Report: Apple Tablet Coming in January

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

Report: Apple tablet coming in January

Wall Street Journal reports company will begin shipping ‘netbook’ in March

By Jessica Mintz

updated 1 hour, 48 minutes ago
SEATTLE - Speculation intensified Monday that Apple Inc. will soon unveil a tablet-style gadget for consuming music, movies, books and other media.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is planning to take the wraps off such a device this month and begin shipping it in March.

That jibes with several online reports that the company has scheduled an event for Jan. 26 or 27 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, one of Apple's customary spaces for product launches.

The gadget, which online pundits have at different times christened the iTablet and the iSlate, is to have a 10-inch to 11-inch touch screen, said the Journal, citing unnamed people briefed on the matter.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34694221/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets

[WriteDown]

1. Should be interesting...

The netbook market is very hot right now. We'll see what apple brings to the table. Maybe a tablet that you can send email on, but can't forward photos for the first 3 years? :rofl:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

57. A lot of the reason netbooks are hot is because they're cheap.

And it seems to be the norm that with Apple you can have small or cheap, but not both. The MacBook Air comes to mind.

[Tesha]

74. Strangely enough, Nokia's latest high-end smartphone (N900) doesn't do MMS.

Maybe that feature is only important in the eyes of
people trying to put down the iPhone?

Tesha

[WriteDown]

83. No....

Its on almost every phone. Finally Apple wised up and made it possible. Maybe next they'll allow me to install Opera on it. Safari just doesn't cut it.

[Tesha]

84. But not on that Nokia. As it turns out, if you have good E-mail, ...

you have a LOT less need of MMS, especially given
that it tends to be an extra-cost service whereas
E-mail is free.

Tesha

[WriteDown]

85. It is MUCH easier to take a picture of something and send it via MMS

than through email. I just did it last night with a pillow at Lowes with my iPhone so that my girlfriend could form an opinion about it. My girlfriend simply had to flip open her phone and not go to a computer and login to her email.

Also, as with most people, I don't have everyone in my phone's email address which is fairly common. If it wasn't a great feature then people wouldn't have been clammoring for it for years.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10361877-233.html

[onehandle]

2. Impact of ‘iSlate’ Could Rival iPhone

LONDON — You don’t need a crystal ball, seer stone, scrying pool or any other spooky stuff to guess what one of the most talked-about design projects of 2010 will be. The tech blogs have been buzzing about it for months. It’s the iSlate, iTablet, iProd, Magic Slate, or whatever else Apple finally decides to call its new tablet computer.

We’ve been here before: three years ago, to be exact. The drill was the same. Months of frenzied blogging culminated in ecstatic cheers on Jan. 9, 2007, when Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, brandished a prototype iPhone before an adoring audience of Apple nuts at a convention in San Francisco.

What’s happened since? Not only has Apple sold tens of millions of iPhones, it has pulled off a stunningly successful exercise in design democracy whereby thousands of D.I.Y. designers have developed applications, or programs, for them. Some 100,000 “apps” have been invented, and more than two billion downloaded from Apple’s App Store. What’s almost more impressive is that Apple has achieved this despite its own history — and instincts — as the consummate corporate control freak.

Mr. Jobs is expected to show off the iSlate (as we’ll call it, if only because that’s the latest rumor) in San Francisco later this month. If the bloggers are right, it will hit the stores in March. At the risk of party-pooping, we should note that not every new Apple product has been a hit. Remember the Newton PDA? Or the G4 Cube computer? But if the iSlate is another of the company’s successes, it promises to have as much impact as the iPhone, if not more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/arts/04iht-design4.html

Apple's stock is surging. Projected to double in value and split. They may be more valuable than Microsoft by end of year or sometime in 2011.

Yeah. Apple is going our of business aaaaanyyyy minute now.

On edit: Want a Kindle? Cheap? Check eBay sometime in March.

[Frank Booth]

25. This sounds like a perfect time buy puts on AAPL!

[ocean girl]

3. I'm getting one immediately

I never been disappointed in any Apple product and I've owned them all.

[Tikki]

4. I have my hot grand in my hand...

ready for whatever they call it....:)


Tikki

[nashville_brook]

8. me too!! i'm totally psyched. i've had a google alert on keywords "apple tablet" for a while now.

[WriteDown]

37. Maybe you too can answer post 35. nt

[WriteDown]

36. Maybe you can answer post 35. nt

[Dreamer Tatum]

5. Great...something else for sycophantic Apple slavemonkeys to be insufferable about nt

[Libertas1776]

6. +1

[brooklynite]

10. Walk TOWARDS the Light....

[LeftHander]

32. This thread is really a virus from a windows zombie botnet....nt

[tinrobot]

90. Exactly

My main client is mostly Mac-based. As a consultant, I get to choose my own machine and choose a Sony VAIO laptop. It works for me. Last month, I was in a big meeting. Fifteen other people at the conference table, all with identical 15" Macbooks.

I looked at my lone Sony and then at all the identical precious aluminum Macbooks and said to myself - "Think Different? Riiiight..."

[Unca Jim]

7. Dang..

It must be nice to be rich!

[brooklynite]

9. Please buy one...

my stock hit $214 today; the more potential sales, the greater likelihood of a stock split...

[alfredo]

11. I bought in at $10 but sold all my stock at once in Late 2000. It paid my

mortgage off with my portfolio. I think it was around $25 a share when I sold.

[we can do it]

72. I Did Almost the Same Thing, But I Got in at $13

[northzax]

73. yeah, me too

then i was unemployed for a long time and had to sell at 40. damn.

[alfredo]

12. Speculating is fun. I think because of their negotiations with print media,

they will do with the tablet what they did with AT&T and the iPhone, but not as restrictive. What you will see is Newsweek selling the tablets at a subsidized price in trade for a multiple year subscription to their publication.

Apple has also been in talks with TV networks. Hmmmm. Could they be out to change the way TV is delivered?

[Occulus]

27. I have to apologize to users of iDevices

I still have issues with Apple computers because of their price vs. 'horsepower', but I do have to say they completely nailed it with the iPhone and iPod Touch. It's the most responsive touchscreen I've ever used, bar none (every other phone out there that I've played with is sluggish by comparison), the screen is as bright as I could wish and it has way more power under the hood than most users ever need (a BSD system sitting on a custom kernel, supporting wifi and bluetooth, that also uses the Debian packager? moar, plz). I do think it could be more durable and less 'blingy' from a physical design standpoint, though. I guess that's what cases are for...

If the tablet only does everything the iPhone/Pod does, it'll still be a hit, but I'm suspecting it'll be capable of far more than what we have at the moment. I've heard rumors of multitouch sensing capability, not merely with two points but several, for example. Built-in support for the Wii controller would be interesting, too. Maybe someone will code a Wiimote kernel module for the iTablet...

I also hope the thing is a lot less locked down than the iPod Touch and iPhone are- jailbreaking isn't exactly hard, but I bricked my iPod twice before I did it right. They should open the tablet up; at this point the thing's a legitimate personal (laptop?) computer in its own right, and as such, users deserve to be able to access the filesystem.

I won't buy one right away, of course. I've learned my lesson about early models of new devices, and I'm still paying for it (literally). But I expect it'll become pretty popular as a casual computing device.

[alfredo]

46. Apple is good at playing the expectation game. It doesn't just

spark customer interest, it has competitors wondering if they will have to play catch up once again. The Motley Fool calls them Rule Makers. They have the power to change entire industries.

Another way to look at the upcoming tablet: What areas of content delivery have they not played in?

Way back in the nineties before Jobs returned, Apple employees were readying their strategy that is playing out today. They weren't interested in taking on MS in enterprise. They wanted to be the major player in content creation and delivery. That was why MS wanted Apple to "Knife the baby", meaning kill QuickTime. QuickTime was, and is central to Apple's long term goals.

My fanboy status centers on watching as their game plan plays out. It's been great theater. I like a game well played, and Apple are masters of the game.

BTW, Apple employees and users had a fall back plan if MS was successful in killing Apple. All energy would have shifted to Linux. Developers were working on a version of Linux at the time. Soon after Jobs returned, he brought NeXtStep with him and dropped MkLinux and shifted everyone over to QuickTime. HyperCard developers also migrated to QuickTime.

[NashVegas]

54. Apple Has Interesting Karma

In the early 1990s, Apple was the company making software and computers that appealed to artists and creative people who used computers to work. The irony is the tech and 2.0 revolution made many dedicated artists and creative professionals irrelevant, as software & hardware became available at prices attractive to amateur dabblers and hobbyists who wouldn't otherwise spend the time and money on the career investment, will pay (maybe, thanks to open source) for the hack.

[alfredo]

56. The Mac made desktop music very cheap. Like I said some

months ago you could build a Mac based music studio for about the same as a four track demo would cost at Clement's studio in Nashville.

With Final Cut Pro you can bypass the big studios. Much of the content you see on CNN and other such news organization is edited using Final Cut Pro. You can do the same on a PC, but the Mac has always been friendly to the arts and artists.

One of the top animated movies of this decade according to Roger Ebert, was done on a Mac. That movie is "Waking Life." "Waltz With Bashir" was done on a Mac. I highly recommend Waltz With Bashir", and "Waking Life."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylzO9vbEpPg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iDAaS3QiNk

The full version of "Sita Sings The Blues."
This was done on a Mac in Flash, then edited in Final Cut Pro. It's a free download.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzTg7YXuy34

Apple heavily marketed to the iconoclast.

[Ian David]

13. I want something like a big palmpilot calendar I can hang on the wall. n/t

[alfredo]

14. I want one that I can turn upside down and shake to reboot.

[struggle4progress]

23. I want one that doubles as a barbeque grill!

[alfredo]

48. They call them laptops.

[jmowreader]

58. Easy to implement, strangely enough

MacBooks contain Sudden Motion Sensors, which are Kionix KXM52-1050 three-axis accelerometer chips. Applications can use this to do unique things. (Download Wally Bally and see.) There shouldn't be any reason why an Etch-a-sketch interface can't be done. How about turning it over and shaking just to clear the screen?

[alfredo]

59. Or get crumbs out of the keyboard.

[jmowreader]

63. You're gonna howl at this one...

Yup, old war story time again. One of my troops called Electronic Maintenance Division:

"Can you bring me a new keyboard? The (names about five keys she used all the time) don't work."

'Just reset the terminal. Usually that helps.'

The terminal in the watch office could reset any terminal on the network, so I took her out of service, had her turn off the terminal for five minutes then turn it back on, and put her back in. No luck.

"It didn't work. Can you bring me a new keyboard?"

'Give me five minutes.'

The repair person showed up with a new keyboard. "Before I install this there's something we always do that works pretty well." He turned off the terminal, picked the keyboard up, flipped it over and banged it against the tabletop about ten times just as hard as he could. He turned it back on, I put it back in...

Worked perfect.

[alfredo]

64. I've washed this keyboard a few times. It always works.

It's a nine year old Apple keyboard.

[jmowreader]

77. If it's an Apple keyboard, say no more

Apple and IBM had one thing in common: their keyboards had durability you just can't find anymore. Remember the old Apple Extended Keyboard? The one code-named after an aircraft carrier? I had one of those on three different computers--a Mac SE, a Mac II and a Power Mac 6100/60. I don't use the 6100 anymore but I still have the keyboard. (Still have the 6100, for that matter.)

[alfredo]

79. It's really comfortable too. Some of my Cockatiel food is still stuck in mine.

[Tesha]

78. Like this, right?

[alfredo]

80. I gave that cartoon to my technophobic supervisor.

[Joe Bacon]

15. Dr. Jobs' Rx:

Take 1 Apple Tablet and you'll feel better soon.

They're only $1,000 a piece :rofl:

[alfredo]

66. It makes you see pretty colors. MS's tablet is Oxycontin.

[thereismore]

16. It will get scratched by the stylus. Won't be pretty. nt

[Occulus]

28. It will have a touchscreen, like the iPhone and iPod Touch.

No stylus. Those suck anyway.

I suppose you could use some sort of stylus for drawing, something with a soft tip. I wouldn't, though. The touchscreen tech already in use is way more responsive than anything else I've played with. I don't like the fact that it uses glass, though. We need a different material for this purpose, something more resistant to scratches and fractures.

Still, the touchscreen the tablet will use beats a stylus any way you look at it.

[KittyWampus]

40. See, this is the one of those things I really appreciate the Space Program for- advances in materia

materials that can substitute for glass, for instance.

[thereismore]

55. I thought that a stylus was inevitable if you want to draw with any precision.

How can you draw fine features with a finger? Why else make a tablet if you can't draw into it? I just don't see how they can make a tablet and all you can do with it is poke it with a fat finger...

[MercutioATC]

41. 1) Apple does touchscreens, not styluses.

2) The glass Apple uses for its touchscreens is roughly as scratch-resistant as diamonds. No way a plastic stylus would scratch it.

[struggle4progress]

17. Apple Tablet May Launch in September (July 2009)

Rumors of an Apple tablet – essentially a large iPhone or iPod touch – have been swirling ... http://mashable.com/2009/07/27/apple-tablet/

[struggle4progress]

18. Rumor: Tablet Mac coming this fall (May 2008)

... A little birdy tells me that Apple will announce a 12 or 13-inch tablet in the fall of this year. Most likely in the September or October time frame ... http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1786

[struggle4progress]

19. Apple tablet coming soon? (November 2006)

... Citing sources in Taiwan Australia’s Smarthouse claims that Apple researchers have built a fully working prototype of tablet Mac and three companies in Taiwan are bidding for a potential launch in mid 2007 ... http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=340

[struggle4progress]

20. Long Awaited Apple Tablet Computer "iPad" Release Due in June! (April 2005)

http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=369

[AtheistCrusader]

21. You mean Microsoft beat Apple to market with something good, by several YEARS?

Unpossible.

[we can do it]

69. Microsoft - Good wtf

[struggle4progress]

22. Apple's Tablet Computer Might Finally Be That Link Between Your PC and TV (november 2003)

... Quanta, the Taiwanese company that makes many Apple notebooks, has been apparently switching its production to the new tablets, or at least that has been reported in the Taipei press since early this year. If this is the case that Apple is introducing such a machine as early as January, how is it likely to be different from the Windows-based tablet machines that have so far failed to excite buyers? ... http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2003/pulpit_20031127_000450.html

[WriteDown]

38. I thought that was Apple TV?

:shrug:

[Frank Booth]

24. Yes! This sounds almost as awesome as the MacBook Wheel!!

[Occulus]

29. LOL- I remember that, wasn't that from The Onion?

I'll say it again, though: I would never buy an Apple computer unless I absolutely had to, as in "forced", but their touchscreen devices really are very good and very usable.

All I got my iPod Touch for in the beginning was music and audiobooks at work. The more I looked at what capabilities I wanted on it, the more I realized I should just get a Touch, and I'm glad I did. It's kind of nice to take "Dexter" to work...

[miyazaki]

26. Apple invents the tablet?

Holy shit, i thought tablets have been around for years.
And with their advertising blitzkrieg invading the world's conscious
most everyone will know Apple invented the tablet. Just like they
invented the mp3 player. I mean, every mp3 player is an Ipod right?

Just poking fun.

[Paulie]

30. Well...

And they had that thingie for a while: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton It was a tablet sized PDA, which is also a term Apple coined. :)

[onehandle]

34. Their first tablet was in 1979.

'Way back before programs like Photoshop roamed the earth, creating pictures on computers was far from a straightforward process. To make things a little bit easier, Apple released a Graphics Tablet in 1979 which enabled users to draw on the tablet with a wired stylus pen and transfer those creations over to their computer. The original asking price? $650.

The image above is of the original Apple Graphics Tablet released in 1979. At the time, the Apple II plus was the latest and greatest desktop computer offered by Apple. Interestingly enough, one of the first computer paint programs ever created ran on the Apple II in conjunction with Apple’s Graphics Tablet. The software was titled, “Utopia Graphics System,” and believe it or not, was developed by musician Todd Rundgren.'

http://www.edibleapple.com/the-first-apple-tablet-from-1979/

[KittyWampus]

42. awesome bit of computer history. Thanks.

[CBGLuthier]

31. Can we stop calling them a computer company now.

Just another entertainment/appliance conglomerate like Sony.

[onehandle]

33. They did that themselves the day Steve Jobs introduced the iPhones.

They went from Apple Computer, Inc. to simply Apple, Inc.

So that they would be know for the best of everything, not just computers.

[WriteDown]

35. Can someone explain something to me? Are we in a recession or not?

I'm amazed at the amount of posters that can easily drop 500$-1000$ on the new gadget or can just buy up stock at 214$.

[proud2BlibKansan]

39. Not everyone is out of work

and some of us have savings accounts. Or credit cards.

[WriteDown]

45. Apparently many are still rich...

if they can drop 1K on a gadget just like that. I just never realized the affluence of DU.

[onehandle]

51. The average ago of DUers is in their upper thirties. This is when most people have extra cash.

Late thirties and all through their forties, people generally have their most disposable income.

Shouldn't be a surprise.

[WriteDown]

62. Apparently there is an affluent middle class that inhabits DU.

Its just interesting to see is all.

[LanternWaste]

53. I don't pretend to know the affluenc...

I don't pretend to know the affluence of DU's posters, but I imagine many people do save money and may then feel fully warranted in a purchase of something they'd like to have...

[WriteDown]

61. If you've got 1K to burn....

then things are pretty good. I was just surprised by the # of people who have it so well.

[we can do it]

70. Also Some of Us Don't Waste Money On Cable Cigs Tofay's Fashion and Bars

that adds up pretty fast

[WriteDown]

76. Apparently, large savings accounts still do exist.

Cool.

[Codeine]

86. A grand isn't much.

Many DUers spend more than that on cigarettes, beer, weed, or fast food in a year and never realize that it has been wasted away.

[KittyWampus]

43. It will be a big deal for me BUT I have no iphone or ipod. This might be the combination of all

the equipment I haven't spent money on over the years.

[WriteDown]

44. Considering you can buy a fully equipped HP laptop for about 400$, I just don't see the necessity...

And I have an iPhone.

[Occulus]

47. Also, if you have a Wiimote, you can turn that laptop into a touchscreen with mutitouch.

If you're interested, Johnny Lee has some very interesting videos on YouTube. He wrote software that uses the Wiimote backward and applies the motion sensing capabilities of that device to a PC display, turning any surface into a touchscreen. With his software and a projector, you can create a digital whiteboard for thousands of dollars less that gets you about 80% of the way to commercial quality and even handles some functions better than the real thing. The technique should also work with bigscreen TVs.

The howto video is here.

edit: You should look into jailbreaking/unlocking your iPhone if you haven't already. I did it to my iPod, and it doesn't even look or act like an iPod anymore (the iNav theme system just rocks). I even have a terminal app now; I can browse the filesysten as though it's a *nix box :D

[WriteDown]

50. See post 49, replied in wrong spot.

[WriteDown]

49. Very cool!

Thanks for the info. I've just been lazy about jailbreaking by iPhone.

[Psephos]

60. It's not driven by necessity...

it's driven by rapture. :)

Perhaps you've heard the story of the lotophagi?

[we can do it]

71. You Are Confusing - How Much a Month Do You Spend On Your Data Package

[WriteDown]

75. I honestly don't know...

Its about 200$ for the whole plan, but I write it off as a business expense.

[we can do it]

82. That's What I Figured, I Use a Basic Phone and Computers w Free WiFi All Over

I'm never that far from a computer or can take laptop along....It will probably end up about the same cost as the iphone, for what its worth (I write mine off too)

[Dappleganger]

52. I love Apple's products

and have used them for a decade, but I would never never ever buy a 1st gen new product from them.

[alfredo]

65. Same here.

[tinrobot]

67. Some are a little too "precious" for me...

Plus the cult-like nature of Apple/Jobs fandom turns me off completely.

I guess that makes me an Apple curmudgeon.

[earth mom]

87. I'm not one for worshipping name brands but the quality of Apple products shine through.

And quality counts for a lot these days in our disposable society when most appliances and gadgets break within months of purchase.

[Lorien]

89. I think the enthusiam comes from years of "oh FUCK! Not AGAIN"! being replaced

by "wow, that was easy." after PC owners make the switch.

[fascisthunter]

68. I try to wait one generation before buying a product

better to wait until most of the kinks are ironed out.

[Tesha]

81. If this is an evolution of the iPhone/iPod Touch, that may not be necessary in this case.

If that's the situation, it isn't really a V1.0 product.

Tesha

[NJCher]

88. Tablet announced two days ago

There's one on the board for less than $200 and it's to be out this year:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/185764/A_199_Tablet_for_Everyone_And_Its_Not_From_Apple.html

An Affordable $199 Tablet for Everyone -- And It's Not From Apple
Daniel Ionescu, PC World
Jan 4, 2010 8:14 am
Just as the rumors of a pricey Apple tablet computer have reached a high-water mark, Freescale Semiconductor on Monday showcased reference designs of an affordable, lightweight tablet computer, which is set to hit the market later this year.





Freescale, which supplies the guts for this new breed of computers called smartbooks (about one third the size and volume of a typical netbook), is putting its weight behind this category with a concept of what could become everybody's tablet.

The Freescale tablet reference design (pictured above) has specifications close to what we have been hearing about the mythical Apple tablet: a 7-inch touch screen, 3-megapixel camera and various sensors such as a three-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor.

Next to the 512MB of RAM, up to 64GB of internal storage (microSD expansion) and a 1GHz processor, Freescale's smartbook tablet features a potentially killer spec: a $200 price tag. Next to an Android or Linux operating system, it also includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and options for a 3G modem.

There's more at the link.



Cher