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Yeah, it's that time of year for new Apple stuff. In short? This is a giant iPod Touch.

0.5" thick, 1.5 lbs weight
9.7" IPS capacitive touchscreen display
10-hour battery life, 1 mo standby
1GHz Apple A4 ARM chip (now we know what PA Semi was up to)
802.11n + Bluetooth 2.1
16, 32 or 64GB storage
Optional 3G (GSM)

Starts at $499.

Thoughts?

Being sub-$1,000 almost makes it worth looking into, since the larger screen means it's going to be better at web-browsing and video playback than the iPod's dinky screen. Terrible choice of name though.

Too big to be a phone, too small to be a laptop. I don't see the point of it. There were a multitude of tablet computers unveiled at CES and the general consensus in what I read was that these too were pretty, cool but lacked anything that would make them a must-have. It would be horrible trying to read a book off of a backlit screen. I have a phone with an OLED screen and it has great vivid colours but you wouldnt want to read for any length of time for it. The lack of haptic feedback from a virtual keyboard makes it really difficult to type at any speed in my experience. It's still going to sell well just because of being a sexy new Apple toy.

phongn wrote:Thoughts?

Day 1. Probably the cheap-out version since I have ample storage on my real computers, and probably without a data plan since I always have 802.11x access everywhere.

My Acer Aspire netbook has a 1.6GHz processor, 5 hour runtime on the small battery pack, a 130GB hard drive, and a keyboard. And wireless. Sure, I can't hold it like a book and it doesn't have a touch screeen, but it works fine. My wife's iTouch cost as much as my Aspire, $300.

Color me unimpressed for the first go-around.

It's a device totally counter to the design philosophy that made Apple so successful to begin with.

The iPad was clearly designed when someone asked "How can we further the spread of the lucrative App Store?". So instead of coming up with a solution to solve a problem, Apple has come up with a solution and is trying to force it into a problem that doesn't exist.

Jobs compared this to a Netbook but that's not what the iPad is at all. A Netbook can do all the things a PC can do, just not as well due to the small screen, small keyboard and slow processor. The iPad is really just a big iPod Touch with 3G connectivity and it can't really do anything that the iPod touch can't do. You can't get serious work done on this device (low res screen, virtual keyboard and non-standard software make that a certainty) and it isn't any better than the iPhone at anything except watching movies (and even then, I'd rather lug around my laptop).

So for the person like me who already has a laptop and a smartphone, what value does this device serve? That's right: zero. The only possible saving grace of this device might have been the eBook stuff if it weren't for the fact that Amazon has already knocked that one out of the park with the Kindle and nobody who has used a kindle is going to want to read books on a device that doesn't have an E-Ink display.

What's really hilarious are the reactions over the device. The disappointment on the various blogs is awesome considering the sheer ridiculous amount of cocksucking fanboy hype that went into this thing for the last 6 months.

Interesting that Jobs called it revolutionary. Archos has two similar products, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet (runs Android, has a smaller display but up to 500GB storage) and the Archos 9 PC Tablet (which has similar specs to the iPad).

So the iPad is going to get a dockable keyboard (which doubles as a charger, I think). Give me one for the iPhone and I'll be really happy.

[R_H] wrote:Interesting that Jobs called it revolutionary.

He probably calls it revolutionary each time he takes a dump.

FSTargetDrone wrote:So the iPad is going to get a dockable keyboard (which doubles as a charger, I think). Give me one for the iPhone and I'll be really happy.

I'm not sure they'd make something almost nobody would ever use. Oh wait, they made an iPad!

I can see a role for this, but like others I think it's a strange move. If they present it right and get a decent price point (which does not seem to be the case if it's USD600) then it could be an interesting netbook alternative (I'd probably get one, everything else being equal) but I'm not particularly excited unless they push out some really interesting multi-touch implementations to make it worth the cost.

The Kernel wrote:The iPad was clearly designed when someone asked "How can we further the spread of the lucrative App Store?". So instead of coming up with a solution to solve a problem, Apple has come up with a solution and is trying to force it into a problem that doesn't exist.

I don't know. When I first heard the rumours I thought that Apple might be doing it right: the issue with existing tablets was never the hardware but that the UI was centered around mouse-keyboard interaction. Everything else has been a hack. A dedicated touch-centric OS might well win where others have failed.

Jobs compared this to a Netbook but that's not what the iPad is at all. A Netbook can do all the things a PC can do, just not as well due to the small screen, small keyboard and slow processor. The iPad is really just a big iPod Touch with 3G connectivity and it can't really do anything that the iPod touch can't do. You can't get serious work done on this device (low res screen, virtual keyboard and non-standard software make that a certainty) and it isn't any better than the iPhone at anything except watching movies (and even then, I'd rather lug around my laptop).

The software is a big issue, yes, but what is 'serious work'? You could use iWork or a webapp instead and for home use that's probably more than enough. Yes, this is just an iPod Touch on steroids but that's a lot of computer for people. The screen resolution is not too bad (1024x768) and it does have the hardware keyboard option (and hopefully more to come besides Apple's going-to-be-overpriced one).

So for the person like me who already has a laptop and a smartphone, what value does this device serve? That's right: zero. The only possible saving grace of this device might have been the eBook stuff if it weren't for the fact that Amazon has already knocked that one out of the park with the Kindle and nobody who has used a kindle is going to want to read books on a device that doesn't have an E-Ink display.

I don't know. I like E-Ink and all but there's a place for traditional color displays too - and devices that do more.

[R_H] wrote:Interesting that Jobs called it revolutionary. Archos has two similar products, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet (runs Android, has a smaller display but up to 500GB storage) and the Archos 9 PC Tablet (which has similar specs to the iPad).

Well, this is Steve Jobs, who is the master of hyperbole. There have been other slate devices before as well (Nokia had some) but of course this is Apple so it's obviously revolutionary

Stark wrote:I can see a role for this, but like others I think it's a strange move. If they present it right and get a decent price point (which does not seem to be the case if it's USD600) then it could be an interesting netbook alternative (I'd probably get one, everything else being equal) but I'm not particularly excited unless they push out some really interesting multi-touch implementations to make it worth the cost.

Well, $500 for the base model? They'll probably be doing something discreet and intuitive for multitouch - what I'm more hoping for is multitasking on a machine of this size and power.

I can understand all of the dissapointment about this thing, but I think I would get a lot of use out of it. I already carry around a bag to keep my laptop and paperwork in, and if this thing is like the iPhone, it'll be a lot easier to whip out and pull up a webpage or something than it would on a laptop. There are countless times with I'm at a restaurant or pub with friends and want to show them a cool video or something, and I always pull out my iPhone instead of the laptop in the bag next to me because it's so much faster and easier to use for simple things.
I also think I'd be a lot more comfortable sitting in bed surfing the web or reading with it than I would with my laptop. I doubt it will useful for most serious or complicated things, but the UI will make basic tasks simple and fast so I'll probably use it a lot.

That said, I won't be buying this thing for a while. I'll wait for the price to drop (as I recall, there was a pretty serious drop in price for the iPhone not long after it's release), and for some third party work to be done with it. I don't expect it to be long before someone figures out how to jailbreak it, and that will drastically increase the functionality of it if it's anything like the iPhone (it will even help solve the multi-tasking issue).

Superboy wrote:I can understand all of the dissapointment about this thing, but I think I would get a lot of use out of it. I already carry around a bag to keep my laptop and paperwork in, and if this thing is like the iPhone, it'll be a lot easier to whip out and pull up a webpage or something than it would on a laptop. There are countless times with I'm at a restaurant or pub with friends and want to show them a cool video or something, and I always pull out my iPhone instead of the laptop in the bag next to me because it's so much faster and easier to use for simple things.
I also think I'd be a lot more comfortable sitting in bed surfing the web or reading with it than I would with my laptop. I doubt it will useful for most serious or complicated things, but the UI will make basic tasks simple and fast so I'll probably use it a lot.

That said, I won't be buying this thing for a while. I'll wait for the price to drop (as I recall, there was a pretty serious drop in price for the iPhone not long after it's release), and for some third party work to be done with it. I don't expect it to be long before someone figures out how to jailbreak it, and that will drastically increase the functionality of it if it's anything like the iPhone (it will even help solve the multi-tasking issue).

What so you're going to lug around a laptop an iphone and an ipad just so you can show people cool videos quickly on a slightly bigger screen?

They're trying to sell this as "The best way to experience the web, email, photos, and video." When in reality you can't experience the significant chunks of the web which use flash, there's no keyboard to type your emails on and no SD slot to get your photos onto it in the first place. A netbook has none of those drawbacks and costs less.

Even aside from beig deliberately crippled purely to try and maximise apple's revenue it doesn't even have handwriting recognition which would seem to remove one of the potential benefits of the tablet format. It doesn't even have usb how can something that size not have a single usb port?

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but if that price point is real and Apple is smart in the marketing, they are going to sell a lot to schools.

Combining VNC and a price point that is the same as a wireless tablet, you could deal with the people who are unable to learn to use the graphing tablets.

This is independent of any of the theoretical textbook possibilities.

Looking at Superboy's and Plekhanov's posts, I just thought of the next big thing: an Acer Aspire-type tablet!

Seriously: the Acer has a 10" screen, faster proc, a by-god decent hard drive, WinXP (my version, maybe Win7 is the next thing), 3 USB ports, SD card slot, 802.11g wireless, and 1GB RAM. And only weighs like 2.5 pounds (okay, 1.1 kilos for you metros). The LCD is decently sharp, and the backlighting works well enough that I can read a document in full Florida sunlight without getting a headache. For $300 US.

So...how big a challenge would it really be for Acer's engineers to come out with a 1.5-2 pound tablet-style netbook, with a touch screen (multitouch would be nice and I think would work with Win7), an iPad-style OS shell in EPROM for fast start-up (or a good UI shell and hibernation routine), maybe 2GB RAM, maybe 250GB hard drive, and a separate Bluetooth keyboard/mouse/touchpad? Toss in automatic landscape/portrait reconfigurating and an on-screen keyboard that's good enough for iTouch-style hunt-and-peck typing, and I bet they could still do it for less than $400. Hell, throw in XP for Tablet's handwriting recognition and they'd make good on the Newton's early long-ago promise. Shit, I'd toss over my Acer Aspire for one of those bad boys if they did it! And, so sorry, such a netbook would mean bye-bye iPad.

Just a thought.

phongn wrote:Thoughts?

I have a TC1100 tablet PC from ~2004 that I use regularly, primarily for art. I was hoping for a while that Apple, given their (hardly deserved) reputation as the best choice for artists, might perhaps make a tablet optimized for such a purpose. Obviously that was a rather silly thing to expect.

My TC1100 from 6 years ago is still functionally superior in almost every area. Yay, progress.

phongn wrote: I don't know. When I first heard the rumours I thought that Apple might be doing it right: the issue with existing tablets was never the hardware but that the UI was centered around mouse-keyboard interaction. Everything else has been a hack. A dedicated touch-centric OS might well win where others have failed.

Sorry, but I don't agree. I don't see much value in tablets period that you don't get from a compact laptop.

The software is a big issue, yes, but what is 'serious work'? You could use iWork or a webapp instead and for home use that's probably more than enough. Yes, this is just an iPod Touch on steroids but that's a lot of computer for people. The screen resolution is not too bad (1024x768) and it does have the hardware keyboard option (and hopefully more to come besides Apple's going-to-be-overpriced one).

Oh please, those iWork apps are not going to let you get any real work done. Even Mac OSX has a problem with being a serious office platform due to lack of software support and you expect THIS thing to actually take off among business folk? I don't buy it for a second.

And the Hardware keyboard option isn't going to change squat. It's still a hack on top of what is fundamentally still an iPhone with a bigger screen. If you want a portable work machine, you have no further to look than any number of CULV devices, even the Macbook Air in Apple's own lineup. That's the problem, Jobs himself admits they are trying to sandwich this thing between the iPhone and the Macbook and no sane person is going to want to have all three devices when they can just get a more portable laptop. The iPad doesn't solve ONE SINGLE DAMN USE CASE that a Macbook Air can't do better.

I don't know. I like E-Ink and all but there's a place for traditional color displays too - and devices that do more.

Not for book reading there isn't which is the point I was making.

The Kindle is a success because it does a great job of replacing a massive paperback library with a device that people actually want to do reading on. I doubt anyone is seriously going to do much reading on the iPad, at most you will capture the casual reading crowd whereas the Kindle actually makes serious readers want to switch to an electronic device.

Plekhanov wrote:What so you're going to lug around a laptop an iphone and an ipad.

Yes. Considering I already carry around a bag with a laptop, I don't think having an extra half-inch tablet in there is going to be a problem. And it's not just for showing people videos quickly, it's for watching them myself or doing any number of other things much faster than I could on a laptop. With my iPhone, I can pull it out and be on google or youtube or facebook or any other website in literally 5-10 seconds. It's incredibly fast and easy to do very basic things on, and this experience will improve with a more powerful machine with a larger screen.

They're trying to sell this as "The best way to experience the web, email, photos, and video." When in reality you can't experience the significant chunks of the web which use flash, there's no keyboard to type your emails on and no SD slot to get your photos onto it in the first place. A netbook has none of those drawbacks and costs less.

Even aside from beig deliberately crippled purely to try and maximise apple's revenue it doesn't even have handwriting recognition which would seem to remove one of the potential benefits of the tablet format. It doesn't even have usb how can something that size not have a single usb port?

I agree with these compaints, and a laptop is certainly superior for a lot of things, but that doesn't mean the iPad is useless. For someone like myself who spends far more time simply browsing websites than I do typing emails or doing any actual work on a computer, this device will be very handy.

This thing is not going to replace laptops or netbooks, and it's not meant to. It's for doing very basic things and that's it. It excels at doing those basic things in a fast and easy way that you simply don't get with a netbook or laptop. This is the device I'll be keeping next to my bed when I'm sleeping and next to the couch when I'm relaxing and anywhere else I'll be so that I can quickly look something up online or start up a movie or check facebook in just a couple of seconds with no hassle and nothing more than a few swipes of my finger.

I don't mean to be hyping this machine up, I'm actually pretty dissapointed that it's nothing more than a large iPhone without the phone. Given a choice between a laptop or an iPad, I'd choose the laptap because it has greater functionality. I just want to explain why some people would very much enjoy having this device and would get a lot of use out of it.

That said, you brought up my biggest problem with the iPad and iPhone. Since they lack any USB ports or card readers, you're forced to use iTunes to transfer any data at all. I can't stand iTunes and hate having to use it. These devices would be far more useful and easy to use if they could at least be plugged into a computer and read as a standard data storage device with folders for video, pictures and music that can be drag-and-dropped into.

Seggybop also brings up a good point. This thing could be amazing for artists if they included a way to use some sort of stylis-type pen instead of only working with fingers. There are a few art apps available for the iPhone and they're almost entirely useless because you can't be precise with fingers.

phongn wrote:

[R_H] wrote:Interesting that Jobs called it revolutionary. Archos has two similar products, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet (runs Android, has a smaller display but up to 500GB storage) and the Archos 9 PC Tablet (which has similar specs to the iPad).

Well, this is Steve Jobs, who is the master of hyperbole. There have been other slate devices before as well (Nokia had some) but of course this is Apple so it's obviously revolutionary

Axiotron's Modbook was revolutionary (in 2007). Apple should have done something along those lines, or made the Modbook (in some form) a part of it's product line.

I might get one, depending on the pricing in europe. Amazon has it at 499 Euro for the basic model, i.e. USD = EUR, which I feel is not only to expensive but also an insult. Also I will have to check if the claims apple makes about the ease of use (especially the keyboard) are actually true and wether there are apps for all of my use cases.

But other than that this is exactly what I need. Yesterday this time I dismissed the idea of the rumored "iSlate" as useless, since all tablets, eBook readers, netbooks and smartphones I had come across until then sucked. There simply was nothing on the market that filled gap between my cell phone (or my mp3 player) and my 12" laptop. The iPhone/iPod touch is of no use to me due to its size: to big to replace my phone and my mp3 player, but at the same time to small to actually get anything done. I CAN'T browse the internet, read eBooks, watch movies/youtube, write eMails, use it as a calender etc.pp. because the screen is so small. Thats the same reason why I can't go smaller than my laptop: 12" is allready pretty small, but still acceptable due to the device itself being small and light enough to not be a bother to haul around.

The iPad fits in this gap EXACT. It is big enough to actually be of use to me. I use my computers - apart form programming, office work and games, which are use cases I already have better devices for and don't actually come up that often when I'm not near these machines anyway - mostly to browse the web, watch things, read... The iPad CAN do these things. But it is also small and light enough to be even less of a strain than my laptop, thus I will probably be carrying it around even if I don't expect to do serious programming or office work.
Basically its the smallest/lightest thing that does all I need it to do and that includes a good/intuitive UI. I generally don't like apple or its products, but they are the only ones offering a touchscreen device I didn't hate at the first moment of using it - so I feel reasonably confident that the won't fuck the iPad's OS and UI up.

Ghetto edit: I just looked up the Archos 9 PC Tablet. Hardware wise it could be an alternative, but it I don't know how good Windows 7 is as a multitouch OS. Does anyone of you know? Also, can you install linux on it and if so is THAT a good multitouch OS?
Thats really the important part of the problem for me, the ease of use must be at least near the apple offerings. I would rather not buy apple and I would much rather use linux, but I have to enjoy using it or its simply not worth 500 Euro to me.

Superboy wrote:Considering I already carry around a bag with a laptop, I don't think having an extra half-inch tablet in there is going to be a problem. And it's not just for showing people videos quickly, it's for watching them myself or doing any number of other things much faster than I could on a laptop. With my iPhone, I can pull it out and be on google or youtube or facebook or any other website in literally 5-10 seconds. It's incredibly fast and easy to do very basic things on, and this experience will improve with a more powerful machine with a larger screen.

You're comfortable paying $500 for a gigantic iPod Touch?

Seggybop also brings up a good point. This thing could be amazing for artists if they included a way to use some sort of stylis-type pen instead of only working with fingers.

What, you mean, like a tablet PC?

Christ, it's about as 'revolutionary' as the Segway.

So...how big a challenge would it really be for Acer's engineers to come out with a 1.5-2 pound tablet-style netbook, with a touch screen (multitouch would be nice and I think would work with Win7), an iPad-style OS shell in EPROM for fast start-up (or a good UI shell and hibernation routine), maybe 2GB RAM, maybe 250GB hard drive, and a separate Bluetooth keyboard/mouse/touchpad? Toss in automatic landscape/portrait reconfigurating and an on-screen keyboard that's good enough for iTouch-style hunt-and-peck typing, and I bet they could still do it for less than $400. Hell, throw in XP for Tablet's handwriting recognition and they'd make good on the Newton's early long-ago promise. Shit, I'd toss over my Acer Aspire for one of those bad boys if they did it! And, so sorry, such a netbook would mean bye-bye iPad.

Asus is already working on their own EEE version of the tablet if I recall correctly. This probably means that Acer won't be that far behind.

Found the link.

Clicky!

One of the big attractions to Tablet PC for many was that they could use the laptop to take lecture notes because the system was sophisticated enough to record down someone's scribbles.

But you seriously don't see this coming for this iPad. There's no stylus for starters, and heck, you can't even save the data and export it without doing things like email and such.