My Apple Tablet Predictions
Jan/106
Apple Tablet Mockup from Gawker.com
- The Tablet could assume the name MacBook. Re-brand existing laptops. This avoids consumer confusion from having a product called “MacBook” that is not book-related, and having another product that is book related, but does not have “book” in the product name.
- Coverflow will be everywhere. It’s very finger-friendly
- Either a hybrid LCD/eInk display OR 24 hrs of eBook reading ability. eInk is cool because of its battery life & great contrast/sharpness. If Apple can achieve this without using an eInk screen, they will (e.g. Pixel Qi’s dual mode screen)
- Higher-than-standard screen DPI to help reduce eye strain from reading
- Front facing camera & decent speakers, because for teens all media is social
- New iTunes format for eBooks (like LPs), uses iTunes DRM (5 machines)
- As with most other Apple products, it will come in 2 models: Consumer & Pro
– Consumer: Wi-Fi (b/g/n)
– Pro: Wi-Fi & 3G/GSM world (so they don’t need localized models/carriers)
– Both include a sleek stylus for pen-based input
– Extra: $100 for a docking station
- Pen-based input:
– used by consumers when annotating eBooks
– used by knowledge workers for marking up documents
– used by artists in Photoshop etc
- Ability to use the Tablet as a multi-touch & pen input device for any existing mac
– uses a much updated version of The Newton’s handwriting input mechanism, which Apple already owns patents for
- Ability to run apps on your existing mac as if they were running on the tablet
Example: If you have Photoshop & iTunes on your main Mac, in iTunes you’ll be able to drag their icons onto your tablet. Those icons will be added to your tablet, and automatically connected back to your mac, over the network.
When you launch Photoshop on the tablet, it will look & feel like it’s running locally, but it’ll really just be displaying the interface locally. All processing will be done back on your (powerful) Mac. Running iTunes would work the same way. The advantage is that you could access your entire music library from anywhere, and it wouldn’t require the Tablet to have a fast CPU, lots of RAM, or lots of storage space.
– If this feature doesn’t happen, expect to be able to host your music collection in the cloud (thanks to their acquisition of Lala.com), or to be able to connect to it somehow, from anywhere.
- Custom OS based on iPhone OS (optimized for tablet form factor)
- Much faster CPU than the iPhone. Closer to MacMini.
- Newer graphics chip than the iPhone
- 512MB RAM (versus iPhone’s 256)
1:50 pm on January 13th, 2010
I hope your predictions are right Madam Zara.Cant wait for 26th.
2:26 pm on January 13th, 2010
Definitely some of those I haven’t heard before.. Here are my thoughts:
-name Macbook -> Very unlikely. Macs are for mouse and keyboard. The name will die with that. iPod’s and iPhones are a far bigger deal than mac’s. Mac’s are last century. The iPhone was a total rethink of the experience, abstracting away most of a regular computer. The tablet will continue with that with a new name.
-coverflow. It works well for some stuff. I’m guessing it’ll be there.
-display – I think the battery life won’t be that high at all. They will be satisfied with charging once a day, with a 7-9 hour battery life, and no e-ink. Maybe if the engineering is there for e-ink, but I haven’t heard anything that allows a computer to be a computer and even partially use e-ink. The touchscreen on that Plastic Logic device is completely unusable for anything. And there is no way they’ll use two displays. Too costly to make and complex to use.
DPI – at least 720p, not sure how much more. Definitely higher than a laptop. I’ll go with at least as high as the dpi as the iPhone. Not sure how many pixels that’ll be. A lot more.
camera – I’ll go with a yes. It could be in the higher end model?
iTunes for books – Hope so. Sounds good. I think it would help.
2 models, definitely agreed. And most people will want the more expensive one as is always the case:)
wifi and 3G – probably
stylus – The input mechanism is the giant unknown right now. I won’t make predictions on this one:)
docking station – I’d be very surprised. It should be truly portable.
annotating ebooks – this is killer functionality. I’d love it.
ability to control mac apps. My first instinct was “no way”, and that it is too complicated because the mac has too much baggage. But now that I think about the remote app on the iPhone, that’s pretty much how it works. I sure hope that you won’t have to sync with a cord to a computer to listen to music. This device should be stand-alone. No PC necessary. I hope.
custom OS – definitely
faster CPU – for sure.
graphics chip – sounds good
RAM – yes.
I like these predictions altogether.
8:16 pm on January 13th, 2010
Interesting.
Just my 2 cents:
It will a strong Media computer. Basic an iPod Touch PLUS. A plus because of the bigger screen but I also believe it will serve as an eReader for not only books but also magazines which can be bought through iTunes.
It will be able run iPod Touch apps. Question will be if it will be able to run Mac apps.
Interface will be very interesting. Have a hard time believe there will be stylus. It just doesn’t seem something that Apple would do. But the interface will be interesting. All I hope that it is not going to be a huge iPhone.
Obviously Wifi but I am not convinced that 3G is also a part. The question is how a consumer is going to pay for that. Maybe tethering through the iPhone will be possible.
All in all I am very curious about the device but I can’t imagine buying it.
9:11 pm on January 13th, 2010
I should have specified that IF it has a stylus, I think it will be 100% optional. It could be used to annotate books, documents, and do art… but if you don’t want to do those things, you don’t need the stylus. Fingers will do fine. You could even annotate using the virtual keyboard / finger painting if you wanted.
12:35 pm on January 15th, 2010
Forgot to mention, because I think the Tablet will be shared by members of the family (unlike the iPhone/iTouch), the Tablet will support multiple user accounts, like OSX (unlike iPhone OS).