Apple Touch-Screen Netbook? 291
je ne sais quoi writes "The Apple rumor mill is churning today. Reuters and the DOW Jones news wire are reporting that an anonymous source in Taiwan has leaked that Apple has ordered some 10-inch touch-screens from WinTek, the maker of the touch-screen for the iPhone. It looks like an Apple netbook could possibly be in the works for a delivery date in Q3 of this year, in time for back-to-school sales. CNET and Engadget have completely unsubstantiated mock-ups."
Touchbook (Score:3, Interesting)
I would not bet the "Netbook" has a keyboard. More like small 10" tablet what has virtual keyboard.
But actually I am not believing this "inside news" at all.
hold the keyboard please, need replacement Newton (Score:4, Interesting)
Or at least do something interesting like having a second display function as a keyboard.
Above all, update InkWell and provide good support for use as an ebook reader which could do .pdf annotations (adding a .pdf preview of all documents to file bundles would be ideal if such annotations could then be synched back into the document when it was opened in the originating app).
William
Re:Who wants this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who wants this? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm a writer. If this device is executed well, it's exactly what I want. I want to be able to pull it out of my pocket, hit a button, jot down a note. I want to be able to surf the web at the coffee shop and jot down notes right on the screen.
In other words, I hope the thing is a true tablet and uses a stylus, but the OS is similar to the iPhone OS. That would be perfect for me and I'd buy one immediately.
The real question: Little laptop or big iPhone? (Score:5, Interesting)
So will it be a computer running a "traditional" OS with the whole Windows, Icons, Mouse Pointer interface or will Apple make it a big iPhone like device that hides a lot of that stuff under a (relatively) minimalist user interface?
Part of me wants the WIMP paradigm because of the additional control I have over files and folders but part of me wants to see how far you can take an interface based from the ground up on a purely touch interface (like the iPhone). [I think the advantage of a iPhone interface is that it is even simpler than a WIMP interface, no need to explain about files or directories etc. Great for the rest of... err.. them, like my mom!]
Speaking of user interfaces, did anyone catch the new "Voice over" feature in the new iPod Shuffle? It seems this might be another (relatively) unexplored user interface design where a visual user interface is not available. Will this be incorporated into other Apple products (like multi-touch was transported from the iPhone to the MacBook touchpads?).
I say "relatively" because obviously voice/audio cue interfaces are not new (every voice mail system uses them) but this is the first time I've seen it in a portable device.
Re:Who wants this? (Score:2, Interesting)
My iPhone is my netbook.
It's small, cheap, fits in my pocket, makes phone calls, plays music, videos, and games, reads documents, surfs the web, checks multiple email accounts, takes pictures, posts pictures, controls my home media center (a mini connected to tv/stereo) with the Remote app.
I never expect it to do anything but the above so the screen size does not bother me when I attempt to say log into my server over SSH, or use a CMS ... but it works in a pinch.
My point is, the netbook niche hasn't sparked a fire from within. I don't currently see a dividend to purchasing a full size laptop, a netbook, and a smart phone.
I can cut out the middle purchase and truly have the best experience and simplify my consumption and gadget life.
---
I am very interested in a device that isn't perhaps a full sized laptop which I could carry around my house reading news, watching movies, and controlling my theatre. I get tired of having the laptop form factor to do all of this. I can imagine something but it probably wouldn't be a product Apple or anyone would introduce unless there was a simple hook a la iPod, iPhone that makes it compelling.
That said, I can understand that netbooks are compelling to some consumers, just not me where it seems like gadget clutter instead.
Uberportable is important (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed! I've had two Sony ultraportable notebooks (10" screens). Being able to easily take it everywhere is practically life-changing. Allowing that a few functions were limited (i.e.: serious gaming), computing became available to me wherever a regular notebook (and certainly desktops) couldn't. Pricy, yes, but worth it.
Marching technology forward, prices have dropped and general use requirements have plateaued, leading to the sudden discovery by manufacturers that there is, in fact, huge demand for small light (and now cheap) computers that do most things well, and do them everywhere.
Triangulating this, the iPhone / iPod Touch has shown there's a market even for pocket-sized devices with largely the same capacity. Having gotten a Touch, I've nearly abandoned my aformentioned ultraportable notebook due to (of all things) its relatively large size and inconvenience. That the Touch and iPhone are also iPods is almost coincidental, thanks to the web browsing / email / apps capabilities. Expand the Touch platform into a 7"-10" screen, and bump up the computing power & battery using the extra space, and dang that would sell big. The "virtual keyboard" works fine; maybe not quite as fast as clicking switches, but pretty close - add bluetooth and the keyboard/mouse angle is instantly covered.
Being able to take 90% of your computing needs everywhere, all the time, is huge. Clamshells and keyboards are the big hinderance at this point. A thin multi-touch slate, with instant-on & aggressive connectivity, would sell big. Clicky keyboards are so 20th century...
Re:Who wants this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hospital use -- how do you disinfect it? Will it survive being wiped down with astringent cleaning solutions several times a day?
Warehousing -- drop it several times on a concrete floor from a metre up, landing on all four corners. Does it survive that experience and continue to function OK?
There are portable data-logging devices that will survive that sort of treatment (and worse) and they're available today, but they don't come cheap. Any Apple netbook-type device is not going to find much of a market in those sorts of areas.
Re:Who wants this? (Score:4, Interesting)
We use the general purpose disinfectant wipes on laptops, cell phones, pages, stethoscopes, etc. all the time. A consumer quality computer product would do fine. You don't need to sterilize them. And you try to hire people that don't "drop" things all of the time. Seriously, the world isn't entirely made up of two year olds. I'd love one of these things if it ran OS X. If it were powerful enough to run Parallels or Crossover Office I'd buy a half dozen.
You listening out there Apple? There is a giant world out there that doesn't watch videos or listen to music. They do useful things. With computers.
We've got the money, honey, if you've got the time.
Re:The real question: Little laptop or big iPhone? (Score:2, Interesting)
So will it be a computer running a "traditional" OS with the whole Windows, Icons, Mouse Pointer interface or will Apple make it a big iPhone like device that hides a lot of that stuff under a (relatively) minimalist user interface?
A friend and I were arguing over this the other day. We agreed we really wanted something about the size of a Kindle but with a capacitive touchscreen, an LCD display, and a full suite of Internet apps.
The argument was whether this would happen earliest by scaling up cell phones (iPhone, etc) or by scaling down netbooks. This makes a difference in terms of what audience is being targeted, and what style of interface/control is acceptable, even if the base hardware is exactly identical.
I'm starting to side with him that it's going to be phones scaled up.
Re:Already THAT far? (Score:2, Interesting)
I laughed to tears - many, many thanks for the link!
Re:Who wants this? (Score:1, Interesting)
"- They cannot be used for complex calculation problems
- They have not enough storage for your torrented movie collection"
Both of these things can be sold by using a server. Since this is /. I am going to assume everyone here has a server.
Re:The real question: Little laptop or big iPhone? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you take a decent resolution and a 10" screen, the OS X interface will *need* a stylus to make it usable and Apple won't release anything that needs a stylus. This is a very simple fact: Full OS X on a small touchscreen is just the wrong OS with the wrong UI. Period.
So it will be the iPhone OS, just with a higher resolution and probably more functionality (c&p, some file manager). This will mean there won't be any apps for it at first, but iPhone developers should be up to speed very soon with this.
What it may look like (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple has a way of completely rethinking whatever category they go into, and then revolutionizing that category in such a way that all other contenders now play catch up.
Look at the iPod that entered a market already dominated by other MP3 players and became the market leader. Look at the iPhone that entered the smart phone market and created a device that everyone has tried to copy.
If Apple is entering the netbook market. I would assume that their "netbook" won't look like a typical netbook. Nor, will it operate like a typical netbook.
Most netbooks have separate memory from their storage. (512Megs of memory vs. 8Gb of storage). I suspect that the Apple will use the same memory for both storage and memory.
Most netbooks are modeled upon being smaller versions of laptops. Apple's won't follow that model. Most netbooks also run standard desktop OSs like Linux or Windows XP. Again, I doubt Apple would take that approach.
Look at how people use Netbooks. They surf the Tubes, they chat, they use Internet based applications. They don't necessarily use Microsoft Office or connect to a typical business network. They don't even normally store documents on their netbooks. Apple will use this information to create an entirely new netbook format.
I suspect that it will look something like a large iPod Touch with a keyboard. There will be no mouse (touch screen) and no desktop (like the iPod Touch). You can store files, but not use standard Mac OS X applications. Initial release may not even let you install applications although I suspect that some sort of AppStore will let you download special "Netbook" applications that are based upon current iPhone apps.
I would not be surprised if that keyboard is a full sized keyboard stored in a typical netbook format. I suspect that Apple's netbook will weigh around a pound. Maybe less. And that it will include a 4Gb size, an 8Gb size a 16Gb size, and a 32Gb size. Of course, iPod functionality will be built in too. You will also be able to synchronize it to a Mac and maybe a PC.
not for a netbook (Score:3, Interesting)
the 17inch MacBook Pro has a lot of room beneath the keyboard.
Instead of a keypad, there could be room for a 10inch touchscreen.
It would add some extra value to this relative expensive member of the MacBook family.
3D interface (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone think this might be the debut of the 3-dimensional GUI that Apple patented [theregister.co.uk] last year?
Re:Who wants this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. I don't know what this issue is all about, people say that netbooks just aren't powerful enough...for what? Really? They are just a smaller, more portable form of the same computers everyone was using two or three years ago. Someone has been falling for the marketing, or maybe people just refuse to run anything other than Vista/XP on their computers. I run Debian on my EEE and I've been using as my main computer. There are some things I wouldn't do on it, but, you know, computers are quite a bit more powerful than people give them credit for. I run TeX, Emacs, Firefox, TeXmacs and ghostview with no problem.
It just seems sometimes that the only thing slashdotters use their computers is gaming.