Guest post by It’s the most hyped device of the moment, a device that nobody has laid eyes on without an NDA death-grip. While rumour and speculation escalate (sometimes giving way to apathy), little has leaked out of Cupertino. But nobody seems to be asking whether this tablet thing will be successful or not.
We have Jobs’ close scrutiny of the project, his encouraging dismissal of current tablets, the many apparent delays and cancellations, and we have some evidence of a greater Jobs’ vision. It all bodes well.
However, if Apple get any of the details wrong, the “iPad” could be its most notable failure since the Cube. In that case, sales will mostly go to Apple completists who want something to match their MacBook and iPhone. Analysts and investors want more. They’re hoping that Apple will transform the e-book industry the way they have the music player and mobile phone industries.
Get the price right!
That midas touch can falter though. Jobs was happy enough to trumpet the Apple TV but it’s gone nowhere. Apple have had opportunities to get the movie companies on board, they have the perfect distribution channel in the iTunes Store, and the once fashionable term, “the halo effect”, is still growing.
How did the Apple TV fail to gain traction? The price, mainly. What about the aforementioned PowerMac G4 Cube? Price again. Or the NeXT Cube? Price, of course. 24 years before the TV box, even the original Mac nearly failed on price until Quark found the perfect use for it.
All of those products were sound (unlike the first Newton when Jobs was deep in exile), often beautiful, aspirational and groundbreaking – but priced well above their usefulness. Will that be the tablet’s epitaph?
Going back to the Apple TV, this is a device with the primary purpose of allowing you to pay yet more money to Apple to finally get some content. Whereas Sony or Microsoft are prepared to subsidise their console prices as a loss leader, Apple’s never shown confidence in the Apple TV’s success and ability to recoup costs. If they don’t believe in it, why should we? It’s no wonder that the PS3 and XBox 360 are in so many living rooms – the right price was always number one priority. What will be the tablet strategy?
The suggested template for the tablet’s success is the iPhone. The iPhone took off when prices were slashed, though even at the beginning it captured customers, as well as the imagination, for a couple of reasons. One, everyone needs a phone (who needs a tablet?). Two, no other phone was close.
The Apple tablet won’t offer the same lead over a Win7 tablet, Maemo or similar. My last Nokia had a 2 or 3 inch screen, a keypad, a tiny little joystick and an unusable web-browser. An Archos, by comparison, already has a touch-screen, flashy interface, social networking features and a great browser. The advantages of the Apple product will be far more indistinct and cerebral.
Finally, if cynics called the iPhone a “toy” until version 3.0, then what’s this thing? Well for one thing, it’s a dream come true for the anti-Apple curmudgeons. Look at the fuss they made over minor missing iPhone features, because they once cut & pasted something on their WinMo or Symbian phone. The tablet is a gift.
How can Apple prove me wrong?
They can prove me wrong – of course they can. They’ve been making monkeys out of critics for the last decade.
They have, in their favour, a bunch of a fans who are already saving for a product they haven’t seen. They’ll have the media coverage and the tablet will keep popping up in high places – it can sometimes seem like the whole world are Mac users, but then a high-faluting conference is a very bad place to gauge market-share. For a long time, the incestuous circle of Twitterers, journos, celebs, marketing folks will keep its profile way above actual sales.
They have the iTunes store and a thriving eco-system of games and app developers that have become the envy of every platform. They’ll be jumping on the new device. They no longer need the classic keynote “…and here’s EA to show us Tiger Woods…” that used to crop up at MacWorld (now on Palm!) It’s a bridge to get this stuff on the Mac (and cream off the 30%), so Apple will be especially keen to see it work.
So, app developers will work hard to justify the platform and telcos will do Apple’s advertising for them. After Orange Telecom’s recent slip, we can expect the device to come subsidised with a mobile broadband contract. It’s not mass market, but it can’t hurt.
The screen is crucial. With a bog-standard laptop screen, it’s no good as an e-reader and that seems to be the one area it can justify itself to a gadget-laden audience. I’d like to see the stunning Pixel Qi screen in there, but there’s been no sign of it.
Finally, there’s the chance of innovation. Will it have an screen that magically undulates to form a physical keyboard? What’s this hinted-at new form of navigation? Not that, I expect – more likely a bunch of gestures that may or may not sink into average users’ consciousness, reminiscent of the MacBooks’ glass trackpads.
Finally… price again. $1000 is too much for an oversized iPod Touch and Mac hybrid. Jobs is persuasive, but he can’t put cash in people’s pockets. He couldn’t in 1984 and he can’t now. This is the crucial detail, so don’t get greedy Apple.
…can we possibly knock a product on price when we have no idea what the product is or what it can do, much less even know how much it will cost?
Only one thing is for certain, Thom will hate it.
I didn’t write this article, mister.
Now if you don’t mind, I’m updating some applications on my iPhone. Which I like. As detailed extensively in a long review here on OSAlert.
-1 troll.
And… talking about mobile phones…
Off-topic: Thom, how can I ask OSAlert to have a nice review to the new Nokia N900?
Buy me one?
I’d love to review it, but I lack the financial resources to buy one.
Sorry, I thought you were able to get some devices just for reviewing (to write reviews like the Eugenia’s ones on cameras, cellphones and such stuff).
Engadget had a pretty nice review about a few days ago:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/19/nokia-n900-review/
<sarcasm> I don’t think that is possible because it is a Nokia Internet Tablet product and Nokia hate all NIT users, as demonstrated by their attitude towasrd the N800 and N810 and upgrades paths to the latest Maemo.</sarcasm>
Once bitten, twice shy – and I will never buy or advocate buying another Nokia NIT model to anyone. The device will be obsolete in a year. Seriously.
Having read much about the new N900 I was just wondering what are the upgrade possibilities for users of older N??0 devices. So you say the folks at Nokia are making this very difficult? I’m negatively impressed here…
Yeah, they made it nigh on impossible to get an official version. There is a “open source” project, but it’s called something other than Maemo.. I forget the name. Basically, the N800 is apparently obsolete, as is the N810. The N800 is about 3 years old and the N810 is much less, more like 18 months. So, Apple get’s flack for dropping PowerPC support after not producing a PowerPC based machine for 4 years and clearly indicating that PowerPC was a dead end – Nokia, well no, Nokia just screw their users over. Sad but true.
A long lingering complaint has been the poor choice of GPU chip int he N810 and previous. This results in poor video quality playback and similar graphics heavy functions. Among it’s changes, the N900 has a GPU capable of higher resolution video and 3D rendering.
Maemo 5 is written with a new interface taking advantage of the N900’s newer hardware; lots of pretty-shiny and flipping screens with finger swipes. Porting it back to the older hardware with limited GPU chips wouldn’t go well.
Since Maemo 5 has some specific hardware requirements, I hope that the developer community continues to update Maemo 4 for the N8x0 folks. There was a recent firmware update so development hasn’t sopped with the release of the new version. Maemo 5 seems to be evolving quickly, though it didn’t originally include portrait and landscape views, the newest firmware now includes a traditional portrait phone view. Other bits will continue to trickle in also.
I also thought that Nokia had been much more open with Maemo 5 including releasing source for NIC drivers and other bits kept closed in the past.
I had a nokia n770 several years ago and I’ve always understood it and its predecessors including the maemo platform to be for R&D with a plus side that consumer/hobbyists like myself could pick up. I don’t see any room for disappointment about them fading away fast or being hard to update or even getting newer builds of maemo for the devices.
Nokia gave a recent glimpse of what’s to come for symbian and how they plan on bringing it up to speed with competing mobile offerings; point being that maemo isn’t their primary concern and doesn’t appear to be their future platform for mainstream mobile devices (at least not back then and still not now).
For what it’s worth, I’ve always thought the maemo devices were pretty cool but they have always been sort of hobbyist or special interest devices rather than something they wanted to market at the general public going out and buying cell phones and or other forms of mobile devices.
Source on the info about what’s to come for symbian:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/15/symbian-provides-early-glimpse-a…
Sorry, I didn’t buy a sarcasm mark… Will this do? @.
In cases like this, XML is your friend!!!
<Sarcasm>
This is sarcasm
</Sarcasm>
In my DEC days it used to be:
$ SET SARCASM /ON
Edited 2010-01-22 07:31 UTC
Ah, LaTeX:
\sarcasm{This is Sarcasm!}
or
\begin{sarcasm}This is Sarcasm!\end{sarcasm}
It cuts both ways. How can there be so much excitement about the product when we have no idea what the product is or what it can do?
Far more column inches have been devoted to frenzied speculation about hardware specs than assessing whether any tablet is what people will pay for. I’m excited too, which is why I feel the need to write about it, but I don’t see any harm in redressing the balance a little.
Apple has a long history of getting the price wrong, so I’m just saying don’t expect a revolution until we see the price tag. I want them to price it aggressively.
I agree completely: if we can fawn over how incredibly shiny the Apple logo on the back is going to be, we can point out that, for most people to buy it, it probably needs to cost less than $200 (at least, that’s what it’d take for me, given the very limited use I’d actually have for such a device).
Maybe Apple should give it away with every box of Corn Flakes. Quite a market expert you turned out to be… $200 ? Be serious!
Yeah, I know it’s unrealistic. That’s kinda my point: this is a device that’s pretty much only useful during the five minutes a day that I’m sitting on the toilet. I’m not paying even $200 for a device that I’ll use all of five minutes a day. Especially not while my paper magazine subscriptions are still supported — archaic tech tho they are!
That’s even part of the point of the article! Just creating a really neat piece of tech isn’t enough: they have to make it cheap enough that people who will only use it for half an hour a day or less will be willing to pay for it! Edit: and I highly doubt they can, because that price point is probably a lot lower than what it’ll cost Apple to make the device.
Edited 2010-01-22 17:06 UTC
So based on knowing nothing about what this product is, we write diatribes about how disappointed we will be when Apple fails to price it right.
The irony being… Apple is making fist loads of money.
And available right away. Then _I_ will buy a Apple product.
Otherwise I will wait for ARM Android device with similar specs.
This is how I see it, based mainly on a lot of reading, but also some personal thoughts thrown in…
There will be two versions of it, a normal version and pro (which will have a nicer OLED screen and more memory).
You won’t be able to attach a keyboard or mouse to it.
You won’t be able to replace the battery
You won’t be able to upgrade the memory
You will see a much improved iPhone UI
You will see a host of apps already for it (Apple and 3rd)
You will see a new XCode and IB for it
You will see a camera on the front for video conferencing etc…
You will see a much “richer” video editing app than the iPhone 3GS
You will most likely see iLife ported to this (certainly iTunes)
You will most likely see iWorks ported to this
You will most likely see a freehand painting application (it will be amazing)
You will see multitasking
You will see a much bigger AppStore (basically expanded to get subscriptions to magazines, newspapers, books, video, music etc.)
I’m wondering if iTunes will be integrated with this App Store, one place for everything, I guess it already is…
It will have portrait and landscape modes (der, but had to be said)
You will be able to hook it up to an external monitor/TV
It will make the current crop of tablets seems 20 years old…
It won’t make your life any better, it won’t save your marriage or cure cancer, nor will it tell us if God exists or nothing began everything, it won’t stop you paying tax (though it might help you pay it)…
It might simplify your life a little or complicate it a lot…
The original versions will have faults, be overpriced (< $1000 for the “normal” version, “pro” version will be < $1500) and for some reason, irresistible.
The revolution will be streamed…
One last thing…
I think that Apple will transition it’s desktop OS to this iPhone style UI over the next couple of years. If this is the case, it could be right up there with the change the Mac UI made in 84…
I think the iTablet (iPad/iSlate/iThingy) will be the way to get the UI right and see if people like it.
Just to nitpick … who is making relatively large OLED screens in the quantities, and at the prices, necessary for a mass market device ?
Yeah! Seriously. Let me know I want to buy their stock!
I know this is just personal speculation, but this is what I hate about Apple. They add stupid restrictions for no reason. None of these things would raise the price, and they would all increase the appeal (for people who aren’t stupid).
The keyboard and mouse thing may not matter, depending on what the device is made for; I don’t complain that the iPhone has no keyboard. But there is no way I would use iWork without a keyboard…
The memory thing really doesn’t matter, as long as the default is big enough.
However, if they made a >$200 device with no way to replace the battery, they are just evil. My laptop for example needs the battery replaced every year or two. Currently, my battery lasts 30 seconds, so I really need to get a new one soon. If a $100 iPod doesn’t have a battery, fine, the whole devices costs less than my laptop battery. But there is no way I’d pay $1000 every two years to replace a tablet.
In fact, I’d say it should be illegal to sell a device with no way to replace the battery. It is just a stupid way to get consumers to buy new hardware every few years. It is a huge waste of money and materials.
Either you have fallen victim of FUD or you are trying to spread it on your own. Do you have any clue of what you are talking about? Jesus Christ mate, are you telling me you trash your iPod / iPhone / Macbook when the battery dies?? Just take the damn thing to an Apple store / reseller and pay for a battery replacement. You DON’T have to buy a new unit!
Please let me know where your trash can is…
I’ve been looking for a good tablet (an actual computer). I saw the one company turning MB’s into slates and stuff, but the price tag was too high. I’m looking at other offerings, which have better, but not optimal prices.
In the end, making it be a big iPod Touch will be a big turn-off for me. The only way I’d consider it, is if it will have a normal Mac OS on it, like a Mac Book Air without the keyboard, then.
If Apple is just going to put the iPhone OS/UI/usability on it, then they shouldn’t call it anything resembling an existing product type (a “slate” or “tablet”) or they would be misrepresenting their product.
Three: Phones are subsidized like crazy.. Not many people would pay full price for an iPhone, but $199…
Phones aren’t subsidized.
You pay for it yourself with an inflated monthly fee for 24 months.
And telecoms probably get a better deal on what is basically en iPod touch plus $25 GSM module.
Edited 2010-01-22 00:00 UTC
But I think everyone pays the same rate for the same service, regardless of the phone they choose to use right? It just means they lock you into a contract to ensure you are around long enough to re-line their pockets… Does one’s rate usually decrease when the contract is up?
Being visually impaired, I am a rather big fan of ebooks and their variable font sizes. I think the Kindle did a lot to really get the ebook scene off the ground, but I’m hoping that Apple’s device (assuming it supports ebooks) will have an even bigger impact. Since the device is going to come from Apple, you know there will be iTards lined up around the block on launch day no matter how good the device is, so I’m hoping that if Apple opens their own ebook store, it’ll be enough to convince more publishers to get on board.
Right now, it’s fairly simple to crack the DRM on Amazon’s Kindle ebooks, and I expect it won’t be any different with Apple’s either, so then you could use an app like Calibre to load your DRM-free ebooks purchased from Amazon and Apple on whatever device you want
You kidding? If Apple does open their own Ebook store they’ll most likely use a version of the Fairplay DRM they already have. So far I haven’t seen too many ways to crack that one, if you know of one do tell please as I’d like to de-DRM some movies I have.
I haven’t looked into specifics, but I know it’s possible. Just Google: apple crack movie drm.
they aren’t just a little expensive, they are really expensive. the iPhone is about 600$ unlocked, 1k is really not a bad price for something 5x the size, all things considered
In other words, you’ve never used your phone for contact or calendar management. Noted.
The (implied) spin is hilarious, though: people didn’t criticize the lack of cut-copy-paste because it’s incredibly useful feature that has been standard on every other smartphone OS ever made, nosiree. If you consider it to be a basic, essential feature, then you’re OBVIOUSLY just biased against Apple.
Did I ever use cut/copy and paste on a mobile device prior to the fuss made by iPhone haters? Um.. YES.. at least once, every time I set up a new WinMo device, because the ‘tards at Microsoft INSIST on you using it in at least WM2000, 2002 and 2003 in “welcome” app to copy an appointment – and AFAIK you can’t skip that (at least I couldn’t be arsed to work out how.) After that? Possibly.. not frequently enough to bust a gasket over though.
OH yes, I remember that.. You had to copy/paste that appointment every time the battery died on a Compaq iPaq 3130 (grayscale green-backlit display) with NO flash storage to save data or settings… very useful for playing Solitaire when I was bored, but how I desired that device! (I was little more than a young boy then).
BTW, the oooooold WinMo copy/paste menu is still better than copy/paste possibilities on Symbian S60v5 (have an N97mini).
I was being a little jocular with my wording, but my point was that the criticism was often way out of proportion. A missing feature like copy & paste didn’t make the iPhone a useless toy, or nullify all its innovations, but you’d read lots of comments to that effect.
The iPad seems like even better ammunition and I’m sure it’ll be used to reinforce the stereotype of a style-over-substance, more-money-than-sense Apple-user. Trendy Soho types sipping their skinny lattes and playing with their iPad… I’m not saying it’s wrong – it can be pretty funny, and accurate, but this device would be perfect fodder for the critics.
Exactly what innovations first appeared in the Iphone? Please list them.
Also, please stop trying to spin “copy and paste” as a trivial feature. This capability was being used fairly often in smart phones long before the Iphone, as it is today.
In fact, I am glad that I am not composing this message on an Iphone, because part of my post is copied and pasted from Maddox’s infamous, no-nonsense assessment of the original Iphone (and its theatrical announcement by Steve Jobs): http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
As you can see from the Maddox page, the Iphone lacks other basic features, like having a period (“.”) on the keyboard. To type something as simple an ellipsis (“…”) with the Iphone, one originally had to tap one’s finger nine times and go into a sub-screens three times.
Now there is a shortcut when typing an ellipsis with the Iphone, but one still has to go into a sub-screen, and the shortcut is so “intuitive” that this simple operation requires a tutorial: http://artoftheiphone.com/2009/06/25/iphone-basics-how-to-make-an-e…
There are plenty of other Iphone UI problems and lack of features. On the Maddox page, note the comparison chart on the between the Iphone and an old Nokia N70.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … !!!
… … … … … … … … … … … … … !!! (I copied and pasted this one.)
.
Edited 2010-01-23 21:00 UTC
I wouldn’t say that the iPhone had that many innovative features. What makes the iPhone a good phone is the combination of speed, ease of use, responsiveness, intuitive interface and minimizing the number of clicks (except of course your ellipsis example from the original version).
I agree that it’s not a trivial feature. But what people try to tell you is that it’s something you can live without if the options you have are missing other things you enjoy, like speed and responsiveness.
Maddox is quite funny sometimes, but referring to him as an argument…? Doesn’t look that serious.
I agree that it’s very stupid to not have a period on the keyboard directly. But as you said, the ellipsis problem has been fixed, like many other features. And double space equals a full stop now, not that intuitive though.
Can’t see how it “requires” a tutorial just because someone made one. Artoftheiphone is not apple, and most or all cellphones comes with quite extensive manuals for tasks that should be straight forward.
Afaik the common standard for typing special characters, like “~A(c)”, on many different interfaces is holding the base character of this character and choosing it from a sub menu. For us swedes, with our special ~Ayen~A¤~AP, this is quite common.
Noted, and not up to date.
Customize ringtones: Is proven to be the music companies fault, but possible with software.
Can record video: Yes, now.
Screen turns into a smudgy piece of shit after a few minutes of use: Better than other touch screens with the new oleophobic screen.
Can send MMS: yes
Apple won’t allow everyone to develop applications for it: SDK released almost 2 years ago
Voice dialing: Yes
Can record voice: Yes
Instant messaging: Yes
copy & paste text: Yes
Only thing that still is a problem according to that chart is the battery.
Coincidence? I think not
http://www.neowin.net/news/a-tool-to-deceive-and-slaughter
It probably comes with a EULA, which you consent to when you open the package it comes in, and which explains that you have not really bought it, but only licensed it, your use of it is only permitted if you consent to it, and that if you break the terms of this EULA, you will be in breach of various copyright laws.
It^aEURTMs just like Apple products! You never own them, they just simply enter your life and then leave and Apple remain the sole owner.
It’s like a religious experience; you supplicate Apple for their blessing, making the appropriate offerings, and then they grace you with their divine favor… for a time. And it is not yours to question Apple’s infinite Wisdom; they will grant you their blessings, in their own good time, for their own good reasons!
Considering that the idea of an Apple tablet is still only an Internet-generated hyper rumour, I would laugh my socks off if all Apple had to announce was new laptops available in a selection of colours and that was it.
If Apple don^aEURTMt announce a tablet to all the journalists that have paid to go out there expecting a tablet, the audience will break out into a riot, storm the stage and feed off of the flesh of Steve in the vain hope to gain his secrets.
There was an recent article, by a former Apple Senior Marketing Manager, on how Apple use controlled leaks to hype products. This is not just a rumour going by his experience.
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how_apple_does_controlled_le…
Right, but until Steve holds the thing up, the rumours are still rumours and should not be treated as fact, no matter how many lines pundits write about the damn thing!
It’s going to happen. It’s just not in Apple’s interest to see rumours reach this level only to disappoint everyone and damage their share price.
Uh, but there is reality to consider. They can^aEURTMt just magic a product up because that^aEURTMs what people _expect_. I expect hover cars for everybody, but every year I^aEURTMm disappointed. Every keynote there have been predictions that pundits have called a dead-cert, that turned out to be false. It^aEURTMs not that I don^aEURTMt think the tablet is likely, I just think it^aEURTMs silly us producing an eco-system of news powered by a rumour mill.
Steve says it best^aEUR”new product, available today.
Nice use of sarcasm, but they would have denied the rumours by now, not thrown together a product out of embarrassment. That’s what they did with the previous tablet rumours…
Edited 2010-01-22 15:44 UTC
In that case, “Pear-Shaped” would be a better sub-title for the article.
Isn’t it the other way around? I thought it was Jobs who must hungers for the flesh of living.
While I think a netbook or tablet is a good guess, it could be something else entirely that Apple will announce. It could be entirely unrelated to hardware and “just” be an extension to iTunes and/or Apple Store to carry other types of product than they currently do.
Or Apple could announce that they switch to ARM for MacBook and iMacs, so instead of making a product to fill the gap between the iPhone/iPod and the MacBook/iMac, they just change to a more uniform hardware/software platform over the whole range without actually introducing new form factors. I’m pretty sure Apple will eventually do this, so it is mainly a question of when. Next week seems a little soon, though (my best guess is 2012).
The main issue, being that its Apple, is how much lockin and how much DRM. Are you, for instance, restricted to what apps you can load, to where you can buy content and using what software? Is the material itself when you get it, smothered in DRM to stop you transferring it to any other devices?
If it follows the usual pattern, what you’d see would be locked down purchasing of apps or media from a store, proprietary formats, no way of upgrading or replacing batteries (at least without voiding warranty), and this will be a device which we should do our level best to keep out of education.
If on the other hand the Leopard has changed his spots, that will be a different issue. Don’t hold your breath.
When does this thing get announced and when will the rumors end? Every website I go to recently has their panties in a bunch over this thing.
But that date is also rumour..
The date used to be a rumor, but not anymore.
According to Ars and Engadget Apple has issued invitation for the Jan 27 event.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-confirms-mystery-ja…
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/18/its-on-apple-holding-january-27t…
meh they won’t price it too high. if they do guess what happens, they lower the price, big shocker.
all you need to decide is whether or not you want to buy a star trek touch screen tablet that can do everything but the kitchen sink
There^aEURTMs an app for that.
“Finally… price again. $1000 is too much for an oversized iPod Touch and Mac hybrid. Jobs is persuasive, but he can’t put cash in people’s pockets. He couldn’t in 1984 and he can’t now. This is the crucial detail, so don’t get greedy Apple.”
In 1984 the original Mac was underpowered and because of that, flaky.