Apple to announce ultraportable tablet Mac?
July 31st, 2007 by Jeremy ToemanSaw on the AppleInsider that there’s an Apple announcement coming next Tuesday, with the explicit “no iPod, no iPhone news” comment. My prediction is they are going to launch an ultraportable table MacBook (or some other fancy name). I specifically think it’ll be a 12.1″ display and be the width of the iPhone, have no keyboard at all, USB, FireWire, BlueTooth, WiFi and possibly built-in AT&T Edge access. Here’s my rationale:
- I can’t believe they’ve invested so much R&D to make touch screens work well, yet only deploy it on the iPhone. Seems like they’d want to reuse that technology.
- Further, since the iPhone runs OSX (sorta), there’s no “porting” to make it work on the other hardware platform.
- Speculations of an ultrathin keyboard would be a natural fit to an all-touch computer.
- Since Apple always tries to do things “the best” it seems logical that they’d do something revolutionary with their ultraportable, which everyone seems to agree they’ll be building.
- I’d hazard a guess that the new iMacs are just a cover story that’s let them slip under the radar on this.
- Just like they blew people away with the iPhone, they’d love to be first at making a touch-based computer that people really like to use.
If I’m right, I’m buying one.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:15 am
You’re dreaming, as much as I’d love to have one too, an announcement that big would be at Mac World.
August 1st, 2007 at 11:01 am
I doubt it will be anything that radical. The desktop line needs a refresh, and on the portable side I’d be happy with a lighter, thinner MacBook to compete with subnotebooks from Fujitsu, Sony, Panasonic, and new models from Dell and Toshiba. I consistently hear from road warriors that they would consider a Mac but everything from Apple today weighs at least 5 lbs, which is at least 2 lbs. too heavy for ubiquitous portability.
-avi
August 1st, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Sorry, Jeremy, but this is just one more example of wishful thinking….
Remember, it was His Steveness himself who after returning to Apple killed the Newton and also said that “computers have keyboards”….
Just to be clear I really like tablets….
I’d love to see a Mac Tablet myself as I use Macs since ‘86 and I’m a big tablet PC fan using a Fujitsu T4010 at work and I just got the new Kohjinsha SH6 for my own use….
August 1st, 2007 at 1:52 pm
ArchiMark - I don’t deny it’s wishful thinking, but it’s not really unreasonable wishful thinking IMHO.
“Apple makes computers, and computers have keyboards” - the onscreen keyboard developed for the iPhone is a keyboard - and he never said that computer have “physical” keyboards.
I’m not about to stake my “rep” on it, but I wouldn’t be flabbergasted either.
August 1st, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Hi Jeremy,
As I mentioned I’d really love to finally see a Mac Tablet….I’d be at the front of the line to buy 2 of them, one for me and one for my better half….
However, what I was trying to get at was the fact that several times a year for the past several years, I see similar posts as yours saying that a Mac Tablet is just around the corner, coming soon, etc…
Unfortunately, several times a year for the past severa years, I write a post saying that it likely isn’t coming soon….
I really wish I was wrong and this time it really is right around the corner, but I doubt it…..
My sense is that the other reason for this besides Ol’ Stevo’s bias against tablets is that Apple probably considers it too small a niche market volume-wise to deal with it….
So, don’t think has anything to do with Apple’s ability to execute a fabulous tablet, just don’t think they will for variety of reasons, but hope that I’m proved wrong…..
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:21 am
The tablet market is too small for that… more likely Apple would release either a convertible tablet or just a smaller laptop. Rumors pegged multi-touch landing on laptop touchpads - so another possible way to leverage the technology without a new product line.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:01 am
This would spell major bad news for the ModBook people, who have not yet even been able to start shipping their product yet…
August 7th, 2007 at 11:13 am
…aaaaand the peanut gallery was right. Sorry, Jeremy, multitouch for the Mac is a “research project.”
-avi
September 6th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Something like this would be totally awesome.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:50 am
[...] So, a month later, I’m definitely a happy camper. The transition is still in-progress, but if you are considering making the switch, it’s not quite the uphill battle I thought it would be (some of these helped a lot). I would not recommend picking up the same model I use, definitely spring for the bigger HDD and RAM (2GB minimum). I’m happy with my MacBook, though will continue to wait patiently for my MacBook Touch. [...]
January 14th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
[...] There’s lots of rumors and speculation. I previously conjectured on what I called a “MacBook Touch“, and while I want it, I have to say it seems a lot less likely (despite continuous [...]
January 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
[...] is like a *real* 3.5 hours, which is perfect) GREAT: size (duh), weight, keyboard, touchpad (I knew they’d extend the gestures beyond the [...]
April 11th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I hope that they release this mac book touch tablet and that it hae everything and much more then the computers they have now. i also hope it has a cd/dvd port on it. I cant wait I hope this is what there announcment will be!