It's back. The Quanta assembled
Apple netbook rumor that
kicked off in March with a
Commercial Times report calling for a
Wintek-supplied touchscreen has returned... with a fever.
China Times has now stepped in with a claim of a
9.7-inch touchscreen netbook to debut in October.
CT claims that Wintek, and Dynapack have all received orders direct from Apple while Foxconn (not Quanta) will be the main manufacturer. It's still unclear whether the reported device takes on the traditional netbook form-factor, goes
convertible like the T91, or is a 9.7-inch slate like a giant iPod touch. In fact, the Chinese-language report translated into English refers to it as "Apple's netbook (or a "tablet" as many call it)" only adding to the confusion. Regardless, we find it hard to believe that Apple would just follow the industry trends here. Then again, Sony did announce the
VAIO W after rebuking netbooks as a
race to the bottom thus leaving Apple as the only major without a low-cost netbook in its portfolio. But $800, if true, prices whatever this is right out of netbook territory -- ultra-portable anyone?
[Via
MacRumors and
Gizmodo]
posted July 13th 2009 7:33AM
I agree. I would hardly consider $800 low cost. For that price you might as well throw down a $200 more and buy a real macbook. Come on Apple, sub $500 here.
Whoops, meant to comment on the message below this.
for apple, $800 is bottom of the barrel!
$350 buys you the netbook
$50 buys you OSX
$400 pays for the Apple logo on the back.
$800 would be reasonable for a large multi-touch screen :)
@projectpete19
Don't forget the $600 mac mini. Although I have a feeling Apple doesn't want to go the Atom route and maybe they want a full core2duo and 9400M in this thing. Maybe that's where the price comes from.
@Michael
I can't imagine the battery life this tablet would have if it had a Core2 and Nvidia graphics.. I'm thinking 1.5hrs tops. So much for portability when you have to have a plug everywhere you go.
>> "$800 would be reasonable for a large multi-touch screen :)"
How do you use multi-touch if you're using your other hand to hold the tablet?
My 2 fingers don't stretch over 9 inches.
yes $800 is low cost for a netbook
Wow! Low cost, Apple say?
RIP-OFF, I say!
Don't forget you'll have to pay $100 extra to get that fancy Apple keyboard with unique Apple-connector to write anything besides your Twitter-updates on it.
You mean USB 2.0?
Fancy connection? what are you talking about??
Maybe that ultra-special proprietary port will be USB 3.0! Oh the horror!
@Paul A. Chapel:
Absolutely not, a stylus and handwriting recognition is an absolute MUST when it comes to tablet computers. unless it comes with a keyboard, most users would quickly find an onscreen keyboard tedious to use. 9 inches is too big to thumb type easily, and the screen would be improperly positioned no matter how you try to touch type.
The screen need not be resistive, I have a Thinkpad X200 tablet, with a multitouch screen, and the pen input works fantastically. The reason being, of course, that it's a digitiser pen.
Even the modbooks have them, it's the eqivelent of having a wacom pad directly under the screen, completely independant to whatever input method is implemented above the screen.
Frankly, for 800 US, I would expect no less from such a tablet.
I wonder if it'll be a tablet running OSX proper, or some bogus half-netbook running MobileOSX.
I could see Apple coming out with the latter, although it would royally suck.
For $800 it better be the full on OSX with wacom type stylus input and some really good handwriting recognition.
I'd kind of vaguely hazard a guess toward the former given that OS X isn't really designed for fingers (but I suppose it could be a pen-type touchscreen).
From my personal perspective, with the general uselessness factor of tablets (I'm sure they are useful for some, but for me, not), to be honest I'm not remotely interested in either option.
If they came out with a standard netbook (not a tablet or convertible) with a
grr hate that system... as I was saying... with a less than 10" screen and maybe an SSD then I'd be interested even at $800.
Situation is different from Sony who have to compete with other manufacturers of Windows netbooks. Apple (officially at least) has a monopoly on OS X netbooks so if Apple say there aren't any, then there's nothing they have to compete with. They probably figure releasing a proper netbook would cannibalise MacBook sales, and they're probably right.
Whereas if they release some kind of wacky tablet then they're only competing with Nokia (and, er, Archos) etc - and plenty of people will probably have the wacky tablet *and* the MacBook...
@sam
True. I think a slate computer would be pretty useful to plenty of people. Not everyone is always typing. My only concern is if Apple decided to go the touch route and only included a virtual keyboard. Something like this really needs stylus support and good handwriting recognition. But the ability to use your fingers as well would really make it a winner.
For me it would be a great replacement for my legal pad on clipboard. I enjoy writing/drawing things by hand. If I can also browse the web and plug my headphones into it, all the better.
@Paul a. Chapel
I would imagine a capacitive screen would be even nicer for stylus input. I don't know, but if the stylus was bluetooth with some kind of pressure sensitivity as well, it might make for some nice handwriting. Then again the screen would need to be slightly textured for maximum effect. A lot of those credit card machines use those crappy, flexible, glossy plastic displays. The bigger problem with those is the size of the display and the angle at which you are writing.
The core OS will no doubt be OS X but I very much hope that the front-end is not the current OS X that runs on Apple's notebook and desktop computers. If you are going to have a touch-screen interface then everything needs to be setup for touch and currently almost all OS X desktop applications assume you will be using a mouse and keyboard.
If Apple just makes a small touch-screen notebook running current OS X software then I see this as simply being another "also ran" because the user experience will be rubbish.
@Kelmon
Part of me agrees with you, but another part of me says "look what they can do with the keybaord on the ipod touch". Those are some small keys they expect you to hit. Perhaps all they need to do is add a second interface layer that allows small buttons to magnify and a dock icon to pull up expose.
Of all current desktop OSes, OSX is the best suited for touch display with it's large icons, expose navigation and mult-itouch gestures.
considering Snow Leopard will be released in September and there are no known changes to the handwriting recognition engine (Inkwell) then you can forget good handwriting recognition. Compared to the pen support in Windows 7, Inkwell is rudimentary at best, and yes I've used both.
Inkwell can only handle block style printing, whereas Windows 7 will recognize any style you throw at it, so the experience is much more natural. Out of the box the Windows 7 engine is near 100% accurate. To improve accuracy it includes a personalization engine which you can train and also adapts to your writing style over time. This engine also constantly improves via recognition data collected from tablet PCs all over the world (opt-in of course).
Windows 7 also includes customizable gestures and various other interface niceties in the OS to aid in navigation which you don't see in OSX.
So unless Apple is going to unveil some drastic changes in this regard, I don't expect pen input will be an enjoyable experience in OSX.
@Michael
I just worry that the applications themselves aren't designed for a touchscreen. Every iPhone application has been designed for a touch interface and assumes that this is the only interface.
The other thing is that a touchscreen really isn't suitable for data entry so I don't really see this being used to write Word documents, for example. So if this device doesn't run MS Office and the like, does it really lose anything? I don't really want to bang on about the iPhone but all the software running on it is designed for the iPhone's particular hardware and the limitations that imposes.
But, here's the thing - will Apple want to create a new platform for this device? They already have the iPhone/iPod Touch platform and the traditional OS X platform. I don't see them introducing a 3rd platform. If I had to have one or the other on this proposed device then I'd honestly go with the iPhone platform since its applications will be better suited to the hardware.
But, hey, I'm just interested to see what Apple has up its sleeve for this one.
why not just enable both... for those artists who WANT the pressure sensitivity of a stylus.
Maybe they'll create a hybrid OS? "iPhone OS X." Kind of a scary thought. Or maybe it'll just be a more functional version of the iPhone OS to completely throw people off. Kind like this?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/15/probably-fake-video-roundup-24-inch-iphone-os-ps1-emulation-on/
I think it'll all hinge one whether or not it's a slab or a convertible...
----
@Michael
I can just see it now, "Introducing the new iPad." or maybe they go with "iPod Mega."
----
@Paul a. Chapel
I have to agree with you on the stylus issue. Apple would be sorely mistaken if they tried to include one on this... thing... whatever it is. They've been so successful already with the iPhone and iPod Touch with capacitive screens... granted, there is still room for improvement.
The point is that if they went with mobileOSX, we'll have the same apps we do on the iPhone. It'll be a bigger iPhone. To be binary compatible, it'd also need an ARM CPU.
The iPhones os is designed well for a mobile device, but I feel it'd be awkward to use on a bigger device. We'd also have the same lame restrictions on APIs and App procurement. Hopefully we do get multitasking though.
@Paul A. Chapel
Wacom screens are made of glass and they have higher dpi than any other similar technology. They also have thousands of pressure levels. And you need a stylus to use them.
For a normal user finger input is better, but for graphic artists, designers, architects... a wacom tablet would be a total win.
There are a few tabletPCs which use that technology, and they are very popular among those kind of users. But they are expensive and hard to find (and bulky and ugly), like the Fujitsu T5010.
I don't think Apple still cares about graphic designers, though. (MBPro 13" 6bit LCD panels, heh)
They either include some finger-friendly OS X or just bundle regular OS X in which case I assume they'll be forced to include some kind of maximise functionality, at least for Safari. Personally I think Apple would rather build a whole new OS before they let regular Mac users maximise their windows.
The sad part is they will sell millions
No they won't.. no one's going to pay $800 for a netbook. You can get a good laptop for that price.
Somehow, Apple are going to reinvent netbooks. Or so they'll claim, while adding 300 bucks to the price.
Baza210 ?
I like my G1
I find it hard to believe Apple with release a traditional style netbook, seeing as how poor they really are in terms of usability and ergonomics. It just doesn't make sense to run a desktop OS on such a small screen, especially not for a company which core focus is ease of use. And the cramped keyboards are just awful...
Let's see what Apple will come up with to solve these issues.
I agree with you. Remember that Apples answer to small laptops was the Macbook Air. They made it thinner but touted it's larger screen and keyboard because of ease of use. This thing will definitely be a slate computer if they release it, as much as I might like a 10" aluminum netbook running OSX.
Netbooks are coming with 90%+ keyboards these days. People justify using the iPhone/other mobile browsers...but make the screen just SLIGHTLY biggre and they suddenly CAN'T read anything anymore. Baffles me.
Have to agree Tes, anybody who says they can't use one of the new netbooks with a larger KB, is full of shit, or has the palsy.
It's not necessarily the small screen that is the issue, but the high resolution of said screen combined with a desktop OS. It's just really hard to read since the OS isn't adapted to such small screens.
Just ordered the Dell Mini 10 with the 1366 x 768 screen...I'll let you know if it's any good.
Have you seen Windows 7 on a 10" netbook? No visibility problems at all. Runs smooth and quick. XP was not the right choice for the reduced specs of the netbook platform, but Windows 7 fits the bill way better, and the result is a full OS in a wonderfully compact package. The keyboard on my 10" is 92%, which is noticeably smaller than my desktop's, but a bit of adjustment was all that was needed. Whether this (very usable) product is something you want to buy, is of course up to you. Far as I'm concerned, well worth the paltry $300 it cost. $800? Not a chance. I'd go for a full laptop or UMPC at that price.
I gotta disagree with Lundmark. Win 7 works great on a netbook (so does Ubuntu Netbook Remix but since installing Win 7 I'm generally sticking there). My Acer costs $300, does everything but the HD graphics and game, and gets taken a lot more places than any regular laptop would, because it's way easier to carry around.
PS: for a lot of people, there's no issue for Apple to solve, and they seem very happy with their hackintoshed netbooks. Maybe that's why Apple is looking at the market (if there's any truth to the article in the first place).
NOT going to buy it!
First, there are lots of alternative there, Second, it is a rip-off at 800; last but not least, it is not a good idea to buy anything first generation from Apple.
What is up with that? I know that no manufacturer is immune to faults, but Apple seems to have more than most (especially for the price)
maybe Apple faults are more publicised because theyre more popular so in effect would have more faults.
I'd by a Discman if they still made them :(
How can you be saying that, if you don't even know what it is. Or the specs for it, or anything else for that matter???
$800 is low cost for apple, not the rest of the world. God forbid they sell something that's at least close its actual value.
"God forbid they sell something that's at least close its actual value."
If you ran a business and proposed selling something for close to cost then, as a shareholder, I'd have to ask for you to be ejected. You don't sell a product for what it is "worth". You sell a product for whatever people will pay for it. Besides, how do you quantify "actual value"?
All I can say is I'm going to be ripsh*t if they don't come out with the 64 gb iPod Touch in the fall in favor of this thing. I'm hoping they won't be that stupid, but you never know...
Internet sociologists take note: all the comments so far are negative. Now wait a few hours until our American friends wake up...
right on!!