

Apple may demo tablet on Jan. 26; Jobs "extremely happy" with final product - anderzole
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/49293

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ilamont
We're probably playing right into Apple's hype/secrecy marketing strategy, but
it sounds intriguing and quite different than existing e-readers.

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joezydeco
Yup. Here we go again. Four+ weeks of this stuff clogging the top of every
blog aggregator.

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DanBlake
I see a reference in this thread to it being a macbook air sans keyboard.

I think its much more likely that its a 4x sized iphone.

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Keyframe
I am looking forward with joy on the coming tablet explosion market. Be it
crunch..joojoo, apple or whomever makes it "just work" and easy to carry
around. I NEED that device! One thing about apple hardware though to be
cautious is that history tells us to skip their 1st generation.

edit:

my ideal tablet would be the size of what joojoo showed, about A4 with wacom
surface like cintiq so I can carry it around and draw/paint in corel painter +
photoshop. I know this is a few generations of tablets away, but one can
dream. Basically a portable cintiq.

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weaksauce
Here is my prediction for the tablet if it is shown on the 26th.

It will have three methods of input:

1\. Multitouch screen of course. 2\. Pen based as well for note taking but the
primary interface is the multitouch. 3\. Front facing camera with dedicated
hardware for eye tracking.

You heard it here first: There will be eye tracking on the new tablet. (of
course this is just speculation but so is the article. Hearsay rumors.)

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NathanKP
Sounds like hype. We haven't even seen anything yet, so it is all speculation
about how great this is.

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joezydeco
But STEVE is INSANELY HAPPY with it! Whatever it is! So it _must_ be great!

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bdfh42
Have you noticed that every post that is BORED - BORED BORED - with mindless
speculation about new possible maybe crappy consumer goods from a once
computer company get voted down?

Well all the intelligent folks have,

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lispm
may or may not. who knows.

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quizbiz
We can all guess what this product will be like, probably a tablet resembling
an enlarged iPod Touch/iPhone. But I can't wait to find out how this product
will surprise and feature something new and unexpected. That's what Apple
delivers so well, they continually innovate instead of just
rebranding/repurposing. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming
presentation will deliver an innovation.

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bdfh42
For the sake of Christmas if not our collective sanity - please stop posting
this sort of crud. Who cares about posts about what a consumer goods company
might market at some indeterminate time in the future?

I for one could do with a holiday from this sort of nonsense.

Apple fanboys click away!

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petercooper
_Who cares about posts about what a consumer goods company might market at
some indeterminate time in the future?_

Those of us who are want to launch products on the new platform and get a step
on our competitors. That's why I read HN for the most part - I can keep a good
pulse on not only new technologies, but what other entrepreneurs are thinking.

Imagine if.. 4 years ago you had even an inkling of what the iPhone and iPhone
App Store model would become in 2009.. you'd probably be richer than you are
now, even if you were ignorant of tech entirely and only bought Apple stock
;-) Heck, even knowing six months before app fever hit, you'd have cashed in
if you were quick enough as a publisher or developer.

I want to know everything about this Apple tablet - even the pointless
speculation - because _anything_ might be the scrap of information I need to
connect a ton of dots together and come up with an idea or a product that
could make me a ton of money. I did just that when people were ranting under
the radar about Ruby and Rails in 2004 and I've made quite a bit of money from
being quick off the mark.

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blhack
I'm sorry, but I just cannot get excited about an Apple tablet.

I have a feeling that it is going to be like a macbook air without the
keyboard: absurdly expensive, not all that useful, and replaceable with things
in the PC world that are better and cheaper.

Apple got lucky with the iPod in that they were the first company to do it
_right_. They carried this success into the iPhone, but their iPhone success
is starting to wane in light of the Android.

I think that an Apple tablet is going to combine all of the things that I hate
about the MBA with all of the things that I hate about the iPhone (appstore
nonsense, restricting apps like spotify or anything with similar
functionality).

Good luck to you, Apple, but I don't see this succeeding.

edit: I was mistaken about spotify, that is not available in the US at all.
The point was that I was trying to find a subscription music service for the
iPhone and couldn't. The general consensus among the people doing the same was
that Apple won't allow it.

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petercooper
_but their iPhone success is starting to wane in light of the Android._

Are you trolling? If so, it's a good one because I'm falling for it :-) The
iPhone's success is far from waning. Android as a term is barely known outside
tech circles whereas even Mac haters at least know what an "iPhone" is.

 _Apple got lucky with the iPod in that they were the first company to do it
right._

Far from it. The first generation iPod reviewed poorly and sold poorly. It
wasn't until near the end of 2004 - and the fourth generation - that it really
"caught on." Apple didn't get lucky.. they got it right after iterating and
redeveloping a few times.

 _restricting apps like spotify_

Did they? I have Spotify on my iPhone right now and enjoy it using it most
days. It took them a while to approve it, but it takes them a while to approve
almost everything.

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blhack
Haha, no not trolling. Maybe things are different here, then? I'm in Phoenix
and there are Android billboards/advertisements _everywhere_. One of the more
brilliant ones was something I saw in a mall: it was a multitouch surface
mounted in a poster-space running a game; kids were lined up to play it.

People are genuinely, organically (as in not prompted by a billboard they just
drove post) talking about the Android. Cellphones are something that falls
under my umbrella of responsibility at work and I have had several people
jokingly beg me to lobby for us to switch from AT&T to verizon so they can get
droids.

Also, on spotify: are you in the US? I was trying to find my little sister a
subscription-based music service she could use on her iPhone and couldn't.

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dandelany
Anecdotes != evidence. I hate when people make claims like this based only on
their own biased perceptions of the situation.

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dandelany
I resent being downvoted for this, and expect more out of HN.

You cannot make a claim like "iPhone success is starting to wane in light of
the Android" and back that claim up with your own anecdotes about how you hear
about and see the Droid more often. This is simply not real evidence that the
iPhone's success is declining on a wide scale as you suggest.

I'm not saying that the iPhone's success _isn't_ waning in light of the
Android. I'm just saying that I, and usually this community in general,
require better evidence/citations than "because I see it a lot more now."

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petercooper
I'm not the person you're responding to, but I wanted to back up my assertion
that the iPhone isn't waning. 2008 Q2 global smartphone market share for the
iPhone was 2.8%. 2009 Q2 equivalent was 13.3% -
[http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/13/iphon...](http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/13/iphone-
market-share-grew-375-in-q2/)

Another article shows similar growth from Q2 2008 to Q2 2009 and then
continuing on to Q3 2009:
[http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/idc_q3_2009_smartphon...](http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/idc_q3_2009_smartphone_market_grew_iphone_up_android_reaching_critical_mass/)

