Apple will design its own tablet Mac chips

I have to be honest, I don't understand the market for tablets, other than perhaps special use situations like doctors offices, shipping companies, etc. Can somebody explain the draw? Why should I want one? Having a good laptop and an iPhone seems to suffice for me. I could imagine a netbook replacing a laptop for some users, like it has for my daughter who has to lug one around school all day. But a tablet? I can only see that being useful for people who have to standup and use a computer all day. What am I missing?

As long as we're not back to the PowerPC/Intel compatibility issues (or lack thereof) and Rosetta, everything is fine.

Zoe:
> MS IMHO have nailed this with the new TIP
> (Tablet Input Panel) in Windows 7. It's a
> staggering programming achievement. And
> considering how long it's been out on the market, > how many years they've had customer feedback as
> well as in-house improvements... I just don't see
> how Apple can release a product to market that
> would realistically be the first proper release of a
> 'tablet / pen' based OS, that can compete.

You obviously don't have a clue about Apple's background. Check out Apple's Newton before you made your comment about how "experienced" MS is in the handwriting recognition and Tablet / Pen based OS !!

In related news the non-existent device will also include a feature to fellate its owner so their imaginary girlfriends don't have to work so hard.

Chips, yes. Processors, not likely.

The way people drool over the idea of something that will get all messed up by greasy fingers is idiotic. No way in hell am I the least bit interested in a touch-screen anything, except perhaps an iPhone someday.

I'm tired of all the back and forth about tablets, too... hopefully this round of rumors will be true and will end the vicious cycle. Wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't happen though.

Seriously? Is everyone going to spend ANOTHER handful of months blogging about Apple's "imminent" launch of a Tablet?

I guess the trick is to keep pronouncing it, and maybe, eventually, you all will be right. Someday.

Not holding my breath. Not reading Mac-Tablet blogs anymore.

While we are discussing the tablet, here is my wish list :-)

1. Unibody Aluminum frame.

2. Snow leopard AND ability to run iPhone apps natively, possibly in full-screen mode. That would give a chance to some of the cool apps (and remember games). which are cool enough on iPhone, but will be much better if scaled up to larger size. I am not talking about simply zooming, but a logical scaling, like displaying more rows in the tables like the contacts/ipod screen.

3. Pen, touch and keyboard input. Although the on-screen keyboard is good, it restricts the design of apps as they have to always consider losing some space to keyboard. The keyboard should be an add-on connected wirelessly to the tablet. While apple can sport a mini sized wireless apple keyboard, the regular wireless apple keyboards should also work. Apps can still use an on-screen keyboard as an option.

4. Pressure Sensitivity. It need not be up to 1024 levels, but even 32-64 levels will really help for most of the drawing apps. Even having 2-3 levels of sensitivity could help a lot in usability of most apps. Today we simply have touch. We need distinct actions like 'touch' (0 level), 'pick' (1 level - imagine page flipping), 'press' (2 level - imagine button press) actions.

5. Camera on front and back.

6. Continue to have the tilt and compass functionality and 3G connectivity

7. Native book reader app : This should be equivalent of an iPod app or iTunes. It should have the library functionality (somewhat like delicious library, but much closer to iTunes and a nice reader) This could be integrated with the browser as half of our reading would be on browser. So the browser will be internet browser + e-book/pdf reader and e-book/pdf manager with seamless bookmark functionality. (ie, the bookmarks should be similarly treated, whether in a book or on internet)

8. Native notebook (think paper notebook) app. (There is already a mac application called notebook) with integrated tasks management (GTD) functionality.

I agree with the folks who say that the iPhone OS is a HUGE MISTAKE for two reasons:

1/ Apple simply doesn't have the time between now and Xmas to re-tool the iApps to the iPhoneOS,

2/ Apple simply doesn't have their act together with the AppStore. They're back to 2 weeks per app which is an unacceptable wait time for PC users. Mobile [i]Phone users? Seem to be dumb sheep or don't consider iApps to be like desktop apps.

It all boils down to, will users consider the tablet a 'Mac' or a more-static 'iPhone'-- Apple, if they're smart -- they're batting .500 on this -- will use Snow Leopard on the tablet and NOT iPhoneOS3.