By Erica Ogg, 1 June 2009 14:15
NEWS
Innovative text entry system: Apple's already demonstrated this. And with more screen real estate on a potential tablet, a larger version of the iPhone's virtual keyboard seems like the most obvious direction for Apple to go here. It would vastly increase usability, and depending on the size, could even afford room to touch type with both hands.
iSight inside: An integrated camera could turn such a device into a mobile videoconferencing system. It presents a great application for business use - videoconference calls from anywhere - as well as consumers, for example, giving parents face time with their new student away at university, even when he or she is away from their laptop.
A built-in mobile video camera could also take advantage of barcode reading apps to get more information about products, or perform image searches with apps like SnapTell, already featured by Apple in an iPhone TV spot. Take a picture of a book, DVD, or cereal box with the built-in camera, and it brings up information about it from sites like Google, IMDB, eBay, and others.
Be able to watch multiple full-length movies on a single charge: A Mac tablet with a screen around seven inches, as is rumoured, would presumably be primarily for consuming media, so the ability to watch a full-length film on a long airplane ride would be great. "Good power performance will enable that," said Daniell Hebert, CEO of Moto Development Group, a consumer product development lab in San Francisco. That means the screen can't be too big a drain on the battery, and how background applications are handled will matter, too.
Be an e-book reader: E-books are hot right now. Though Steve Jobs memorably said "people don't read any more", he's been known to bash product categories before jumping into them. Apple has approved plenty of e-book reading apps for the App Store, so the prospect of an even larger screen would be very appealing for reading books or newspaper articles.
The price has to be right: We know Apple doesn't do cheap. It's the same reason the company has repeatedly said it won't do a netbook. An Apple tablet would likely be priced below the cheapest MacBook at $999. Apple watcher Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray happens to believe it will be tagged between $500 and $700. And if an iPod Touch is $399 for 32GB, the Kindle DX is $489, it shouldn't stray too far above $500.
Though some are hoping for mention of a tablet from Apple at the Worldwide Developers Conference that's taking place in just over a week, it's probably not a good bet. Besides the fact that the focus of WWDC recently has been all iPhone, Munster says his sources in overseas manufacturing believe such a tablet device wouldn't be ready until 2010 at the earliest.
Comments
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1. Melangell
"App" is short for application. You really fail to mention any "fantasy Mac tablet apps" much less any apps at all. Why?
2. John Date
Read this to see writers take on apps - meaning sought-after uses of an Apple tablet. You've just regurg'ed the original article's wanted features.
Much more important, and at the root of all feature-tagging, is what peolple envision doing with the tablet. For me, I want an designers "annex" to my iPhone and laptop. Doing things neither of them could ever do. And I'll suggest that most features that are ably used on said devices have no place on the tablet. So, with that said:
1. E-reader/viewer - better than a Kindle could be, even with five years of development ahead.
2. Sketch and note digitizer - a la Newton, this is the holy grail of small personal devices. And a boon to app programmers: a reborn genre of computing.
3. Digital Life slate - Capitalizing on the few weaknesses of laptops and iPhone, instant on with enough screen real estate to "bring the computing and connected environment within range of visual responsiveness." In your face, if you will, but in a good way.