--Apple's been in discussions with book, magazine and newspaper publishers to distribute content for the device
--Not to mention TV stations, Apple's pitched a "best-of" TV channel service, 4-6 shows per channel
--Electronic Arts will demo games for the thing
--"One person familiar with the matter said Apple has put significant resources into designing and programming the device so that it is intuitive to share. This person said Apple has experimented with the ability to leave virtual sticky notes on the device and for the gadget to automatically recognize individuals via a built-in camera."
--Ships in March, 10-11 inch screen
--Costs as much as $1,000?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703405704575015362653644260.html
Since all the rumors are rapidly starting to crystallize into something real and we'll get concrete details in less than a week, I'm surprised there's no discussion on this. So: does the world need an Apple tablet? How much would you pay for it? Is there any chance this tablet will succeed after so many have failed?
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I find it hard to believe it will be as expensive as a real laptop though. It'd basically be competing with their own Macbooks. I imagine they'd want a price point between the top end iPod Touch and Macbook - bit of a gap in the line up at the moment.
Will it have a 3G SIM card slot for those with mobile broadband?
The only problem im seeing with all these stories about its 'features' is really who are they aiming the device for?
More importantly I don't know why anyone would want one.
A portable device less useful than a laptop but too large to fit in a pocket? They should call it the Newton 2.
MUCH longer than 6 months. It seems like as soon as the first tablet PC came out years ago (with a resounding thud) that everyone thought Apple would come out with one.
I don't think Apple is ever the first mover, are they? They wait until someone else comes out with a decent product, then releases something much better -- or at least easier to use.
No one is buying tablet PCs so I'm not sure why people think anyone will buy tablet macs. Why release a big iPhone when people are happy buying little iPhones?
It has been a rumor for a lot longer than that.
The thing is, Microsoft is pushing our their courier this year and a bunch of other companies are releasing theirs this year as well.
It is forcing Apple to do it now. They've just been working on it a long time and if they wait too much longer they will lose any edge they might have.
But they are announcing it next week. There have been too many things for it to not be a tablet at least. A lot of the details can be wrong but there is at least that.
And it is something I want quite badly. Well, that or the courier.
Edit Eggy: Nobody is buying tablet PCs because the first wave failed miserably. But after the success of the iphone they are seeing they can really put something like this to use.
The iphone isn't going to kill the tablet, it will actually help it along because it was kind of a proof of concept.
However, I can see great potential for newspaper and magazine subscriptions. While the Kindle 2 is pretty much all I could ask for in reading basic books, it leaves a lot to be desired for reading full featured and colored magazines, newspapers, etc.
Apart from that, though, at the moment, i cannot think of other uses, at least for me. I am certain though that they will display features that I have no yet realized i "need."
Also, seriously what good would an Apple Tablet be? MS has been working on tablet software for over a decade since it was one of Bill's pet projects. That's why there is the MS Surface & the Courior.
What functions would an Apple Tablet be able to do? It would just be a giant iPod Touch.
And seriously the Lenovo IdeaPad will most likely kick the iTablet's ass.
If people want a eReader hybrid they could get a enTourage eDGe.
I could go on, but esentially Apple is late to the game here with many of the gargets that were shown at CSS tha will be out this year and most for less than what Apple would charge.
And you have absolutely no idea what the islate will be like so maybe we should just hold our commentary until they announce what it will really be.
Wow... That enTourage eDGe looks amazing. And only for $500... So tempted...
Although it comes with Android I'm pretty sure people will get Debian in it, which would make it a pretty, cool machine for the price. But I'm finding it strange that I can't find any info on the CPU on the website... Strange.
Odds are it's some variant of an ARM processor.
Personally I'm really liking the QUE myself. It's just a lot more than the Sony Daily Edition.
What is wrong with you people?
You know absolutely nothing about what it will be like. Where the hell are these judgments coming from?
Jesus, it is like you are having your own little console war or something.
Then you have this poll where 75% of 500ish respondents claimed that a 6h battery life was a must. I don't know how that'd be possible at all.
I hope i'm wrong, and Apple's got a different kind of keyboard layout, but typing with something like that would just be annoying as hell. I just think it's too big, but we'll see. It could be a whole new revolution, and any problem they have is known and dealt with. Personally, heh, I'm waiting for the Courier
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
This post filled with bitter sarcasm, provided by a Friday morning without coffee.
That said, I want to see how Apple's going to do this, because I don't personally think that it's going to be a huge hit. All I can imagine is a larger iPod Touch, and I don't see how that's going to be useful. I feel like they'd have to come up with a totally new graphical environment to make the thing usable. Something like a mixture of the Pre's WebOS, iPhone OS, and OS X. People are going to be expecting something more OS X-like than iPhone OS-like. It should be interesting to see how Apple tries to take iPhone OS, and scale it up a little for a device like this or to see how they take OS X and scale it down. At least I'm hoping they'll do something like that. I'd think this would be a huge flop if they went "look, we made the iPod Touch four times as large! People have seen 'small', but they're tired of straining their eyes. Today for them we're introducing the iCantSeeWhatTheiPodTouchSaidWhenItWasSoSmallButThisIsALotBetter."
???
I think so anyway. I no quite a few people who will buy anything Apple just because it's Apple. That's ok, it's their money.
PSN - sumowot
Nobody was really buying mp3 players when the iPod came out. If anyone can make tablet computers more mainstream it's Apple.
That said, I'm struggling to think of a way this new product will appeal to me.
Touchscreens and tablets fundamentally need people to be writing different software for them. The whole "mouse but with your finger" just doesn't work because the way I expect things to work with my hands and the way I expect them to work with a mouse controller are quite different (i.e. things need momentum and friction so I can actually slide them around).
Even with that - there's only a couple of things where they're an actual advantage. My dad just bought a bunch of those Dell touchscreen monitors - I have no idea what you'd practically use them for outside of niche specialty applications.
So of course this brings me to the punchline: the iPhone is less useful the longer you own it and thus get over it (got one), and the touch interface only really works because it needs to maximize screen real estate usage - not because it's somehow uniquely "redefining the way we interact" with things.
You're saying you think iPhone users are going to get over the touch interface "fad" and want to go back to moving a cursor around with a d-pad or trackball?!
Anyway, I'll agree that the explosion of e-readers is threatening to erase whatever tiny, tiny niche Apple's going for. It sounds like Apple's going to try to make it more appealing by offering direct-download newspaper, magazine and TV stuff on it. The only problem is that you can already get all that stuff on a netbook with zero effort, and millions already do.
Oh, and Apple being Apple this will cost far too goddamn much. Anything over $500 is suicide.
I'm just really doubting that the tablet will be a glorified e-reader. Mostly because I'm hoping. I mean I guess I could always just go with the courier when it comes out in that case.
Capitalism is a horrible thing sometimes. Hah.
Yeah. Many economists assume people are rational. They're definitely not (at least not most of them, and at least not most of the time).
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
People liked the iPod because MP3 players back then sucked. They were the same as trying to use Winamp with a little cursor nubbin, so it's little wonder that the iPod's interface (and its integration with iTunes) was so successful.
As for notes, typing is significantly faster and less painful than writing by hand. The only advantage is has is when you're not just doing words, but you can't say a product is going to be successful because a particular niche of people might find it interesting.
And yes, Netbooks are selling well because of the price. I haven't seen any numbers on the Macbook Air but I can't imagine it's selling very much. So a tablet which is even more specific yet costs more? I mean, the iPhone is nice but that's because it's a phone with internet built into the service.
I'll also add that, like the iPod, the iPhone took off because the previous smartphones, in retrospect, kind of sucked, not to mention they were purely business-oriented. Part of the genius of the iPhone was that it opened up the smartphone to the masses.
Granted, there's room for improvement on e-readers, but if you improve e-readers too much they pretty much turn into netbooks. Not to mention that Ereaders and netbooks have already taken off sales-wise for quite some time now. There's really no ready niche here that Apple can swoop in and fill.
Yes! And for business, the Blackberry is still better because it integrates with enterprise email systems and the little keyboard is better than Apple's on-screen keyboard when you actually have to type something. RIM loves it some business customers and it caters to them heavily.
If this is a fancy e-reader then who cares. who wants to spend $1000 to read a newspaper. Bookreaders who like e-books will just buy the $250 nook or kindle anyway, which is easier to read on compared to an LCD.
I mean I've got Kindle on my little netbook. Sure I'd like to make the keyboard go away, but not for $800 more.
Throw in support for a bluetooth keyboard, game controller and maybe push 2 tv in a future hardware revision and you have a perfect device for your living room.
Maybe Apple will surprise us with something new and awesome no one has thought of, but as of now the idea has a lot stacked against it.
Although, that would damage it's usability as an eReader, since you can't exactly read a book on something when it is being your TV.
Hmm, still, I'm betting this device is all about integration of products. Some kind of gateway to link everything you have together when you are at home (or at anyone elses house with an iSlate command center) and do everything from one place.
If it's just a 'doing stuff and reading books' device its biting into their own market. The iPhone is already marketed as their 'do anything anywhere' device. If they suddenly turned round and said "Oh, it sucks now, buy this instead' they'ed look like fools and damage their most valuable new product.
Yeah, you can download the Kindle application for Windows and Intel Macs. It's actually a cool way to manage all of your content, as well, at least from what I've seen. I'm on a G5 mac at home so I haven't been able to look at it until very recently, and it's pretty cool. You just log in and all the stuff you've bought is there.
I like the idea that Amazon has seriously moved its Kindle platform to be, well, a platform. You don't have to buy the device to enjoy the service (just like you can still buy music from iTunes and listen to it on your computer, or burn a CD for your car). I think if Apple does have a device like this it will at least have an app, but again, for those who want that functionality specifically are they going to buy a Netbook for 300 or this iSlate thing for $1000?
Which would make their Apple TV device (which has sold for shit) really stupid. Not that they won't do it, but I think people are becoming much more interested in simple DVR and Netflix access, rather than buying shit on a computer and plugging it into their TV.
But youor point about the "doing stuff wherever" I totally agree with, because if it's a big iPhone then who wants a big iPhone? People like them cos they fit in their pocket.
No, Apple just have the benefit that people only count their hits.
Doesn't this product already exist and cost about $2000 ?
But is there a lot of room on the market for the thing that will replace the devices this one likely intends to replace? It seems like they achieved huge success with one device that can do a whole range of functions, so now they want to release another one with a bigger screen that can take care of a few things that can't be done perfectly on the Iphone.
But I guess I see the Iphone as kind of an exception in terms of multi-functional devices. It seems like this one would be harder to market, given the functions that it will likely do. It coooouulld do well if treated as a netbook replacement.
There's also something to be said for having discreet devices that are really good at one thing. An ebook reader with a TV and games in it sounds like it was made to keep you from reading.
No, not everyone.