

The Original Tablet - mbrubeck
http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/the_original_tablet

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pegobry
Small nitpick: Gruber says Jobs killed the Newton not out of spite but because
his skill is in creating new products, not improving other people's.

But the problem with that is that the original iMac, the product that made
Apple relevant again, was conceived before Jobs' return. To be sure, he added
his magic to the product that eventually came to market, but it was very much
the case of Jobs imroving on someone else's product. (As was the case, more
debatably, for the iPod)

The difference wasn't that Jobs dreamt them up from start to finish -- it was
that he could take credit for them from start to finish.

~~~
wmeredith
Source? (Not being a dick, just interested in the whole story.)

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pegobry
About the iMac? I read about it in "iCon", the Steve Jobs biography (much less
hostile that its title would seem to indicate), and a couple places on the web
if memory serves, but I couldn't tell you where.

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netcan
There is an interesting question lurking behind this post. If a tablet does
materialise, what will make it successful?

Is it something that could have been done much earlier or something enabled by
recent (or impending) changes to available technology? Hardware for an iPhone
quality smartphone was available a decent prices for a few years before it
came out (especially if all you want is a phone that handles music and video
pleasantly, not internet & installable apps), but not many.

If Apple comes out with a tablet that succeeds because Apple has figured out
the right use-cases & metaphors for it, that might mean that they could have
done it ten years ago. That's something.

~~~
yuvi
Tech-wise, I don't remember any devices with a 3.5" capacitive touchscreen +
multitouch before the iPhone came out. That was imo the most important
hardware feature of the iPhone, given that the "accepted" mode of interaction
with similar devices was a stylus on a resistive screen.

Similarly, there aren't any shipping devices with a 7-10" capacitive
touchscreen. Whether or not any of the various tablets with one announced at
CES beats Apple's to market, the kinks in said displays weren't ironed out
before this year.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I don't agree with your assessment here. While there wasn't an existing
product with the exact same specs as the iPhone in existence there were
products that could do everything an iPhone does (Windows Mobile Phones) and
there were multi-touch screens out there. What made Apple successful is
combining those elements in a way that was attractive to average users.

In that same sense there are Tablet PCs and so called "Slate PCs" out there.
What will make Apple successful is creating a package that can appeal to the
average user.

~~~
axod
>> "there were products that could do everything an iPhone does (Windows
Mobile Phones)"

Come on now. The iPhone was the first phone to have a usable browser on it.

~~~
TomOfTTB
I used pocket IE to browse full sites. It was bad, but it worked. Which is
sort of my point

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rythie
I don't think it was just the Newton that failed, PDAs all had the same
problem of no killer feature, Notes, calendars & contacts were never that
really compelling to most people and even if you had one you might not really
use it in practice. Another problem with PDAs was that they often had so poor
audio support and no significant storage, so they couldn't be used as a iPod
replacement.

I've got a iPod Touch now, and the killer feature is the web browser/Email, I
don't even have any music or any video stored on it, the web/email is a killer
enough feature on it's own. (Music is on my phone, which I always have with
me)

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akamaka
What makes me the most happy about Apple launching a tablet years after
Microsoft's initiative is that stupid fanboys might finally be forced to stop
claiming that Microsoft never innovates, that they just steal other people's
ideas.

