iTablet

The Financial Times is reporting the trillionth rumor of the iTablet http://gizmodo.com/5323446/financial-times-confirms-apple-tablet-features-september-launch


I see a couple of concerns for me personally when it comes to this as an $800 device.

Typing—A 10” width screen is too big a keyboard to thumb type on. However, I can’t see the touch keyboard being easy to set fingers on and type normally as it is, well, touch and you would be pressing multiple keys all the time. And a stylus has got to be out of the question with all the money Apple has invested in capacitive touch. So that leaves me with the impression that if this becomes a true surfer, your emails are likely to be iPhone/Crackberry short.

Specs—Remember, this is an $800 Apple. Not an $800 Acer/Asus. That typically means higher build quality for similar specs and a higher price point. I can’t imagine that they will be able to get a dual core processor, a decent sized hard drive, livable RAM, and a long term battery in a machine that thin that also will have Apple’s beautifully machined aluminum body, glass screen, capacitive touch, etc. and still only charge $800 for it. For comparison, take a look at the iPod Touch 32gb (the iPhone is not a fair comparison as it is subsidized). As a product that shares a great deal of its components with the already subsidized iPhone, the touch is still $400 and that gets you a single core, mobile phone processor, less than a gig of RAM and a lot less component materials. On the other side of the mobile spectrum, we have the Macbook Air starting at $1500. That is essentially a dual core atom with decent specs for a netbook and a good gpu. Having said that, the Mac Mini is only $600 for a core 2 duo, so if they can pull that off with a screen for only $200 more, they really have something.

Function—What is this supposed to be? I get the impression that this is an attempt to define a new niche marketplace. Obviously, as the article states, there isn’t any way that Apple will pitch themselves as another tablet. Just like they didn’t pitch themselves as another mp3 player. My sense is that this will become very popular with the jetsetting crowd as it will be a great movie player, good book reader, and mediocre websurfer/emailer that will be marginally better than just pulling out your iPhone. And if the resolution is the netbook standard of 600 vertical pixels, I'm definitely out.

My guess? For $800, they will deliver a device with similar internal hardware specs as the AppleTV (GPU at least. I think the processor will have to be atom class or better to avoid angering the masses). The OS will be some variant of OSX obviously, though I am guessing a stripped down version close to what is used on the iPhone/iPod Touch. The device will likely run mobile apps to leverage the app store and will end up being a fanboi status symbol for jetsetters who don’t want the limitations of the kindle and the bulk of a laptop, but can’t abide windows/linux. (Speaking of Kindle, my iPhone works quite nicely for reading kindle books, so I can't see this being an important step in that direction either.)

I currently use a (now discontinued) HP2140 as my main computer. It is a slightly upgraded netbook that sports 2gb of RAM, and a 320gb HD in mods since I first got it. It is not a speed demon by any stretch of the imagination and it hates me when I fire up iTunes, but it runs Windows 7 nicely, it was running OSX for a bit, but I couldn't handle the keyboard issues after a while. It has a 1366*768 resolution and it definitely does 90% of what I spend my time on a computer doing with no hiccups whatsoever. When the Broadcomm Crystal HD chip becomes available in the promised expresscard version, I will have everything I need. I think I will wait and see what is actually delivered.