Apple Rumor: It’s not a Tablet, It’s a Giant iPod
Image courtesy Apple
The rumors about an upcoming Apple Tablet just won’t go away. There have been many reports about Apple gearing up for the production of a tablet type of device. The company supposedly has ordered tons of flash memory chips and 10-inch displays to gear up to make a tablet. A recent rumor even has Apple negotiating with Verizon to put the mystery tablet on the carrier’s LTE high-speed wireless network. That one may be a bit far-fetched since Verizon hasn’t launched that network, yet. The constant tablet rumors indicate that a lot of folks are anxious for Apple to get a tablet on the market. The current rumor makes me think that perhaps Apple is not thinking about a computing tablet, rather a giant iPod.
Those of us who have been tablet enthusiasts for a long time immediately think of a slate device with a computer’s typical functionality. We immediately think of inking on the screen, along with the typical functions that can be done on any computer. This may not be what Apple has in mind, however, as it’s sounding like they are looking to produce a “media tablet”. This tablet would be designed from the ground up to make it easy to consume media, in different forms.
I can see such a tablet used for reading e-books, watching movies, and of course listening to music. This would feed right into the Apple model of selling content through the iTunes store. They already sell content, but this tablet would enable them to compete directly with Amazon in the e-book retail space. That’s a business that has already been proven to be successful for Amazon, so Apple would just be joining the fray.
This giant iPod, or iPod DX borrowing from Amazon’s Kindle naming convention, would be running the iPhone OS. That’s the same OS running on the iPod Touch, so it’s not a stretch by any means. The OS could handle a larger screened device quite handily, although apps would need to take advantage of the big display. This tablet could work just like the iPod Touch today, just with better interaction given the larger screen. No phone capability is needed; Apple could just go with Wi-Fi.
This giant iPod would have a huge advantage over other slate devices- the App Store. Running the same OS as the iPod Touch (and iPhone), the tablet would be able to run the tens of thousands of apps in the App Store right out of the box. They might not be optimized for the big screen (and big touch interface), but apps that do that will come in time. The point is there would be a huge selection of available apps at the launch of such a tablet.
So, the giant iPod tablet will handle the existing iTunes content, the App Store products and also add e-books to the mix. This presents a huge business opportunity for Apple so we may very well see this tablet soon.
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Agreed and that’s exactly what I thought as soon as I read this morning’s rumours in the FT. Apple are going after Amazon and it has more to do with the content than the hardware or computer power. This is potentially a good move for Apple as it would put them in a position where they sell a range of digital content making iTunes the single one stop shop for digital entertainment.
Of course, the bit they’ll likely struggle with here is the price. I don’t think this should cost any more than an iPod considering that it seems to be designed purely as a vehicle for selling content through iTunes. Combining an iPod with a Kindle seems like a niche product to me (even if it does include a browser) so they would be silly to charge too much for it.
I am thinking of Gaming Platform as well. This could be a PSP/DS blowtorch depending on its graphics capabilities. Also I believe it will be a unibody designed out of a solid piece of aluminium. The high price will not be an obstacle if this device has a few must-have features that are not found in iPhone/iPod device. I hope Apple knows what its doing, then again with hords of cash they can afford a flop or two. I actually wish they would step up the pace of new devices and start retiring some of their older devices.
it would me nice if there were an energy efficient reading mode for ebooks and maybe rss-feeds.
I would like to believe (no clue though) that they are not going to a 10″ touch size without keyboard. That would be so much the Archos mistake, and wouldn’t fit into the Apple “right way”.
Anyway, I would rather want to see a 5″ iPod with full OS (so what if there is a contradiction here; I bet the full OS can run iPhone apps on the safari browser if they want to) with cellphone capabilities. Would win the MID phone segment before being invented :) … that is kill moorstown devices before even going to market.
Tal
The Rumor Mill is working overtime on this device. I hear it will contain a Super Atom processor, has a 24hr battery life and runs so cool that if you tilt it just right it will dispense ice cubes for your favorite beverage.
And come with full beverage recipes- there’s an app for that. :)
If it is a giant iPod touch, I hope it is 9x (3×3) of the number of pixels (1440×960). The pixel density would say about the same. And for apps that don’t scale, it should be easy to setup a 9 pixels to 1 ratio. A 9x mode. Or if it looks too big, 4 pixels to 1, 4x mode with black border.
If it can run all the iphone apps, and a few key one that have apps that scales right. It would be OK with me.
I am thinking media player ebook reader .
No inking.
hopefully no inking, instead nice multitouch and onscreen keyboard.
I think the device will flop though. Its a non starter. A big gamble
I agree. I don’t think anyone would want to carry something with a 10″ screen around and I don’t see this doing anything that a netbook couldn’t do for a lot less. I just don’t see a market for something with a 10″ screen that doesn’t run Windows.
Well, I hope they’ll include a “kiosk” mode on this one. My middle daughter is multiply handicapped, and so DVD players are out (she tends to drop or crack them). She currently gets by with my old Nokia N800 running a program that gives here a touch interface for a group of videos. But it doesn’t keep her from hitting the home key or others, and so a few times a day I usually have to get her out of someplace she accidentally got into.
If the Apple Tablet (or even the ipod touch) had a kiosk mode where you could tell it you only want it to display videos (or play music depending on your needs), and couldn’t exit out without hitting a couple keys at once or such, it would be a big help to my daughter and many other handicapped kids and adults who have trouble with fine motor control.
Jobs in early 2008 about the Kindle:
Of course, Jobs has a history of s***ting on ideas and then one day embracing them as the best idea ever. Or it could mean that any talk of a reading device is off the mark.
And trust me… if it has a traditional screen, you won’t be able to use it to read. The Kindle screen is like reading paper. Reading a book on a traditional backlit display is ocular torture.
All Apple has to do is put in the Gobi chipset and they gain all kinds of flexibility.
September would also see them able to ship an iPhone OS based on Snow Leopard with support for a multi-core ARM11 CPU and multi-core PowerVR chip.
My money is still on it using a Samsung fab’d SoC designed by Apple’s PA Semi team.
I for one would like inking and mac osx on this puppy.
I like the idea of the giant Touch and its use of existing apps. I have a 32Gb 2nd Gen Touch that is a very good ereader.
However….
I have noticed that since Barnes & Noble bought Fictionwise & eReader, many books are now no longer available for sale outside the USA & Canada. The upshot of this restriction is that the adoption of ebooks and sale of devices will reduce in the shot to medium term. I will no longer be using my Touch to read ebooks as I canot now buy anymore of the books that I want to read. I therefore will not buy any ebook device (including the new Touch) in the UK as I am not able to get them the books I want in the format I choose to read them in.
This will put a dent in the ability of Apple to penetrate the ebook market in Europe, and may even reduce the probability of this device being sold in the EU.
Useless. Seriously, I’m trying to think of the use of this, maybe an internet browser?
Ereader: battery life will kill it versus Kindle, etc.
Tablet: It better have inking, and the ability to run applications which use inking. Downfall will be the lack of tablet programs/inking programs, that’s even IF inking is included.
Gaming Device: The iphone is just a momentary gaming novelty due to the lack of physical controls. I couldn’t see Apple losing it’s minimalistic approach to hardware and adding physical controls. Dead on arrival.
Internet browser: Seems like it would work well, this is probably going to be it’s strong point.
Media hub: Why bother? 32GB is a ton of space, but if it’s not enough it’s extremely easy to set up a server from your home PC, I’ve got 1tb on mine. I stream it all right to my iphone, so once again, why bother?
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That’s it, I just don’t get what an iphone OS tablet is going to do other than provide a larger sized iphone?!?! What they should do is do a true tablet with Mac OS on it. Of course it would be priced much higher, in the price range of true tablets, but so what? Apple has a long history of breaking into other markets where others have failed, I don’t see why they couldn’t do the same for the Tablet market.
If it’s not a fully-fledged, Mac OS X-based Newton MessagePad for the 21st century (or an Axiotron ModBook with less weight and a MUCH lower price tag), I don’t want it.
I expect a Wacom pen to be standard for writing and drawing-especially the latter, if Apple products really are supposed to appeal to artists. (I also emphasize having full-blown OS X, because that means you can run Photoshop on it, among other things. Then again, maybe they could get away with the iPhone/iPod touch OS if the tablet still had a Wacom pen, but that means that I have to jailbreak it to escape Apple’s Big Brother-level grip over the App Store.)
DS/PSP blowtorch? Don’t make me laugh. It could make a fine casual gaming device with a large screen (Bejeweled, Hexic, card games, stuff like that), but it’s a no-go for serious games that demand a physical D-Pad and buttons. No amount of graphics prowess will solve that. And, besides, people seriously developing handheld games are going to go to Nintendo first, and then Sony, and then maybe Apple.
Web browsing on a large tablet would be nice, but what if you want to compose a comment like this, or something of that nature? I’d better be able to add some sort of hardware keyboard like I have on my TC1100, then, or at least have good handwriting recognition!
I want Apple to bring out a proper Mac tablet because they integrate hardware and software like no other, and could easily show Microsoft how to make a proper pen tablet OS (see Newton). The problem is, they haven’t. It could be because they won’t settle for just releasing Mac OS X with hacked-on tablet extensions, but if an Apple tablet ends up just being a jumbo iPod touch, I’m going to be fuming at the sight of squandered potential.
I can only say tat there is tremendous potential for this large screen tablet .
Think about it. Just a couple places for a 5″x6″ or larger touch screen interfaced to your home automation app.,or a miriad of other app’s.