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Amazon reacts to not yet here Apple tablet with SDK for Kindle
Maybe it was inevitable. Amazon today announced a Kindle Development Kit which allows software developers to build "active content" for Kindle readers.The kit gives developers access to programming interfaces, tools, and the needed documentation to create content. The kit also includes a Kindle Simulator for testing on Mac, PC or Linux computers. Content could be interactive books and magazines, cookbooks, travel planners that incorporate real time weather, or whatever else the developers dream up. Zagat, Electronics Arts and others say they are on board. Games like Chess and Othello would be a good fit. The possibilities are endless, just as they are on any computer platform or smartphone. What's lacking, of course, is color and a fast screen refresh, so games with any action are going to be kind of lacking. I don't think the Kindle is a good platform for Need for Speed or Skeeball. Amazon is surely reacting to the upcoming (probably) tablet from Apple, which is likely going to offer e-books and magazines in full color. Of course the battery life likely won't match the Kindle. I get about 2 weeks between charges on my Kindle if the wireless feature is turned off. Amazon has also adjusted the royalty split, announcing yesterday that authors will get a 70% share of sales of e-books, matching what Apple pays developers through iTunes. Amazon could also get a place on the tablet itself. It already has a Kindle app for the iPhone, so it wouldn't be a stretch to give people access to their Kindle purchases on any new device Apple comes up with. It's interesting to watch everyone scrambling after a product not yet released. If Apple, as expected, announces a color tablet next week, would it kill your desire for a Kindle or other e-book reader?
Pricing the tablet: How high can they go?
With the Apple tablet due to be announced next Wednesday, we've been seeing a lot of possible price points thrown around. Will the tablet retail for $999? Or is a $699 or $799 unit in the cards? It's really hard to say because as with all retail, both price and value depend a good deal on supply and demand, as well as on any deals Apple has with potential data providers. Take the iPhone for example you can buy a contract-free 32GB iPhone 3GS at the Apple store, for a rather steep $699. Apple doesn't make this easy for you. I found you had to search by model number (namely 718LL/A, for the screen shot shown here) rather than by the 3GS model name. Apple isn't exactly pushing AT&T-free models at their store, and I think the price here reflects that. You can pick up a 64GB iPod touch for $399 shipped, today. What makes the 32GB iPhone with just half that memory worth $300? In my opinion, it's Apple's way of dissuading customers from purchase. Slap a premium on the price, keep customers away. What's the true value of a phone? An informal survey in the TUAW newsroom came up with a figure of $50, mostly by waving our hands in the air. Looking at standard phones in the market, we decided that $50 could easily cover a retail assessment including 3G data reception, built in GPS, and a built in magnetometer. That would make a "real" market price for the 32GB iPhone hover at about $349, namely the price of a current generation 32GB iPod plus $50 in phone extras, namely half the price of what the current unit sells (or, more likely, and quite deliberately, fails to sell) at. So what does it take to go from a phone to a tablet? And I say phone, because I think it's likely that the tablet will ship with some sort of data plan option. I think the same sort of math applies. I wouldn't be surprised to see a $999 tablet be announced next Wednesday with a $699 deal for anyone who signs up for a two year data plan at, say, $39.99/month. In other words, I think it could be likely that Apple will push high on their initial price, moving that price downwards as early adopters give way to regular consumers later this year during pre-Christmas Q4 sales. As much as I want my $699 contract-free tablet, I don't think Apple's is anywhere near being on board with that low number. So what's your take on this? What will be the contract-free price? What kind of discount do you anticipate if the tablet comes with a data plan, and what monthly charge do you think the market is willing to take on for that data access? Let us know in the comments.
WSJ: Apple tablet to have books, games, music, TV, will make sandwiches
The Wall Street Journal just laid out a doozy of an Apple tablet rumor piece, all from anonymous sources, "people familiar with the matter," and the like. There's a lot to go through, so without further ado: The tablet will come with a virtual keyboard -- kind of a no-brainer if it's gonna be a keyboard-less tablet and not, say, another laptop. Apple's been talking with The New York Times, Conde Nast, and HarperCollins / News Corp. over how they could collaborate. When asked, NYT Chairman Arthur Sulzberger would only say "stay tuned." Electronic Arts has been working closely to prep games for the tablet. We know of a number of gaming journalists who've gotten invites to next week's event, and given Apple's heavy games push over the past year or so, this wouldn't surprise us in the least. A reaffirmation of earlier murmurings about potentially swapping Google for Bing as the default search engine. Maps, too! Those TV subscription rumors? Apparently the gang in Cupertino have been pitching a "best of TV" service that would package the best four to six shows per channel. A web-based version of iTunes, tentatively called iTunes.com and potentially launching in June, for buying music outside of the dedicated app. Additionally, there'd be a new initiative "to populate as many webs ites as possible with 'buy' buttons, integrating iTunes transactions into activities like listening to internet radio and surfing review web sites." No mention if music will be downloaded or streamed from the cloud, but we can definitely see how Apple's recent Lala acquisition would play into this in the future -- in fact, we've already seen it start to bear fruit. Here's a weird one: Apple has supposedly designed the tablet "so that it is intuitive to share." One such experiment is virtual sticky notes that launch for the intended recipient by facial recognition via built-in camera. If nothing else, we're really looking forward to next week putting a large clamp on the torrent of tablet rumors that have have propagated the internet for the last few months.
Analysts debate P.A. Semi's role in forthcoming Apple wares
It's easy to forget that Apple snapped up P.A. Semi for a song way back when, but now that we're just days, hours and seconds away from Apple's expected tablet reveal, a new wave of processor-related conjecture is hitting the fan. Richard Doherty, director of technology consulting firm Envisioneering Group, has come forward with some exceedingly detailed rumors on said tablet, a touchscreen MacBook and an OS X-based unicorn that lives in the cloud. As the story goes, Apple's pickup of P.A. Semi was primarily an effort to acquire a huge pool of engineering talent to use for its own internal designs, and now Doherty is saying that "before the year is out, Apple will have the most powerful, lowest-cost SoC in the industry." According to him, there's nothing from "ARM licensees or Intel that could challenge the power-per-watt, the power-per-buck, the power-per-cubic-millimeter of size," and he anticipates that four new products are in the pipeline from Cupertino. Need details? How's about a touchscreen iMac, an "iPod touch on steroids" with a 5-inch display, and "two different versions of media pads in the 7- to 9-inch (screen size) area." Alright Dick, you just put your reputation on the line -- here's hoping you've got your story straight. Update: Looks like UBS Investment Research has been hearing something similar. According to it, the forthcoming tablet "will be powered by a processor designed by P.A. Semi and built by Samsung."
Apple Tablet rumor roundup: summer 2010 edition
Before we get into the rumors, here's a fact: unless the Apple Tablet cures cancer, global warming and obesity in one fell swoop, there'll be plenty of disappointed faces leaving the Yerba Buena theater next Wednesday. The hype is that overpowering. But hey, that doesn't mean we are not curious to know what it will actually do, so let's get to the latest batch of uncorroborated scuttlebutt. The Rumor: The Mac Observer believes these are legitimate photos of a 10-inch glass front for Apple's new machine. Coming from a "trusted source," the pictures seem to confirm a 10-inch screen size and an iPhone-inspired design (which includes an earphone hole!). In the pic to the side, you can see it resting atop a unibody MacBook Pro's keyboard for a sense of scale. Our Take: Naturally taken in the worst possible light and suffering from a strong dose of noise and noise-reducing blur, the photos are close to impossible to verify. Their claim for legitimacy is also not helped by the blatant appearance of a scaled-up iPhone front plate -- something we could mock up ourselves if we had the patience. The Rumor: Actual retail units of the fabled world-changing device won't be available until June. AppleInsider reports some analyst noise indicating that battery life and durability issues could delay the tablet's release until the middle of this year. Moreover, on the authority of "supply chain sources," it has been described as a "super iPod touch," with a suggestion it might have an ARM-based core inside. Our Take: It's well known that the original iPhone followed a similar launch pattern of a January announcement and a June release, but Apple must be equally aware of how disappointing to its fans (and shareholders, more importantly) a paper launch would be. ARM internals seem logical, particularly since the iPhone already runs such hardware, and NVIDIA's Tegra 2 platform -- driven by a dual-core Cortex A9 chip -- has made some lofty promises about what can be done with the architecture. The Rumor: The Guardian, via 9to5Mac, informs us that Apple has been in talks with UK mobile carriers about bringing its famine destroyer to the Queen's backyard in subsidized form. We're told it'll be bundled with mobile broadband contracts -- in much the same fashion as netbooks are treated currently -- but there'll be no exclusivity deals on the table so Orange, O2 and Vodafone are all in the running. There's also pretty firm word that the iWonder won't be making its UK debut until "later in the spring." Our Take: Mobile broadband takeup is only going to grow in the UK and netbook bundles seem to have been popular so far, so it seems like a no-brainer to try and capitalize on this burgeoning market. As pointed out in The Guardian, behind the scenes talks don't always turn into real world deals, but at this point we'd be surprised if Apple wasn't talking to carriers about subsidies. Well, we wanted photos and we got 'em -- in the signature grainy style that all pre-announcement hardware seems to appear. The latter two rumors have some intriguing synergy, though: both point toward availability coming significantly later than the announcement, and both seem to steer away from integrated 3G connectivity. We really can't wait to know -- if only to stop this speculative madness.
Take two tablets and call us in the morning
Speaking of thin support & quite amusing -- It's not much to go on with respect to a name, but as suggested by reader Nicholas, we did take a closer look at Apple's invitation copy. "Apple's latest creation," without the spaces, becomes "Appleslatestcreation," which of course does contain the phrase "Apple Slate." Yes, well, it seems pretty silly and inelegant to me too, and not something Apple would do... and yet. [Editor's note: OK, we went and looked again -- the exact phrase "Apple's latest creation" isn't there, it says "our latest creation," so this bit of pipe-dreaming goes from silly to ludicrous... don't blame Erica, blame the editing.] %Poll-40177%
Next week's Apple event to be iLife / iPhone OS 4.0 / tablet trifecta?
We're realistically no closer to knowing the outcome of next week's Apple event than we were a week, a year, or a decade ago, but rumors are obviously congealing around the mythical tablet that users, fans, and media have all but willed into existence recently -- and our buddy Clayton Morris says that's indeed a part of the story. Morris reports having spoken with a source at Apple this morning -- prior to the company's invites going out, interestingly -- who said that the event would focus on a new version of iLife, iPhone OS 4.0, and naturally, the tablet. Loosely speaking, you can see how these would all tie together pretty nicely: the seemingly "creative" theme of Apple's invite rolls into a new version of iLife, and the announcement of a tablet could have implications for how a suite of artsy tools gets used. Rumblings that the tablet is underpinned by a new version of iPhone OS have gone back months, so that would give Apple impetus to tease it at the same time the tablet's shown off -- sans new iPhone hardware, possibly, which the company has done before. It's also possible that Apple will open source its entire catalog of software and shut down, buy an island nation, or do nothing at all -- but in fairness, there's an awful lot of logic to what Clayton's saying here. We'll know soon enough.
Zaprudering the invite: Obsessive fun with TUAW
As you can see in the image at the top of this post, several features stood out to our TUAW team. Mike Rose was first to notice that the art used spray paint rather than finger paint, as you might expect for a tablet event invite. "Could this be a hint of MacPaint Pro?" asked Steve Sande. "That would harken back to the original Mac (MacPaint) and be very cool." Dave Caolo noticed that the Apple logo front-and-center, along with the thin (tablet-shaped?) border pointed to a Macbook-like presentation. It would be awesome if the tablet really could mimic and/or replace many laptop features, although all early Humint rumors point to an iPhoneOS-only system. So what does the art-styled presentation hint at? To most of the team, this seemed a vote for augmented reality interaction a la Excelitech's Virtual Graffiti app [iTunes link]. Maybe we'll be able to interact in new ways with maps and images through a touch-based interface. Will the target audience differ from the anticipated Kindle crowd? Maybe this touch-based creation will be aimed more at tangible creative media than at simple video and book display? Maybe the rumors about gestures gone wild with a high-powered CPU we've been reading about give a better sense of who Apple is aiming their "latest creation" at. What do you think? Let us know in the comments. Update: Commenters point out that the colors used almost perfectly match the current nano line. Update: TUAW's Megan Lavey adds "I think Apple is announcing the release of its interactive paintball set. It uses the built-in iSight camera. You mad at someone? Click a button on iChat and the paint color of your choice blasts that person in the eye." *hee*
It's on: Apple holding January 27th event to show off its 'latest creation'
Yes folks -- the rumors are true. Apple is holding an event on January 27th to show off something the company is calling their "latest creation." Hair standing on end? Good. The proceedings will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, and will get underway at 10AM Pacific. We'll be there live -- as usual -- covering every little second of the action... so get ready! Update: We're not ones for wild speculation, but the inclusion of splatter paint and the use of the word "creation" could suggest that if we do see the long-rumored Tablet at this event, the focus could be slanted towards art, music, and movie-making. Maybe we'll finally figure out what the point of an Apple tablet is! On the other hand, that might just be a bit of wild speculation. Feel free to generate your own kooky concepts in comments -- we promise not to judge you. If you'd like to read (or re-read) a slew of Apple Tablet rumor coverage, click here.
New York Times to begin charging for access... something something, Apple Tablet
Is it a stretch of logic, or purely logical? You be the one to judge. New York Magazine is reporting from what seems to be pretty solid word that the New York Times will start charging online readers for its content. That's all well and interesting for a media hound, but there's additional word that the announcement of this in "a matter of weeks" might coincide with the rumored January 27th Apple launch. You know, the tablet thing. We already know (or are pretty sure) that Apple has shopped around a theoretical device to content providers, including almost assuredly the New York Times, so it makes "sense." Still, we aren't putting solid money down on a single thing until Steve Jobs pulls this device out of a largish pocket of his and shows it to our face.
Apple rumor roundup: iPhone patent 4.0 edition
On today's edition of the never-ending Apple rumor roundup, we take a quick detour into the murky realm of the United States patent database, topped off with a charming unsourced tip and some delightful analyst conjecture. Let's blaze. The rumor: A recent Apple patent application for a capacitive touchscreen-specific stylus may or may not mean The Tablet uses a stylus for input. Our take: We've already promised to eat our hat if Apple puts a removable battery in the iPhone, so what's next? A shoe? We will eat a shoe if Steve Jobs introduces a product that requires the use of a stylus. Besides, this product already exists: it's called the Pogo Stylus, and it's not exactly rocking minds (although we are intrigued by Inklet). Apple likes to file silly broad patent applications and see what it can get away with -- it's never been wise to read too much into them. The rumor: Another Apple patent application hints that portable DVR functionality is coming to the iPod / iPhone -- you'll be able to grab TV and radio content from cable, satellite, OTA, or using "services" with your portable device and then load that into iTunes. Not only will you be able to connect new iPods to a cable box to record shows -- channel changing and everything -- but Apple's going to release an accessory for older iPods to enable this functionality as well. Our take: This would be like a dream come true for the consumer, and a crazy heroin nightmare for Apple to actually implement -- can you imagine an iPod with a freaking CableCARD slot? Neither can we. Besides, it's not like Apple to push content sales from anything other than the iTunes Store, and it's especially not like Apple to extend functionality to older iPods when it can just release a newer one in a slightly different metallic finish. Next!
Apple rumor roundup: improbable removable battery edition
Now that CES is officially over, it's apparently time for the vague Apple rumor factory to start churning out sketchy reports about tablets, next-gen iPhones, and "vanishing" domain names. Yeah, it's getting silly out there, but judging by our tip box you all can't get enough, so let's do this thing rapid-fire style. The rumor: The Korea Times, citing unnamed sources at Korea Telecom, says the carrier is planning for a 4G iPhone featuring an OLED display, a front-facing video camera, a fast new dual-core CPU, and a removable battery. General launch is expected in June, but corporate clients will be doing a "litmus test" in April. Our take: We will eat our hats if Apple puts a removable battery in the iPhone. Plus, Apple doesn't do focus group testing, least of all with enterprise customers. This just seems like wishful thinking -- we could have made up a more convincing rumor while eating a hat. The rumor: 10.1 OLED and LCD display panels are no longer available anywhere, because Apple has "pre-ordered them all" to secure volume discounts and keep the tablet's price down. Our take: We certainly saw plenty of new 10.1-inch netbooks and slates at CES, including some multitouch LCD units, and no one was complaining. Also, we saw several larger OLED displays at CES, but they were all too expensive and impractical for shipping products, so that's gotta be one hell of a discount. The rumor: Apple has mysteriously shut down the FingerWorks website, which means something tablet-related because... well, it must mean something, right? Our take: Apple bought FingerWorks years ago -- we're surprised this hadn't happened sooner. We bet the hosting contract just ran out. Alternatively, Steve Jobs is trying to send us a message by yanking an obscure touch-related domain just weeks before a highly-anticipated product launch, because he is the master of extremely minor hints about nothing. All in all, a pretty lame set of rumors -- there's barely anything here for pundits and the mass media to conflate and distort into something bigger. At least give us a poorly-translated French telecom executive speaking off the cuff, you know? Have some dignity.
Orange exec confirms existence of Apple Tablet?
Yes, we hate to start off a fresh week with more talk of the Apple tablet, but this isn't just another rumor. Stéphane Richard, second in command at Orange, was asked on a Europe 1 radio program about the Apple Tablet. When he was asked whether such a tablet will be announced before the end of the month, he responded "Yes," and when asked whether Orange users would get it, he responded "Sure!" This is of course not a formal confirmation by any means, but he doesn't sound like he's talking in theoreticals, either. You can listen to it yourself at the read link below and let us know what you think below. Update: We now have the video below courtesy of SlashGear, who aren't quite so convinced that he's referring to the tablet itself, possibly just confirming that others are reporting the tablet will be released next week. Any native speakers care to help us wade through the intricacies of this, the language of love? Update 2: We've got a full translation after the break of the entire relevant bits, courtesy of bilingual reader Sean Mangar. Update fin: Orange has issued a statement predictably saying these comments are being taken out of context, that Richard was "merely confirming that he is aware of the speculation surrounding a launch." So, the fun is over folks -- or is it? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Apple Tablet rumors evolve into Zen koans: 'it's a big iPhone, but it's not a big iPhone'
Can you hear it? It's the sound of wishful thinking, of hopeful optimism, of more Apple Tablet rumors. The competition is certainly not holding back in releasing theirs, so what's up with Apple? According to rumor one, from an "industry source" who has seen the OS, the software is "a big iPhone, but it's not just a big iPhone," and it's "pretty." Moving on, rumor two indicates that the device itself will have the internal hardware to work with multiple wireless providers, with Verizon apparently getting priority but there being no single-carrier tie here. Finally, the device is said to be going on sale in March, which sounds reasonable enough if that unveil on 26th comes to fruition. What does Apple have to say about it? "We are not going to comment on rumors and speculation." You can feel free, though -- that's what comments are for.
Ballmer reveals some 'slate' PCs, but does not thrill
There was quite a bit of anticipation that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would upstage Apple with an exciting new tablet design at his CES keynote last night, but it pretty much turned out to be a dud. After more than an hour of bobbing and weaving through several topics, and quickly skipping over Windows Mobile, Ballmer showed a prototype tablet from Hewlett-Packard and two other suppliers. They were running Windows 7 and looked a lot like other touchscreen prototypes we've seen, but none of them seemed to do anything special. You can see the tablet presentation over on YouTube. What we really saw was Ballmer trying a pre-emptive strike against the probable appearance of an Apple tablet later this month. He even referred to 'slate' PCs, a bit of a swipe against the oft-reported Apple-owned iSlate name. I suppose this is better than Ballmer's 2007 interview where he dissed the iPhone when it launched. He's trying to get ahead of the curve, but his keynote got pretty ho-hum reviews and Microsoft really didn't show anything of interest. There was a buzz that Microsoft might show the Courier device it hinted at in September, but it didn't appear yesterday. We don't know if Apple will reveal a tablet, although it seems pretty likely. Do you think Apple can trump Microsoft with a tablet and dominate the market as they have with the iPhone against Windows Mobile phones? Or has Microsoft learned their lessons by trying to be a little more pre-emptive with a tablet release?
'Major' Apple announcement coming January 27th, devs already working with beta SDK (update: shipping in March)
According John Paczkowski over at All Things D, Apple is planning a "major product announcement" for Wednesday, January 27th -- not the 26th as we've heard in previous reports. Additionally, the French site Mac4Ever says developers have been given a beta of the iPhone OS 4 SDK which includes a "simulator" for reformatting / scaling applications to a new, tablet-sized screens. Here at Engadget, we can confirm that sources very familiar with the situation over in Cupertino have been given info about a tablet heading for launch at the end of January, which will -- in fact -- require reformatting and resizing for (we assume)... yep, its new screen size and resolution. As far as details, they're pretty scarce right now, but you can probably begin preliminary salivating and / or player hatin' as it relates to new Apple hardware. We'll have more info as it becomes available, but for now, stay tuned. Update: The Wall Street Journal just added its support for the rumor by saying that Apple will unveil its "new multimedia tablet device later this month" with a "10- to 11-inch touch screen" with plans to ship it in March. The WSJ's sources claim that Apple believes it can "redefine the way consumers interact with a variety of content" as we've been hearing all along. [Thanks, David]
iPhone devsugar: Working with tablet resolutions
Rumors are hitting the ground hard and strong about exactly what to expect in the upcoming (yeah, yeah, possibly mythical) Apple tablet device. And the most important of those rumors, the fact most consistently cited, is the introduction of extra pixels. You might roll your eyes and say, "of course a tablet means more pixels," but what exactly does that extra resolution mean to you as a developer? After all, we don't know what the pixel count will be or whether the (possibly mythical) tablet will offer widget-mode applications using the current iPhone resolution size or full-screen options. So let's look at some of the challenges having extra screen space might offer up developers.
Found Footage: Knowledge Navigator concept from 1987
Remember back when Apple made concept videos of their future hardware instead of people making concepts for them? I actually don't, but that's just because I'm a young punk -- the last major official concept video I remember seeing was the old (and somewhat prescient) "You Will" commercials. But on the eve of what already seems like the year of the tablet, here's a retro look at a 1987 video made by Apple featuring the "Knowledge Navigator," a tablet-style computer with web access (sorry, "university network access" -- the web didn't exist yet) and personified software agents to search, field calls, and even run apps and simulations. Good stuff -- I doubt we'll see video clips of bowtied male secretaries answering calls from the iPhone if the tablet should appear later this month, but here in this future time of 2010, it's fun to look back and see what we thought we'd be doing now: asking favors from Jill Gilbert, taking Kathy to the airport by 2, and ignoring calls from Mom. [Via DF]
Apple tablet team in a "cone of silence", 10.7 to be previewed
Electronista summarizes John Gruber's report that a "cone of silence" exists surrounding those developing the tablet and virtually no information comes from those directly involved. Many of the tablet team are reportedly the same as those that developed the Calendar, Mail, and Safari iPhone apps – and those people are used to this. They underwent a similar radio-lockdown in late 2006. Gruber also maintains that Steve Jobs has given the tablet his "undivided attention" since returning to Apple in September. Apple's secrecy is legendary and Gruber's assertions seem to be more conjecture than insider knowledge. He does admit "I don't know anyone who works at Apple who doubts these things; nor do I know anyone at Apple who knows a whit more. I don't know anyone who's seen the hardware or the software, nor even anyone who knows someone else who has seen the hardware or software." Gruber does seem more confident that his sources say Mac OS X 10.7 is on track for a developer release at WWDC in June. Unfortunately they haven't mentioned any public-release time frame or a possible name – although I'm hoping for "10.7 Lynx."
Apple tablet rumor party: Fox News, former Google China president, and the 'iGuide' (updated)
No words can stress how much we're sick of Apple 'iSlate' rumors right now, but when someone with powerful links speaks up, we gotta take note. Kai-fu Lee -- former Google China president -- has joined the Apple rumor mill by leaking what he claims to be insider knowledge of the device. Now, we've heard a lot of this same noise before: sub-$1000 price, an iPhone-like appearance, 10.1-inch multitouch screen, video conferencing, cellular connectivity, 3D graphics and virtual keyboard. What really got our attention is Lee's link with Foxconn -- the Apple OEM is one of the main contributors to Lee's post-Google investment venture, Innovation Works, so there's a good chance that Lee's spoken to someone overlooking the manufacturing of a certain Apple device. Of course, we can't abide Lee's final proclamation that "Apple expects to produce near ten million units in the first year!" This is pretty bold considering Apple's only sold five million portable computers so far this year (and ten million was the number of iPods sold in Q3 2009 alone), but hey, who knows if Steve Jobs has already worked out a subsidizing plan with some carriers to lure us all?
