By the pricking of my thumbs,
something tablet this way comes...
Posted on 12/23/2009 11:27:12 PM PST by Swordmaker
by Boy Genius Blog on December 23rd, 2009 at 9:41am
We’re really going out on a limb here, but one of our very connected sources let us know that they’ve heard very solid information about Apple’s upcoming tablet. It has been widely reported recently that the size of the tablet is 10″, but there was also talk about a 7″ model. Our connect said there is 100% a 7″ Apple tablet, to be announced in January, and whether this is in addition to a 10″ model, they don’t know. Would we bet the farm on this? No, but they’ve been amazingly accurate for us in the past and as usual, Apple rumors seem to get more interesting…
BusinessInsider — Dan Frommer | Dec. 23, 2009, 11:30 AM
Is the long-awaited Apple tablet just weeks away?
Apple is preparing to show off a new, larger mobile device with a higher resolution display in January -- probably a version of the Apple tablet we've been hearing about for months -- according to a plugged-in source in the mobile industry.
Apple has been telling some app makers to prepare apps for a demo next month, according to this source. "They've told select developers that as long as they build their apps to support full screen resolution -- rather than a fixed 320x480 -- their apps should run just fine," our source says.
The device won't go on sale in January, according to this source -- just the demo. This is presumably so Apple can give other app makers time to prepare their apps for larger-screen devices, a project that will range in complexity depending on the app. Previous reports suggest a tablet will be available in March.
One possibility -- increasingly likely, we think -- is that this is the first of several tablets Apple will announce over the coming months. According to mobile blog Boy Genius report, Apple is "100%" likely to announce a 7-inch tablet in January. The FT also suggests Apple could unveil a tablet next month. At four times the screen size of an iPhone, this is exactly the "iPod touch HD" we envisioned a year ago.
This could be in addition to a 10- to 11-inch tablet the company has supposedly been working on. No shocker. We assume tablets -- or at least multi-touch screen technology -- will eventually penetrate more Apple product lines, including portable Macs and maybe even desktop Macs.
A January demo may seem like curious timing: One reason Apple supposedly pulled out of the Macworld Expo is that January is not the best time to demo new hardware, falling right after the holiday shopping season and right after many employees would like to be on vacation.
But Steve Jobs has never been one to follow even his own rules, so we wouldn't rule anything out -- especially for a device that won't ship until later, anyway. And if Apple could start selling the tablet in the spring, it would presumably clear up some teams to deliver the new 2010 iPhone in its usual June/July release.
It would also be an awesome way to step on the Google Phone announcement, which is supposedly scheduled for January.
excerpted from The NY Times — By NICK BILTON | December 23, 2009
A lot of the concept videos and mock-ups floating around the Web can be likened to publishers sounding a mating call to Apple. They want a device. And although laptop and mobile manufacturers like Dell, Sony and Hewlett-Packard have long known about the consumer yearnings for such a product, they seem to be waiting for Apple to innovate and change the way we read magazines, newspapers, blogs and books.
Like almost all the people covering technology, I have no doubt that Apple will release a tabletlike device in 2010; there are too many signs that point in this direction. Let’s put all the rumors aside for a moment and look at the facts. There’s the endless chain of patents, as Brad Stone reported in The New York Times in late September on the rehiring of Michael Tchao, who worked on the Apple Newton. I’ve had many discussions with publishers and content creators that sustain my suspicions.
But the icing on the cake comes from a current senior employee inside Apple. When one of my colleagues here asked if the rumors of the Apple tablet were true, and when we could expect such a device, the response from his source was, “I can’t really say anything, but, let’s just say Steve is extremely happy with the new tablet.”
Yet another recently departed Apple employee tipped me: “You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet.”
A former Apple employee, whose name appears on numerous Apple patents, worked on an Apple tablet five years ago and recently told me when the first version of the tablet was shelved by Steve Jobs, a lot of the technology made it into other devices. He explained that components of these early stage concepts are already out in the marketplace. If you have an iPhone, for example, you’re carrying around a mini version of an early Apple tablet. He also says that one of the barriers to producing the early tablets was the lack of software. The success of the App Store and the eagerness of the publishers show that this won’t be a problem for any new devices.
The Financial Times — David Gelles | December 23, 2009
Apple has something big up its sleeve for next month.
The company has rented a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for several days in late January, according to people familiar with the plans.
Apple is expected to use the venue to make a major product announcement on Tuesday, January 26th. Both YBCA and Apple declined to comment.
The company most recently used the YBCA stage in September, when chief executive Steve Jobs made his first public appearance after a medical leave and showed off new iPods.
Speculation that Apple is preparing to introduce a new tablet style computer has been building all year, and other reports now suggest the tablet will make its debut in January.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster today speculated that an event was imminent. “We believe there is a 75 per cent likelihood that Apple will have an event in January and a 50 per cent chance that it will be held to launch the Apple Tablet,” he wrote in a new research note. “If Apple announced the Tablet in January, it would likely ship later in the March quarter.”
It is still unclear exactly what an Apple tablet would include, but most observers expect a sort of large-scale iPhone that has additional features for viewing video and reading books and magazines.
Yesterday we reported that Apple is working to solidify a new round of content deals with TV studios. Meanwhile, publishers have been working on new versions of digital magazines that would be viewed on touch screen computers.
Apple has explored making tablet style devices for years, only to back off. The company also has a history of scrapping products very close to their scheduled launch dates.
But momentum around the tablet has been building solidly. And Apple has refreshed its iPhone, iPod and computer lines within the last year, another indication that the January announcement will be for a new product.
Rumors are running hot and heavy... with something now scheduled by Apple for a major announcement on January 26th in San Francisco...
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If this tablet is what I think it can be, it’ll be my first apple product I use full time. I’m kind of bound to Windows and I’m in love with my Droid. I guess if I get apple’s tablet (I have to assume it has a killer notebook app), I’ll be labeled as a wishy-washy computer moderate :). I used a Mac Mini for a while and I liked OSX’s aesthetics, but there is really no substantial motivation for me to move to Mac as a significant amount of software I use is windows only. I don’t hate windows enough to run it as a virtual machine.
I could start another fight about apple’s hardware costs, but then i’d just be acting like a jagoff to get people angry :).
Rumors are that the iTablet or iPad or whatever they name it will be around i$600... But that is just iRumor... ;^)>
I’ve been researching this for a couple of months and my best guesses are:
1. At least two screen sizes, with an OLED version coming out 6 months to a year after the initial release.
2. A 69 GB solid state storage device will be at least one of the versions.
3. They are aiming to make it a “Kindle-killer.” Contracts have already been signed with content providers (used to be called “publishers”) to provide magazines and books for the unit.
4. The OS will be OS-X-lite. It will run IPhone apps, several at the same time. It will also run ITunes and Safari. You will subscribe to/buy content through the ITunes Store. I have been told that the interface will be a “bridge” between the IPhone and the Mac OS-X. If you have worked with either, you will be comfortable with the tablet interface.
5. The line will initially have at least two versions (maybe three) and cost between $600 (smaller screen, less storage, WiFi only) and $1000 (larger screen, more storage, 3G and WiFi).
6. The 3G version could act as a cell phone using a blue tooth headset. I was told that it will be sufficiently multi-tasking to be able to, while working on the tablet, answer an incoming phone call and continue web browsing or whatever.
7. It will be a spring launch with a major upgrade coming in October 2010.
I am about 80% confident on these predictions. It would be a good time to buy AAPL.
Apple's not going to do it unless there's something 'killer' about it. They won't be just another player making commodity product money. Jobs requires something "WOW!" to differentiate the Apple product before he'll enter a new market.
I also have a considerable number of mission-critical Windows-only apps. But for me, running Windows (XP and Win7) in a VM is -perfect-, because it's trivial to correct errors, corruption, BSODs, whatever -- just replace the VM with the most recent copy, takes about a minute and no effort. Beats screwing around with restore/reinstall hands down. Not saying it's for everybody, but for me it's great.
I run VMWare Fusion on my Mac. XP rarely crashes that way (runs really fast, too) and I can run the good version of QuickBooks. Best of both worlds.
Absolutely true. The "Me-Too" market is where low-priced clones live, and Apple has no business in that market. Their schtick is to -create- new products, and keep moving ahead of the pack. Of course, that's also what gives Apple the reputation for elitism, higher prices, and so forth. They're leading, and the leading edge is not for everyone, and costs more to ride.
As to what the "killer app" for an Apple tablet would be... well, that's what Jobs pays his "idea people" to come up with. I'm not that smart ;-)
Yep, that's the ticket. Been using Fusion since it was a beta (and have used VMware Workstation on Windows since 2005).
I have a couple of huge ESX boxes at work, running about a dozen VM'ed servers each. ESX costs an arm and a leg. But I've been playing with ESXi, the free version, which is only missing a few high-end features like VMotion, but also (sadly) USB support. Great for servers, terrible for user workstations. But it runs like a bat outta hell... no "standard OS" in the way, just the thin VMware ESX shim between the VM and the hardware.
That's why Jonathan Ive's people have a starting salary of over $200K a year.
Ah, virtual machine snapshots. They've saved me many times. Fusion does these great.
Big ten inch comes later?
face it... most men and women only use seven inches...
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