By Tom Krazit, 29 April 2009 15:50
NEWS
...captured the public's imagination. Microsoft and Intel had high hopes for the concept in 2006, which was also known as Project Origami inside Microsoft. Samsung made perhaps the best-received UMPC, but that wasn't saying much, and interest in the category quickly faded after the launch of the iPhone.The main issue with UMPCs was a lack of compelling software. They were designed to run Windows XP, which itself wasn't designed to run on a device with such a small screen and limited methods of input.
Intel tried to shift MIDs to Linux but its partners have yet to gain any traction. And neither attempt was able to galvanise third-party developers into creating applications designed specifically for a mobile platform.
Apple's iPhone OS, however, was designed for a small-screen mobile environment. Installing the iPhone OS 3.0 on the tablet would allow Apple to preserve the user interface from the iPhone and iPod Touch and keep the device simple: a more complicated (and power-hungry) operating system isn't needed for a computer like this.
This would also allow Apple to take advantage of the App Store, giving the device thousands of applications at its disposal right from launch. One potential problem with that approach is that developers will have to rewrite their iPhone applications to adapt to the larger-size screen on this new device, said Craig Hockenberry of Iconfactory, creators of Twitterrific.
Hockenberry, who is very confident that Apple has such a device in the works, doesn't think this will be a huge obstacle, but developers will have to gauge whether the extra development effort is worth their time. One thing Apple could do is set aside a separate section of the App Store for tablet-optimised applications, while finding a way to run older iPhone applications in some sort of compatibility mode.
The tablet could also be the first Apple product to surface with a chip designed by PA Semi, which Apple didn't buy on a lark. A custom chip could solve two problems for Apple - the need to keep software compatibility with the ARM-based chips used to run the iPhone, while delivering more performance for HD video playback or more robust games that competitors might not be able to immediately match.
This is the last frontier of the promised convergence between computers and communication devices: the midsized device. That shift has already happened to the smartphone but it seems very reasonable that, for many people, smartphone screens are too small for serious computing.
If Apple is indeed working on such a product, it will have to get the implementation right to avoid duplicating the failures of so many other mobile computing aspirants. But by having awakened the public to the promise of basic mobile computing, Apple could be best positioned to capitalise on the need for something more.
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