By Erica Ogg, 17 June 2009 11:10
NEWS
...clearly transfer from trackpad input to direct onscreen input if Apple engineers wanted. They already have a similar feature in the iPhone for Chinese characters based on the technology from Hanwang.
Safari 4 updates New Safari 4 features would also accommodate easier navigation by touch. The new Coverflow option to browse through past sites visited as well as sites you visit most often would be easy with the drag of a finger. And on a screen larger than an iPhone, the effect would work marvellously.
These are just a few of the feature upgrades of OS X 10.6 that seem it indicate a trend toward touch capabilities.
True, Steve Jobs said at an Apple event last fall that putting touchscreens on traditional laptops "hasn't made a lot of sense" to Apple. His point is a good one: even companies that embrace touchscreen laptops admit that it's an awkward posture to sit and point at a laptop screen. HP's CTO of its PC group, Phil McKinney, has indicated that's why the company's Windows touchscreen laptops are convertible to tablet PCs. But Jobs' comment doesn't rule out a different form factor with a touchscreen, like a tablet.
While it would seem like Apple could use the ready-made iPhone operating system for a tablet instead of a touch-friendly version of Mac OS X users, that could limit the device. Most users expect the freedom of having a Finder and the ability to download directly from the web and not through the App Store only, as with the iPhone and iPod Touch.
If Apple does end up making a tablet that were to run Snow Leopard, or some version of it, that means it probably wouldn't be announced until after Snow Leopard's official release in September. Others have speculated it won't be ready until at least early 2010.
CNET's Josh Lowensohn contributed to this story.
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Not to mention that the footprint of Snow Leopard has been cut by 5GB....
2. Mister Snitch
Obviously, Apple ALREADY sells a tablet. It just happens to be called an iPhone. So Apple clearly is not averse to selling a tablet, it's a question of (a) size (b) what to call it and (c) what its feature set and OS will consist of.
Probably a 'tablet' would have a tweaked iPhone interface. Probably it would have at least some ability to at least open Mac OS apps. It might even be able to run apps with no differentiation from a Mac laptop.
At one time, Jobs said tablets made no business sense. At that time, he was right. But today, Apple has so much mobile OS infrastructure in place, and has been so successful with it, that it makes no sense NOT to expand their mobile platform's footprint.
3. anonymous
I would have thought the demo of the Iceberg book store at WWDC with 1 million books (including major text book companies) was a better pointer to a tablet coming in time for the new school year.
4. Terry Riegel
Footprint cut. This is rather sensational. The cut is most likely the removal of the PowerPC code.