We haven’t weighed in on Microsoft’s Kinect (formerly “Project Natal”) because we haven’t seen anything exciting about it yet. Maybe it’s better than Sony’s Move, and advancing what the Wii provided from a technological perspective. But let’s step back for a moment and look at where this all began, with Nintendo’s current console offering.

We picked up a Wii on release. We waited in line overnight, for crying out loud. And we did thoroughly enjoy the initial titles we played, but let’s be clear: they weren’t groundbreaking titles. Good titles with motion control, yes, but not groundbreaking titles in and of themselves. Maybe motion control is what made the Wii unique, and sold casual gaming to the masses, and maybe even pushed consoles into family entertainment centers where parents were previously skeptical of consoles as family-friendly entertainment. But as far as titles go, there’s no single Nintendo Wii game that’s more fun to play than any great title on any other console lacking motion control. (For example, the original Mario Kart was no less fun than the current Mario Kart is today.)

Yes, we’ll make a small exception for workout titles; EA Sports is a fantastic at-home workout for those without a gym who want to get into better cardiovascular shape, and traditional control schemes obviously wouldn’t work in this regard. But EA Sports, and games of this ilk, are not exactly fun gaming titles in the traditional sense.

So now with Kinect set to release late this year, we have another motion control scheme, albeit without a physical controller necessary. And this may work well for casual games, and probably pretty good for workout titles also (there will, after all, be an EA Sports title for Kinect). But for other gaming? If anything, Microsoft is looking to grab more Wii users and capitalize on the fact that a good chunk of gamers own both a Wii, and an XBox/PS3. Capturing the “casual” gaming crowd is an expected move for Microsoft, who has already moved in that direction during the XBox dashboard re-do (avatars, et al).

We’re highly skeptical that Kinect will bring anything worthwhile to the table if one already has a Wii sitting next to their XBox; Kinect is the Wii peripheral for the XBox. It’s a cool idea, but nothing more than a novelty, which conveniently comes out mid-way through the XBox 360 lifecycle. If anything, it combats Nintendo’s move of potentially releasing an HD Wii, forcing Nintendo to up their ante and delay a new product release more in line with Microsoft and Sony’s next generation, else simply throw in the towel like Sega did after the Dreamcast.

Either way, the Kinect alone won’t win Microsoft the battle here; the Kinect is a reactive move by Microsoft. Not in the way that the Move is Sony’s reaction to the Wii (which is playing catch-up more than anything else), but in the sense of allowing the XBox to be a competitor to the Wii on all angles – not just meeting the Wii’s capabilities, but arguably exceeding them without adding cumbersome, physical controllers. This move will likely pay off in keeping the 360 situated as the premiere US console, but probably won’t force Nintendo out of the console business entirely, unless Microsoft is able to capture some choice IP for Kinect-based games.

We just don’t see the Kinect doing much to sway the console wars one way or the other at this point. The Wii has already been widely adopted, and so the potential installation-base in Wii-less households appears very small. Unless there are some killer titles out there that make having Kinect outrageously desireable (and we haven’t seen any yet), why drop the money on Kinect? Similar Posts:

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We didn’t give much thought to iPhones overheating last summer, when reports were going around about iPhones shutting down after a certain internal heat threshold was met. But that’s because we never encountered this behavior, since we evidently didn’t put our iPhone through these types of paces. Things took a turn when we began using our iPhone 3GS as a daily GPS device.

The problem.

In the car, while we’ve experienced exceptional heat emanating from our iPhone 3GS, we still haven’t witnessed the device overheating and shutting down the active program. We guess that’s because of where we mounted the iPhone; it sits right in front of a vent. During summer months on the east coast, we usually run with the air conditioner on, so the iPhone isn’t at the same temperature as the outside world. Since it sits so close to a vent, it’s also getting the benefit of air flow, which isn’t the situation in our second use case.

On a motorcycle, our iPhone is more exposed to the elements, or at least the heat. This is doubly-problematic because air flow is effectively neutralized since a motorcycle-mounted iPhone is generally enclosed for protection, so the iPhone doesn’t benefit from the motorcycle’s movement. On hot days, this means that whatever case the iPhone is in acts like a greenhouse. Eventually, east coast summers with temperatures in the 80s will shut down any iPhone mounted to a motorcycle, making navigation-by-iPhone impossible.

Possible solutions?

Moving the iPhone to an unenclosed case, snapped into some sort of mount, may be a part-time solution. Mounts like this exist, but their protection is questionable; do you really trust a mount where the iPhone “snaps in” and “snaps out” by pressing a plastic tab? With the vibrations common on motorcycles (not to mention bumps from off-road riding), it becomes a huge question as to whether such a mount won’t suddenly pop an attached iPhone off mid-ride.

A better mount system might still work here, but an off-the-shelf solution doesn’t seem to exist. Touratech makes decent aluminum mounts for other GPS devices, but not for the iPhone (probably because the iPhone isn’t water-tight).

Relocating the iPhone’s mounting location may be possible with the proper hardware. For example, if the iPhone could be mounted in a position that offers more shade, where it’s not always getting direct sun, perhaps it would last longer before shutting down. Still, this likely wouldn’t fix the problem entirely, and GPS coverage may be hit too.

Another solution may be to simply keep the iPhone in a vented pocket, so it’s not getting sun and benefits from airflow directed against the rider. Unfortunately, this means the rider only has access to audible cues, can’t see the map, and needs to pull the iPhone out whenever the navigation software needs to be accessed.

In the end, no obvious solution exists if one wants to use iPhone-based navigation year-round on a motorcycle (at least in areas where it gets hot).

The 4G iPhone.

The latest iPhone, releasing later this week, uses the A4 processor, which we know to be faster than previous iPhone processors. This new iPhone should also sport better power efficiency, which may imply cooler operation. However, we couldn’t find any claims as to how much cooler the 4G iPhone runs compared to the 3GS. For us, this becomes a major factor in whether or not we upgrade, because if this new iPhone can handle higher heat environments, then it immediately challenges other GPS units for motorcycle use; potentially, with an aluminum case, heat dissipation may be easier for this latest iPhone.

For those early adopters, drop us a line to let us know if the 4G iPhone seems to run cooler than the 3G or 3GS.

Update (06/23/2010): TiPb is proposing that Apple may have down-clocked the A4 processor in the 4G iPhone in order to get better battery life and “lower the thermal impact.” This would mean that the new iPhone has more RAM than the 3GS, but a slower processor, explaining why the iPad may still be faster than the 4G iPhone. This still begs the question as to how much cooler the 4G iPhone would run than the 3GS, however.Similar Posts:

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One of the common quips about the iPad is that it’s nothing more than a “large iPod Touch.” It’s a statement the naysayers are fond of making, along with those who lash out at anything made by Apple as though Microsoft were still the only developer putting out a useful, solid operation system anymore; it’s not 1999, people.

We’ve now had an iPad since Friday, the day the 3G iPads were released, and we’re quite happy with it as a replacement for our now-sold 17″ Macbook Pro. We’ve fielded numerous questions, but the most common is, “Why would someone want an iPad?” And that’s a loaded question, because it comes with a pre-established bias. But let’s answer it anyway: “Maybe you don’t. Not everyone would.”

That answer isn’t side-stepping the argument, either. The reality is, if you’re already happy with an existing portable computer, or you don’t need a portable computer in the first place, then the iPad isn’t for you, just as a roadster isn’t the ideal car for a family of four. If you’re in the market for a portable computer, however, and what you need it to do is the same thing 99% of computer users need a computer for, then the iPad fits the bill splendidly. It’s a fantastic entertainment and news device, is great for writing, and the distribution system for apps makes the iPad a headache-free device which you won’t need to reformat every six months because something’s broken.

And for techies who need the latest and greatest, and have the disposable income to make that need a reality, then the iPad is an obvious choice over an existing sub-notebook: it’s snappier, has a great app library w/associated distribution system, has a longer battery life, and has a data connection built in.

With four days of iPad use behind us, we’re not disappointed with the device at all, and look forward to the benefits that OS 4.0 will bring later this year. One side-effect of using the iPad, however, is our changed perception of using the iPhone. Quite simply, the iPhone no longer feels as revolutionary, or as spectacular, as before. Indeed, we’re making an effort to not run iPhone apps on the iPad, because most simply don’t look great when scaled up. That’s not to say that the iPhone still isn’t the best smartphone on the market, but merely that the iPhone now feels more like a phone with cool features, and less like a backup computing device; the iPhone feels almost cluttered now, what with its dense app icon distribution on the SpringBoard, and the lack of “whitespace” in apps.

In this respect, the iPad has set for the computing industry a new standard. What early, greyscale sub-notebooks were to their later, more powerful notebook brethren, the iPod Touch is to the iPad. In other words, the iPad isn’t a big iPod Touch, in much the same way the modern Mini Cooper isn’t just a bigger version of the old Mini. Yes, there are keen visual similarities, but one was effectively a prototype for the other. In the end, the Touch is a smaller, more restricted version of the iPad, which is a more apt description if any can be made, and it pinpoints the answer to the aforementioned question as to why one would want an iPad: early iPod adopters didn’t ask why they should pick up an iPod instead of one of the many non-Apple mp3 players on the market. Rather, the reason was obvious: the iPod was better, not because it offered much more functionality, but because it was highly polished. Those who didn’t see this would end up buying an iPod a year or three later. Same with the iPad: if you don’t get it now, just wait a couple years when the early-adopters have made the reasoning all to clear.

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Some dude, Michael Pachter, a gaming analyst, claims that the Apple TV will soon be hooked up to the AppStore and magically transform into a gaming machine, albeit one that does more than simply play games. This isn’t a particularly original thought, but neither are most thoughts from these so-called analysts, who seem to be more regularly incorrect than anything else. So too may Pachter find himself, as transitioning the Apple TV into a gaming machine is easier said than done, since the AppStore is backed by the venerable iPhone version of OS X. It’s not a stretch to think that Apple TV may adopt this OS in some form, in lieu of its current interface, but let’s be clear: Apple TV won’t sport multitouch, and that means any gaming initiative that Apple might fathom with the Apple TV will be outside today’s AppStore.

Apple already has a gaming platform, and that platform simply doesn’t work with the Apple TV. To invest time and money into something that’s not bound to the mobile space, or more accurately, not bound to the new rules of the mobile space (read: multitouch) would be wasteful of resources. That’s not to say that Apple couldn’t somehow wrangle a multitouch interface into the Apple TV by way of a new remote/controller, but the effort would seem forced, especially when gaming comes so natural to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Artificially pushing gaming into a product that its target market isn’t after is almost ludicrous, particularly when Apple’s primary focus is on the mobile marketplace.Similar Posts:

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While the iPad won’t sport much more than a dock connector for interfacing with other devices, that dock connector may be pretty flexible. In addition to the obvious use for syncing iTunes media to and from a Mac, Apple will offer numerous adapters. For instance, there will be a camera “kit” consisting of an SD and USB adapter, presumably to download pics and videos without having to get a Mac. This means that on-release, the iPad will have access to external media, as well as an external keyboard, all via the dock connector.

The obvious question is whether external storage access will be extremely limited. We guess it will be, but if the iPad could write to external storage devices, that would open a whole new world of possibilities for the device, making it ever-so more versatile. Otherwise, the iPad relies exclusively on networking to transfer files to and fro. There are other interesting possibilities for future accessories, however, which could leverage the USB adapter, or otherwise leverage the 30-pin iPod dock connector. Two such examples follow.

iSight, anyone?

One of the disappointments people have with the iPad is the lack of a front-facing camera. Some will remember that PowerBooks didn’t have iSight cameras embedded in the display frame, but that the original iSight form factor was rather large, and slide onto a laptop via a plastic attachment. These iSights sold for over $75 on release, and releasing a new, smaller version, is a financially considerate move for Apple, who may not want to tack on more money to the iPad’s currently alluring price-tag.

We can see Apple releasing an iSight attachment to the iPad later this year, or early next year, once the mobile version of OS X is more mature, and when its distribution includes a mobile iChat application. The camera could simply orient itself to however the iPad is positioned, and potentially, this attachment could be used on the iPhone and iPod Touch as well, since the connector is the same. Releasing such an iSight would allow it to be used on all mobile Apple devices, and test the popularity of video conferencing on mobile devices before Apple decides to include it in a later iPad revision. In the meantime, the fact that the iSight remains an out-of-box option for the MacBook lineup serves as just another example as to how the iPad fills a category between the iPhone/iPod Touch and the MacBook line.

Drawing tablets.

Apple’s demo of the redesigned Brushes app made for a great presentation, but for many artists, the feel of a pen/brush, along with pressure sensitivity, is important. There’s a clear market for drawing tablets out there, which is why Wacom products sit in every Apple store we’ve ever stepped in. If such tablets could be used with an iPad, we could certainly see many artists jumping on board Apple’s new product niche, as the portability of such a canvas, with a drawing interface aimed at the more artistic crowd, makes for a solid combination. Rather than sitting in front of a computer at one’s desk, artists could bring their iPad/tablet combination outside, to practically anywhere, and expect amazing battery life in a more inspiring location.

Understandably, Apple is all about pushing multitouch, but there’s no reason that the two input mechanisms can’t go hand-in-hand. Literally smudge paint with one’s fingers, but finely draw lines via the tablet, in a more controlled and usual fashion that many artists are used to. Turn the iPad as though manually plopping a canvas on its side, and continue working with virtual brush. Even as non-artists, we find the prospect enticing.Similar Posts:

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We weren’t exactly surprised with Apple’s revealing of the iPad today. Aside from our dislike of “iPad,” the device does look pretty good, though it’s clearly not as revolutionary as many people hoped. While usage reports are sure to trickle in soon, we’ll take this time to look back at the post we made last week on what we thought the iPad should have, likely wouldn’t, and what would be nice for Apple to include.

Our must-haves.

Readable screen size: Check. As expected, the iPad sports a 9.7″ screen, just under the 10″ rumoured size. When we first saw the iPad in Steve Jobs’ hands, we actually thought it looked bigger. From the virtual keyboard size alone, we think the screen size is adequate, though admit that the virtual keyboard takes up an awful lot of room in landscape mode.

User-defined multitasking: Sadly, no mention of this was made. This is perhaps our biggest let-down with the iPad reveal, because jumping back and forth between apps and the springboard is cumbersome at best. Fortunately, with Backgrounder already existing on the iPhone and iPod Touch, once a proper exploit is found on the iPad, we can assuredly rely on the dev-team or other hacking group to come up with a homebrew solution. Still, a pity Apple didn’t announce additional multitasking for the iPad out-of-box.

Update: A key point some people have made is that while multitasking wasn’t featured in Apple’s presentation today, there’s no reason that Apple couldn’t reveal multitasking in the 4.0 OS announcement in a couple months. Remember that the presentation today was all about the iPad itself, not intricacies of the OS.

Decent text-input: We were bummed with the idea of having to rely purely on the virtual keyboard for text input, because though the size of the keyboard in landscape mode looks adequate, it takes up too much of the screen. Losing almost 50% of one’s screen-realestate in a 9.7″ display is losing a lot. When we saw images of the virtual keyboard in vertical mode, however, with the new iPad Pages app up, it looked like there was still plenty of screen left to preview written content. Unfortunately, it’s not clear if the keyboard in this mode is large enough for quick typing.

Of course, with the announcement of an iPad dock/keyboard accessory, our desire for the iPad grew considerably. We’d still be happier with iPad integration with a bluetooth keyboard, but until the jailbreak community gets BTStack or similar running on the iPad, we can certainly live with an Apple accessory, even if it will only work with the iPad.

Update: The word from the blogosphere is that any bluetooth keyboard can be used with the iPad, so one doesn’t need to buy an iPad-specific keyboard. We wonder if this means that iPhones will support bluetooth keyboards also. Better yet, from the pictures we’ve seen with the dock keyboard attached, the virtual keyboard does indeed disappear. Assuming the same is true for linked bluetooth keyboards, the iPad will truly be a bloggers wet-dream, multitasking aside.

Our need-nots.

Cellular data connection: The iPad will be released in wifi-only versions (in 60 days) and in wifi/3G versions (in 90 days). Proof that Apple doesn’t consider 3G a necessity for the iPad, but more of a luxury. Of the units that will sport 3G, the iPads will be unlocked, with an initial data offering via pre-pad AT&T. We have no qualms with this other than the lack of tethering support with an iPhone. With a 250MB plan for $15/month or unlimited for $30/month, we’d expect a discount for existing AT&T subscribers, or at least a discount if we’re tethering with an iPhone. Alas, tethering doesn’t even seem to be an option yet, but perhaps more will come to light in upcoming weeks as AT&T makes their own iPad/tethering announcement.

Also, for those of you who thought Verizon would come in to save the day: we told you so.

GPS: We didn’t think it would happen, and Apple only mentioned the existence of a compass. No real surprise here, since the iPad is too big to use as a standard GPS device.

Ports: We’re looking at an iPod connector here, to tether the iPad to one’s Mac computer. Not really unexpected.

Our nice-to-haves.

No desktop tethering: The iPod connector means that the iPad is still designed to hook into a full version of iTunes to serve up non-iTunes media, which is a disappointment. On the other hand, with the keyboard dock, the iPad can easily become a stand-alone computer for many people, including grandma and grandpa, who probably don’t care about importing their home media library anyway. The downside for many is that the largest storage offered for the iPad is 64GB, and with no external storage options, this means that for power-users, desktop tethering is still mandatory. Overall, it’s rather surprising that more storage wasn’t offered in an even more expensive model, but 64GB is more than enough for general travel.

Front-facing camera: The iPad has no camera at all, which is pretty much what we expected. Lack of a front-facing camera, though, will be a disappointment to many. One of the nice things about the MacBook line is the integrated iSight camera, which is a huge boon for professionals to still be able to see their kids while on the road. We entirely expect to see an integrated iSight in a future iPad model, but maybe Apple just wants to role out big features at a time, especially since they still want to position the MacBook line as a mobile product for professionals.

Greater cloud connectivity: No mention of the iPad’s use of the cloud was made, though we naturally expect the device to leverage Mobile Me in the same way the iPhone does, and definitely expect iPad versions of existing Mobile Me apps to be released around the time the iPad ships.

Conclusion:

With the exception of more multitasking, our expectations were pretty much dead-on for what Apple thought was important and what wasn’t. We’re surprised at just how accurate some of the purported “leaks” were in the past several weeks, and how bad some of the hype got. Overall, we think the iPad is a decent version-one product, with definite room for growth. We’re disappointed at the lack of data tethering with an iPhone, and would prefer to see bluetooth keyboard connectivity, and even an iSight, but none of these are excuses not to get an iPad. As a device for writing on-the-go, the iPad seems to fit the bill pretty well, and is a traveler’s dream, coming in at half the weight of the MacBook Air. While the iPad won’t replace a full-on Mac just yet, Apple did well in positioning the iPad between its Mac and iPhone/iPod Touch products, adding yet another Apple gadget to our lives.

For us, the iPad probably will replace our MacBook, though only if we pick up, say, a Mac Mini also as a sort of server for handling some of our larger media files. The big question for us now is whether we want to wait for a 3G iPad, or if we’d be plenty happy with a wifi-only version.

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The reason we’re so enthused about Apple’s rumoured tablet computer is because its proposed mobility suits our lifestyle. Simply put, our MacBook Pro is too big to comfortably cart across the country often, and our iPhone doesn’t offer key functionality that we need in our road-warrior lifestyle. While there’s already some middle ground in the likes of a smaller MacBook, or even moreso in the overpriced MacBook Air, the iTablet proposes less power in a smaller package. The key with the iTablet will be in how Apple balances trade-offs, because their goal will be to ensure that the iTablet feature pendulum doesn’t swing too far in the direction of the iPhone, nor to the MacBook. This is consistent with the concern, mirrored by John Gruber, that the iTablet simply won’t offer enough over the iPhone to justify the price.

It’s eyebrow-raising that “too big” and “too expensive” were the major knocks against the Newton, and here we are facing the arrival of the mythical Tablet, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, has a big 10-inch diagonal screen and will cost around $1,000. But I’d argue that the Newton wasn’t too big, too expensive, period — I’d say it was too big and too expensive given what it offered.

For the iTablet not to succumb to the Newton’s fate, it has to set itself apart from the iPhone. This is even more important when one considers that the iTablet will most likely run on the same version of OS X that the iPhone and iPod Touch do. There will need to be some key differences in OS load-out, however, and these differences become quite clear when we’re on the road with only our iPhone, and consider what we can’t do well.

Three things the iTablet needs.

1. A readable screen size: The iPhone is small for a reason, and while certainly capable of browsing the web, the reality is that non-mobile pages are still inconvenient to browse at length. There’s a reason that mobile web pages are often preferred on the iPhone, and why iPhone apps designed to replace web interfaces are designed with a different interface in mind. This issue has already addressed, of course, because the iTablet’s screen is expected to be 10″ long diagonally. Arguably, this means that few users will need to zoom in on full-size web pages on the iTablet’s screen to read the respective content. Would a 12″ screen be better at this? Sure, but 10″ should be manageable, while anything smaller offers questionable benefits.

2. User-defined multi-tasking: When Backgrounder came out for jailbroken iPhones, it changed the way we did business. It didn’t play as important a role in our use of the iPhone before we picked up a 3GS, but now it’s an invaluable tool for us. We can run Pandora in the car while getting directions from Navigon, or we can jump back over to the iPod app to switch podcasts without having to restart Navigon (it still doesn’t handle podcasts properly). We can leave a game to check on e-mail, and jump right back in with nary a delay. The funny thing is, when we’re using Backgrounder, we rarely do it with more than a couple apps at a time. This is revealing: while people would love native support for third-party apps to have multitasking capabilities like the core Apple apps do, most people don’t really need to keep many apps open in the first place. So even if the iTablet has a much slower processor than what we’re used to in a MacBook, it shouldn’t matter too much. As of right now, the iPhone 3GS already meets our requirements for horsepower as far as multitasking is concerned, so a slightly more powerful processor would be sufficient for most users.

What Apple may want to consider, if they haven’t done so already, is letting users define a limited number of applications to run in the background. Say, a user can launch a given app, and via some gesture, send that program into a multitasking state. Maybe a small bar at one side of the screen has three empty boxes, and when a program is told to run in the background, its icon is sent to occupy one of these three boxes. That way, users can see which apps are running in the background, and with another gesture, stop the background process for a given app, whereupon its icon is removed from one of the three multitasking boxes.

Since we’re bloggers, we’ll use a typical blogging workflow as a perfect example for this. We launch Byline, our RSS reader. We drag its title bar to an empty multitasking box. We return to the springboard and launch a photo-editing app, and also drag its title bar to an unoccupied multitasking box. Finally, we do the same for the WordPress app. We can now jump back-and-forth between these applications by simply clicking on one of the multitasking boxes for the application we want to switch to. This allows us to easily copy content from Byline into WordPress, mock up graphics to do same, and voila, no needing to launch applications again and again just to switch between them. When we’re done with an app, we press and hold its icon in the respective multitasking box, and the icon explodes in a cloud of virtual dust as the application closes. This type of multitasking would make the iTablet a much more efficient work-buddy than the iPhone is today.

3. Decent text input: Dan Moren wrote a great piece collecting various text input methods that the iTablet could use. Regardless of which method Apple goes with, we’ve said for some time that text input is the iPhone’s greatest weakness. This is where the iTablet can really set itself apart from the iPhone, because most travelers will want some easy form of text input, and ideally one that doesn’t drop a giant virtual keyboard across half of one’s screen. Netbooks may have cramped keyboards, but at least they stand out of the way of the already-small display. A 10″ screen may be of a sufficient size for viewing full-screen content, but if half that screen is used as a keyboard, that 10″ will seem unreasonably small.

We figure that a bluetooth keyboard approach is the most logical, though definitely expect Apple to have something up their sleeve as far as a unique input method is concerned. Without this, the iTablet doesn’t seem like it would offer enough, especially when one can buy a Macbook for around the same price.

Three things the iTablet doesn’t need.

1. A cellular data connection: The iPhone has 3G data for a reason: it’s a phone. In a world where every telecom is on LTE, and it’s ubiquitous across the country, then it makes sense to slam LTE-capable hardware into the iTablet. In the meantime, there’s already the iPhone, which has the capability to tether its cellular data connection to any nearby computer. (AT&T just has to turn the feature on.)

There’s also the issue of Apple supporting CDMA if they decide to work with Verizon. CDMA doesn’t let one use data and voice at the same time, which would be an issue for consistent functionality if Apple released a CDMA iPhone on Verizon, but this is hardly an issue for the iTablet (since it wouldn’t have voice service anyway). Instead, the issue is one of customer satisfaction: if the iTablet is linked to Verizon, current iPhone customers who are tied to AT&T will be annoyed at having to get a second data subscription. Even if the iTablet were capable of both CDMA and GSM, so it could work under any of the major cellular services, one must wonder if this would be a solid business move. More likely, Apple would leverage the iTablet as yet another Apple gadget to compliment one’s life with. If the iTablet doesn’t sport cellular data, then users will still need to get an iPhone to enable tethered data access on the iTablet. It’s a win for Apple, and with so many iPhones out there already, one wonders who would seriously complain if the iTablet required an iPhone for data. Verizon iPhone hold-outs shouldn’t be too displeased either, assuming that the iPhone will eventually head to Verizon in 2011. In our opinion, the iTablet should be carrier neutral, insofar that it doesn’t support any cellular data subscription natively, and instead piggy-backs whatever the user’s iPhone is on.

2. GPS: Look, the iTablet is too big to sit in one’s windshield, and it’s too big to cart around while hiking in the back-country. Sure, one can argue that the hardware costs are negligible at this point, but so is the benefit to having GPS in the iTablet outside of location-based apps. Again, Apple doesn’t want the iTablet to replace the iPhone. There’s no reason Apple couldn’t integrate sharing of GPS data to a computer tethered to an iPhone, and that sounds like a much more reasonable business solution than throwing GPS into every device that’s not a desktop. After all, most use cases for the iTablet will be indoors, anyway, and that means not having a GPS signal in the first place. (Besides, tethered to an iPhone’s data connection, the iTablet could use cell-phone triangulation to roughly determine location regardless of GPS availability.)

3. Ports: With the iTablet using the AppStore, there’s no need for an optical drive because we wouldn’t be installing anything from CD or DVD. Apple wants people to use iTunes, and since most mainstream media can be acquired there, there’s no reason to let people rip optical media for playing on the iTablet, either. Maybe Apple will allow wireless sharing of a drive from another Apple computer (just as the MacBook Air can do), just to rip media in iTunes, but the feature isn’t really necessary. There’s also no reason to attach USB devices other than an iPod/iPhone, so while we may see a USB port for this reason alone, there’s nothing else we would expect to see connecting to the iTablet other than a magsafe power cord. Of course, we could just as easily see Apple finally integrating wireless synchronization of iTunes over wi-fi, so we can easily envision the iTablet without a single USB port also. Assuming Apple still requires the iTablet to tether to a computer running legacy iTunes, the question of a USB port is clear.

Initially, we proposed that the iTablet should have a mini display port, but with the realization that the device would be built around the mobile version of OS X, this seems less likely, since apps will be built around a certain resolution. Even with resolution independence built into apps, all attaching a large monitor would do is scale the existing graphics up to a larger size, not allow one to actually display more content. Perhaps there would be some benefit to this if text could be scaled down on a per-app basis when a larger monitor is connected, but we just don’t see many people doing something like this, even if we would.

In the end, chances are good that the iTablet will not have a single port to its name other than a power connection, be that a magsafe connector or a typical iPod interface if the iTablet is designed to synchronize with legacy iTunes.

Three things that would be nice to have.

1. No need to tether to a desktop: The iPhone isn’t a stand-alone product, even though many users probably use it as such. However, for the iPhone to truly shine, it needs to be tethered to a computer with a full-fledged OS, if only for the iPhone to interface with a full iTunes library. Sure, the iPhone can be used to purchase movies and music, but its limited storage means that older content needs to reside somewhere and the cloud isn’t quite there yet. Never mind that the iPhone will even complain when certain downloads fail, telling the user to try again via iTunes.

The iTablet, hopefully, will stand on its own: it should serve as a device that iPhones can tether to, and not become yet another Apple gadget that needs to be synchronized with a computer running a full-fledged version of iTunes. That would likely call for a magsafe power connector, versus the typical iPod connector a tethered device would have.

Of course, as a stand-alone media device, one would expect the iTablet to have plenty of disk space, so we’d expect to see a fairly large SSD drive. The MacBook Air sports a 128GB SSD HD, and we’d expect to see at least that much storage capacity in the iTablet, so it can hold most user’s complete multimedia libraries.

2. Front-facing camera: The idea of a device with a 10″ screen being burdened with a rear-facing camera is just silly. The iTablet won’t have a camera in the same sense as the iPhone, but we can definitely see how it might sport an iSight to use iChat with. In fact, with better text-input features than the iPhone, the iTablet will most likely sport iChat for quick, real-time communication. The ability to enable video-chats, however, would be nothing short of gangbusters.

3. Greater cloud connectivity: If the iTablet had everything already mentioned, it would already be a pretty spectacular device. But with greater cloud integration, thanks in part to a more evolved Mobile Me service, the iTablet could leverage features like Back to my Mac to grab files remotely, perhaps even to add such files to the iTablet’s own iTunes library (such as grabbing ripped mp3s remotely to alleviate the lack of an optical drive). With rumours that iTunes may well come to the cloud in the near future (as well as iWork), there’s some hope that Mobile Me will become a true competitor to the various free cloud-based services, and the iTablet is the perfect platform to showcase such cloud evolution.

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By now, the rumour-wagon has settled on the idea that Apple’s purported tablet device, to be unveiled on the 27th, will run a mobile version of OS X (possibly the same OS as iPhone 4.0). The logical follow-up is that this tablet will also acquire its applications from iTunes, just like the iPhone does with the existing AppStore. In fact, with resolution-independence for iPhone apps being recent among Apple’s advice to developers, it follows that iPhone apps will likely support Apple’s upcoming tablet as a host. In other words, we can likely expect the AppStore to serve up both iPhone and iTablet apps in the near future.

The logic behind distributing applications in this manner for the iTablet makes sense, particularly for Apple’s bottom line. Under regular OS X, Apple doesn’t get a 30% cut of every application sold, nor can Apple control what gets sold, and how these independent applications function. With iPhone apps, Apple effectively makes free money, with the only associated cost tied to a staff of horrible reviewers, who may as well be high-school interns. Why not capitalize on the AppStore’s success by pushing this model into a market for the “general computer user,” which the iTablet will no doubt target?

For many end users, this makes sense. The AppStore is a one-stop-shop for all one’s application needs. Grandma and Grandpa don’t need to make a trip to the local Apple Store (if there even is one) to get new software. Nor do they need to find obscure indy titles by following Apple-minded blogs, or trolling Google for searches like “image editing program for mac”. No, all they need to do is run the AppStore program on their newly-minted Apple device and start browsing titles.

For the rest of us, the power users, the AppStore has less merit. We generally know where to find the software we want, or at the very least, know how to find it. And we’ve all invested time and money into the third-party programs we know and love. And that’s why we’re a bit perturbed at rumours suggesting that the iTablet won’t be running on Intel, because we want the iTablet to replace our general computing computer, but under the traditional application distribution model, not the new one.

If the iTablet isn’t running on Intel, many of our old favorites just won’t work. Kiss goodbye programs like Crossover, for example, which are slowly becoming a staple for the aging gamer in us. Heck, forget about emulating Windows with Parallels or VMWare, unless you want to stick with a MacBook for basic portable computing needs. In general, forget about all the shareware, downloaded applications, widgets, and scripts we’ve been using on OS X over the years. The iTablet cares not for these investments, because the iTablet is here to clear the slate (pun intended).

Yes, the iTablet’s AppStore will be easier to manage than the current way of acquiring applications on OS X. We can delete applications without needing apps like AppZapper to make sure that no residual mess was left behind. But there are other problems, such as iTunes not backing up user data for deleted apps (only apps currently on an Apple device), and the matter of redundancy. Do we need to replace all our OS X applications to acquire iTablet-specific applications now, assuming we’re really going to use the iTablet as our primary computing device? Will third-party developers be able to port their old OS X apps into the AppStore, and somehow give old license holders an easy way to transition customers over for free?

Maybe in the long term, it doesn’t matter. If the rumours are true, Apple is transitioning a good part of their audience (and potential audience) to a cleaner, simpler, computing experience, like ChromeOS and Litl. And they can do that without building an OS from scratch, because OS X even in its mobile form is still OS X, albeit with greater user and developer restrictions. Maybe when this platform has become more ubiquitous, no one will care that we dumped hundreds of dollars worth of software because of what the AppStore is effectively making a new platform. But in the meantime, in the transitional period that could last for at least a year, you know we’ll be bitching about not being able to run legacy OS X apps on our fancy new Apple devices.

Of course, with the AppStore’s quick growth-rate, assuming the iTablet is a success, and assuming the device will do things like support multi-tasking for downloaded apps, bluetooth keyboards, and other “must-have” features for daily mobile computer users, perhaps the AppStore’s benefits will outshine its flaws. Here’s hoping.

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While we brought the Joo Joo up in passing, Rob Enderle proclaimed that the former CrunchPad could crush the market for tablet computing, thereby souring Apple’s entrance into the market altogether. The only problem with his assertion is that the Apple tablet isn’t the same beast as the Joo Joo, and to say that the latter will quell consumer desire for the iTablet is like saying that Motorola’s Razr savaged the Apple iPhone.

Enderle is really comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended); all of these non-Apple products are extremely limited: the Kindle is first and foremost an eBook reader, the Razr is just a cellphone, and the Joo Joo is a web-surfing tool. For those like Enderle who still don’t get it, the Joo Joo is a one-trick pony. It’s not a media monster running iTunes, it isn’t a keyboard-less computer with the capacity to run OS X applications, and it certainly doesn’t have the potential packing of the print industry to push forward with digital distribution of magazines and newspapers.

Most consumers probably haven’t even heard of the Joo Joo and its developer, Fusion Garage. The Joo Joo will cost $500, and for what’s probably just twice that, users will be able to own an Apple-polished product that does significantly more. So even if news of the Joo Joo does trickle down to the average computer user, we’re not so sure anyone’s going to care, especially once Apple announces their own tablet (which will be an actual computer and not just a web-browser).

But what can we expect from a tech analyst with such stunning gems as this:

[It] sounds way to close to JewJew with implications that could offend a wide variety of buyers…

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We’ve ruminated at length about the rumoured Apple tablet computer, from the iPhone “dock” that is our Apple Annex, to the Macbook sibling that is our iTablet Excelsior. And with recent clues shoved down our digital throat across the blogosphere suggesting that an Apple tablet will indeed be announced sometime next year, we find ourselves once again justifying its impending existence.

The truth’s in the Air.

It began with the MacBook Air and may indeed end with it. Almost two years ago, we complained that the MacBook Air was overpriced for a poorly performing machine with so little to offer other than a reduced physical footprint. To be fair, that same complaint holds even truer today, with even the basic 13″ MacBook Pro beating the MacBook Air out on all specs to include price, with the Air merely coming in at 1.5 lbs lighter. How many real-world applications is that 1.5 lbs going to make a real difference for?

But the Air, as we stated back in January, 2008, is a great proof-of-concept. And that proof-of-concept has gotten slight buffs during its two generational updates. One could almost say that the Air is Apple’s notebook AppleTV, in the sense that it’s more of a hobby to set the future stage than to sell based purely on its present merits. That’s not to say that the Air isn’t decent; we’re even considering picking up a used Air if the price is right, just so we have a very portable, no-frills writing device that runs OS X (we’ve seen first-gen models go for what amounts to the price of a netbook hackintosh). But if money is indeed a consideration, the Air today is a poor purchase when the 13″ MacBook Pro offers so much more for less money.

Back to the Air as a proof-of-concept, the makings of an Apple tablet were all thrown in front of us in 2007. The iPhone had the touch technology, and the Air had an ultra-portable form factor. Apple explored SSD hard drives with the Air, and in a sense, teased the niche market for expensive-but-polished notebooks. The unibody design was touted as an end to user-replaceable batteries, offering solid battery life that trickled into the MacBook Pro lineup. And with all that, Apple proved that there was a market for the Air, and one that could likely grow with cheaper hardware costs.

So what’s left? Take the Air, throw away the keyboard, and tablet nirvana is just around the corner. While we wouldn’t expect Apple to revive the Newton or Air names for a future tablet, one has to admit that the latter name is catchy and far more apt for a tablet than for what the Air is today.

Apple Tablet as the new king of media.

Looking at iTunes LP and iTunes Extra content, we see a pretty exciting, open technology for developers to exploit. These technologies add even more reason to go all-digital, as consumers won’t have to feel like they’re missing out on bonus content if they don’t buy a CD with art and lyrics on the pull-out jewel case pamphlet, or the extra content on DVD menus. The best thing about iTunes Extra, though, is that it’s flexible enough to be used with other media, like print. That is to say, books, newspapers, and magazines, in digital format, could have a degree of interaction that typical e-publications don’t. Instead of simply reading a PDF or ePub document, consumers will be able to interact with their digital downloads in a way we expect one to interact with web sites, only in this case, an online connection would only be leveraged sporadically.

For example, newspapers could have polls. When a user submits their response to the poll, the information is transmitted the next time the Tablet has an internet connection. Thereafter, the newspaper poll will show results to date, without the user having to manually reload the poll data. Local weather information could be dynamically generated upon purchase, while old issues of the publication would have static records based on the actual weather histories. Users could enable/disable audible readings of articles, and magazines could include video clips of product reviews, better leverage advertising, and generally include more media that would otherwise have been cut in a print magazine because of limited space. And books could leverage interactive media in another way: imagine reading through Lord of the Rings, and having an easy-to-access map of Middle-earth, where the Fellowship’s location is marked, and corresponds to where you are in the book’s reading. With enough foresight, one could even cross-reference terms from Lord of the Rings to Tolkien’s other works, assuming they too were purchased. In other words, digital publications could link to one another in a sort of quasi-wiki method.

Ultimately, these are things that will add value to a digital download, thereby making them more attractive for consumers. Considering Apple’s success with music, and to a more limited degree television and film, it would not be surprising if Apple took on the e-publishing mission with a zest yet unseen by the eBook industry. And why shouldn’t Apple carve out this rather important niche, especially since it won’t be competing head-on with today’s eBooks: the type of interaction we’re talking about isn’t suitable for an e-ink display. Apple will want colour (lots of colour!), and the quick, reactive display that one would expect to see on the iPhone or, in this case, an Apple tablet. Sure, the battery life won’t be as good as an eBook reader, but the experience will be better.

There have already been plenty of rumours suggesting that Apple has met with print-industry big-wigs, and other rumours indicating that print-industry execs are meeting with one another to address their future digital distribution plans. (Supposedly, Apple has even offered a 30/70 split to publishing houses as financial incentive.) It should be obvious to anyone that standardizing this distribution, to a firm degree, will be beneficial to all companies involved. And with Apple leading the charge, would it really surprise anyone if iTunes was rebranded as something more like “iMedia?”

The Apple Tablet as a MacBook.

With the type of interactive content we’re talking about, Apple won’t release a dedicated device. Anyone with iTunes will be able to download the latest music, movies, and magazines, and be able to sync them across all their iTunes-capable devices. What better way to showcase the multimedia prowess of the music/movie/magazine conglomeration flipping through virtual pages of the latest New York Times bestseller with an actual flick of one’s finger, using similar gestures to control music and movie playback? The processing power we’re talking about, particularly for the multimedia elements, will be greater than what most eBook readers have today.

Apple is about totality of experience. That’s where the iPhone trumps every other smartphone on the market, and why Apple was able to beat out competitors in 2007 when the iPhone, to much initial criticism, was unleashed upon the masses. Apple’s only going to duplicate this effort with a tablet: a perfect machine to showcase its multimedia initiative, but still capable of tackling most average computing needs. So yes, the tablet will support a wireless keyboard/mouse, and run the regular version of OS X. Its specs will likely be similar to that of the MacBook, or maybe even the 13″ MacBook Pro. But the market for a tablet is clearly different than the market for these more traditional laptops, so it won’t cannibalize sales of other Apple products any more than the Mac Mini cannibalizes sales of the iMac. Users who need a traditional notebook experience for class or work will still get a MacBook: it’s the desktop baseline for getting work done with mobility in mind. But those who can spare not having a physical keyboard will love the tablet, because it offers extra mobility at the expense of easy desktop integration. Some tablet owners may cart around a wireless keyboard in their tote bags, but they will likely be the exception. Everyone else will treat their tablets like an eReader that can do so much more; the tablet will be the perfect, portable entertainment tool aimed at those who consume information rather than games. It won’t be a one-trick pony like the CrunchPad Joo Joo, because as Steve Jobs said, an Apple tablet will be expected to do more than simply serve as a web-reading tool for toilet-surfers.

The assumed $1,000 price-point seems entirely realistic at this point, especially when one realizes that the tablet will be little more than a MacBook Air whose keyboard was replaced with a capacitive touchscreen. That price doesn’t make us gawk at all. In fact, we’re ready to jump at a tablet purchase under these conditions, and we wouldn’t be surprised if the device is ready in time for CES 2010.Similar Posts:

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