iSlate, watch and learn

[ElPolloDiabl]

Needs balls. A trackball is a lot easier to use than a touchpad or touch interface.

[persia]

And a floppy drive!

Needs balls. A trackball is a lot easier to use than a touchpad or touch interface.

[EvilGuy]

Apple are the king of making average technology look really good, so their launch should be interesting.

Ballmer's demo of the Windows based tablets was boring, even though they did look quite good.

Personally, I want a reasonable specd/price (non Atom) tablet, A4 size, thin and light  that I can use in meetings to replace the pad and paper. Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, Gigabit ethernet (for when its on the desk), smooth 1080 video playback, USB and eSATA. And it can detect when your arm is over the tablet so that it knows you're using it like paper and writing on it, not using the arm press to activate half-a-dozen icons on the screen :-)

[Crom00]

Apple will never put esata on a tablet. They removed the expresscard slot from all but the 17" MacBook Pro. No esata on any mac.

[redrumloa]

I want to see Vice fully functional on it before I get interested.

[DonnyEMU]

Most people use microsoft touch screens and scanners at the grocery store every time they use a uscan or self scan in the rapid check out...


And I don't even have to mention project Natal for the Xbox 360 do I?? Which has been announced as being released by holidays 2010..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay9mpb0TN3g&feature=player_embedded

and check this one out..

Betty Crocker's Kitchen Assistant Touch Screen Recipe's on Windows 7 touch screen ready

http://www.bettycrocker.com/kitchenassistant
http://www.youtube.com/kitchenassistant

[DonnyEMU]

and fyi: The zoo app link I sent is an XBAP it's not designed to work also on the mac and linux like silverlight applications are. It's a purely windows platform application that runs in a browser (either Firefox or IE are supported)..

[Nlandas]

On 27/01/10 Apple is going to release the iSlate, a tablet Mac.  Microsoft introduced tablet PCs years ago and have gone absolutely nowhere with the technology.  Apple is about to kick MS arse with their own technology.  Watch how it's done, folks.  

It looks like a giant iPhone with a keyboard. YAWN!

I'd rather have this...

http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/lenovo-ideapad-u1-combines-a-snapdragon-tablet-with-an-intel-core-2-duo-laptop-2010015/

[amyren]

I'm going for this one. Not out yet but very soon. Developer boards already have UAE in full speed running on it, PSX emu and more. And with Firefox and wifi onboard, it is usable as a micro laptop as well.

And they have got 2000 units made in the first production run, most of them are pre-sold already. Not so bad for an enthusiast group that makes this project on their own, with no big company behind them to back them up. Maybe there is something to be learnt from these guys.

(click the thumbnail for a bigger picture, or go to openpandora.org to read more)

[spihunter]

Oh man....I just can't let this one go...

I should have known that Microsoft was behind those touch screens at the grocery store.
That explains why they are the worst UI I have ever had the displeasure of using...

I'm really not 100% anti-Microsoft but coming into a thread and babbling on about Microsoft deserves some comments.

They've been pushing Tablets and touch screens to consumers since 2000 and nobody is buying. Its just a fact!

Its safe to day that 50% of my friends own an iphone, 0% develop with Silverlight, and 0% own a HP touchscreen PC.

Most people use microsoft touch screens and scanners at the grocery store every time they use a uscan or self scan in the rapid check out...


And I don't even have to mention project Natal for the Xbox 360 do I?? Which has been announced as being released by holidays 2010..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay9mpb0TN3g&feature=player_embedded

and check this one out..

Betty Crocker's Kitchen Assistant Touch Screen Recipe's on Windows 7 touch screen ready

http://www.bettycrocker.com/kitchenassistant
http://www.youtube.com/kitchenassistant

[KatManDEW]

I've never seen an iPhone in person. I just don't know anyone who has one. I do know a BUNCH of people who have Blackberry's.

I'm not into "mobile mania" myself. I carry a Tracfone for emergencies. Send me an email, or leave me a voice mail, and depending on the urgency, I will reply when it's convienant for me. I refuse to be at the world's beckoned call... Dropping what I'm doing to answer the phone seems very old fashioned to me. Dropping the steering wheel of my car to answer the phone is just plain foolish ;-)

[persia]

The point is Apple will make a commercial success out of something that's been around for a decade and has been a failure in the commercial marketplace.

[stefcep2]

Dudes, the iPOD is the number #1 music player not because it plays mp3's.  Its because Apple convinced music companies to sell their music through itunes.  You can buy iTunes recharge cards at the supermarket, how more ubiquitous and mainstream than that can you get?

Murdoch the media king has repeatedly said that he wants us to pay for reading content on his news websites.  With the iSlate, Apple will do for newspapers, magazines and books what the ipod did for music.  People will download the daily newspaper, the weekly/monthly magazine or the latest release book-for a price- and view it with the iSlate, turning the pages with finger gestures.

The keyboard is here for the odd time you may want to type a short message, fill in a form. You wont be typing out your PhD thesis with it.  Ofcourse a  Windows touchpad, even kindle reader (but not in color, important for magazines) COULD do all of this, but MS doesn't have the iTunes Store.nor the track record of iTunes.

Apple is set to be the number one media distribution company in the world, selling music, movies and print in electronic form. And the iPod touch isn't a bad little games player, so they're moving in on games as well.

[Crom00]

Good call. Yea guys. I hate some of the stunts apple pulls. But you gotta admit they know what they're doing.

Overpriced MP3 palyers, Laptops etc made by the very same factories lower cost product is manufactured a. The are everything Amiga wishes it was.

They have a midas touch whearas Amiga has some crazy biblical level curse. For every step foward you get 50 back.

I hope the slate does well. I hope the A-eon leads to bigger and better things.

[TheGoose]

Ok slightly interesting here:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/amazon_opens_kindle_for_developers/

I am seeing a 'tablet' smash-up-derby developing - one night only at the civic center! Not since Holy Drunken Moses have more tablets been busted up! Don't Miss It.

[tone007]

I think if they price this thing down in the netbook price range, they could sell a bunch.  I can't see people paying laptop money for it, though.