"Apple Tablet is a Train Wreck"

[RAMd®d]

Crash reported courtesy of PCWorld.

Given the rumor mill chatter, it sounds like the mythical Apple tablet is all but a done deal.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/169103/


Editorializing courtesy of John Gruber of Daring Fireball:

In the face of ever-more-rampant rumor and speculation that Apple is preparing The Tablet for release, Michael Scalisi has declared it a “train wreck” in a piece for PC World. Yes, it’s a very foolish thing to do, reviewing a product based on nothing more than assumptions and idle speculation.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/07...rain-wreck


Further interesting commentary courtesy of The Macalope Weekly:

Only the good die before being young

http://www.macworld.com/article/142004/2...lsrc=top_1


Interesting reading.

[Acer]

Beleaguered!

[iaJim]

Doomed!

[Paul F.]

Brought to you by the same (type) of folks who said;

"and iPod? It's kinda like a CD Player? It'll never catch on! Stupid idea."

"An Apple Phone? Why on earth would anyone buy an Apple Phone? Stupid idea."

[Seacrest]

I personally don't think there is any such tablet.
People did not exactly break down doors to get at XP tablets.

Yes, touch screen computing has come a long way since then.
Yes, an Apple tablet would be "cool" and work much better than the Windows ones.

But there's still no glaring need for a device sitting between the iPhone/iPod touch and notebook with full-sized keyboard.

The killer-app, though -- and only Apple could pull this off -- would be a built-in ATSC tuner, along with other media functions like built-in AppleTV. But then there's still the question of price. The thing would need to be priced in the low-end iPod touch's range, which I don't see happening.

My $0.02.

[RAMd®d]

I have no idea what The Next Big Thing from Apple will be.

But the articles intrigue me because of they address the act of "reviewing" and/or "critiquing" items that not only have not shipped, but have not even materialized out of the vapor.

People here do that all the time, with little to no impact on The Way Things Are. When so-called journalists (or journalists proper) do this, it's poor form at best, and it's nice to see them taken to task by peers or their betters.

And because there are real and imagined reputations and standards at stake, the dialog and diatribe aren't *quite* as childish as forum follies.

As the mystery product Apple may or may not be working on, I hope it's something I want. Oh, it can make some other people happy as well, I'm not totally against that. And it can make Apple some money as well. I don't begrudge them that.

But it better be something I want the way I want it, or Apple is beleaguered, lame, is doomed, and sucks, the greedy bastards.

Otherwise I wish them all the best.

[JEBB]

Their next product will probably be something unexpected, perhaps an Apple TV that is really a Mac Mini with a TV tuner built-in. I'd bet that could be a winner.

[cbelt3]

*cough* I don't see why TV is a killer app at all. TV is delivered via wires in most locales (at least most stations, sure you can get a few channels over the air..)

Apple sells WAY more wireless devices than wired devices. I mean HUGELY more. Why sell a device that has to have a wire attached to it ?

The form factor is the limiting issue. Tablets are a compromise between the smart phone form factor and the laptop form factor. But since tablets are not *phones* they lose that flexibility. And since they are not laptops, they lose the mechanical keyboard human interface.

What's the job of a computer ? Processing and displaying information. Until you have an information entry method that is faster than the keyboard and uses less form factor, you're still stuck with the keyboard. That's the limiting factor in all computing devices these days.

Handwriting ? nuh uh. "Newton".....
Voice ? not private, and not 100% reliable.
'holographic keybaords' ? maybe, but doesn't work in bright light.

[testcase]

It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings.

[GeneL]

I have a friend back east who is defined by his drawing skill. He's drawing all the time and he's never used a computer even though his kids gave him a PC.

I've wanted him to get a Mac and when I saw the “tablet” that OWC was offering I thought that it would be close to ideal for him. He could both learn to use an intuitive user-friendly computer, plus he would be able to use the device to create illustrations on the go.

As I said, ”close to ideal.“ Problem is the price put it out of the range that I could see him paying as an “entry level” user.

A tablet from Apple at a reasonable price would be a dream come true for folks like my friend.

I'm not optimistic.