All Articles Tagged itablet

UPDATE: Ars Technica has found references to an iProd 0,1 (iProduct prototype? Could that be the iTablet?) and an iFPGA, which they say may be something to do with “field-programmable gate array” (yeah, us neither). So Apple is either really busy building out their Mobile OS X offerings, or are having a load of fun punkd’ing the blogosphere…

ORIGINAL: We pretty much know there will be new iPhone hardware. Apple is likely always working a generation, two generations, three generations ahead. What we don’t know is what and when.

The first iPhone 2G (2007) is references as iPhone 1,1 while the iPhone 3G (2008) is 1,2 — which indicates it wasn’t a significant hardware revision (3G and GPS not significant? Okay!)

The first iPod touch (2007) was 1,2, however the iPod touch Gen 2 (2008) was 2,1 — which indicates a more significant revision (external speaker and volume controls, Nike+ are significant? Okay again!)

Now BGR is reporting that deep delving into the iPhone OS 3.0 has found references to future models. iPhone 2,1, which we’ve heard about before, makes it look like Apple has a more significant hardware revision on its way for the iPhone. No idea what that is yet (we’ve guessed iPhone HD). What’s new is a reference to iPhone 3,1(!).

Does this mean there are 2 new hardware models coming? And soon as in this year (2009)? Or will 3,1 follow a year or more after 2,1, like Apple does with iPod models?

Speaking of which, the code also reveals an iPod touch 3,1. Could that be an iPod touch HD? A large size iPod touch iTablet? Or should we quiet our fanboy hearts for a moment?

Twitterrific developer Craig Hockenberry has posted an interesting article about where he thinks Apple might be going with those 10″ multi-touch panels they’re rumored to have bought. Not wanting to cannibalize iPhone or MacBook sales, and wanting to experience yet another iPod Halo effect, he takes a look at the gaps he sees in the current product line up and comes up with “Front Row To Go“:

Think of it as a second screen for the current hardware.

Who knows whether Apple will ultimately announce an iNetbook, iTablet, iPhone HD something like this, or something we haven’t yet imagined. Still, Hockenberry’s analysis itself is worth a read, as are his proposed uses.

Our editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn, for one has been wanting something very much like this:

I wanted a capactive screen sitting to the right of my keyboard instead of a mouse. I could just slide my hand around in any shape that was comfortable and tap fingers, use it as a drawing pad, and then pick it up and go walking around with it to display stuff.

Who else would line up for one of these babies, if Apple pulled that particular trigger?

Okay, technically one was on Monday, but following up the story on Apple ordering netbook-class panels, Dow Jones (via MacRumors) is following up with the always popular anonymous sources, said to be two people close to the situation:

The mini laptop computers will likely have monitor screens that are between 9.7-inches and 10-inches, one person, who declined to be named, said.

Will this be the 12″ Powerbook replacement many have been clamoring for? Will Apple really leave iTablet and large-size iPod touch demanders hanging again? Or will they combine the two products and make a netbook-sized device with a detachable multitouch-screen that works like a tablet?

It would have to move components from the keyboard section to the screen, making the top thicker and the bottom thinner (a la HTC Advantage).

Would it run iPhone OS X, however, or would people demand Mac OS X, paving the way for a really small, highly optimized version of Snow Leopard? It is building in multi-touch and CoreLocation… And could it be combined with the next generation MobileMe for online storage and cloud functionality, synced both to the full-sized Mac and even more portable iPhone…

Either way, TiPb predicts a fun, rumor-filled 2009!

MacRumors is reporting on a Digitimes story that says Taiwan-based supplier:

Wintek revealed that it is currently working with Apple to develop some new products, but it said it does not know what applications the new products are for.

Apple has denied interest in producing both a tablet and a netbook in the past, which is what they do both when they really have no interest, and also when they’re about the release something. What with all the new hardware Apple dropped last week, TiPb has speculated that the March 24th date for a rumored Apple Event could be used to debut the iPhone OS 3.0 beta, a higher resolution iPhone HD… or an iTablet form factor.

If Apple does release a new device, would it really be a netbook scale version of Mac OS X or a large-size iPod touch running the iPhone version of OS X? Either way, developers would need time to ramp up (or down) their apps. Either way, could this be more fuel for that fire, or simply more grist for the rumor-mill?

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Last night’s iPhone Live! was pretty darn good — so good, in fact, that it created a cross-border, pan-dimensional bug that kept us from recording the first 20 minutes properly. We recapped it a bit, but those who it hit it up live got a special treat. Rest assured, though, we have more than enough to talk about with the new Kindle iPhone App, what it means for Apple, Amazon, and when it might go international – so if you missed iPhone Live!, go ahead and check out this here podcast.

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Yeah, let the speculation continue! No sooner did we blog about Apple’s rumored March 24th Special Event being an iPhone 3.0 or even iTablet into, then we came across this wonderful article up at Newsarama.com featuring uber-Apple tech journo, Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times. Most tantalizingly:

“There’s something I keep hearing, and I don’t think I’d rank it as high as a rumor, but it’s an interesting story that I keep hearing, that for awhile, trucks loaded with books would arrive at a loading dock on the Apple campus, and offload big, big, big, big, huge load of books, and then the trucks would leave empty. And Apple does not have a 100,000-book employee library there on the Apple campus,” Ihnatko said. “So one is prone to believe that they’re doing something with these books, such as turning them into text for some purpose we can only guess at. There’s been a long-standing rumor that Apple has been silently preparing to open a bookstore on the iTunes store, and they want to make sure that they have a very large stock of electronic titles when they do open.

The entire article is definitely worth a read, and given the way print media, with associated delivery and distribution costs is going, an Apple-fronted e-Book reader would be good news. An Apple and iTunes Store front e-Comic Book reader could save Marvel and DC from their own current myopia as well.

Of course, even the mighty Amazon has failed to show there’s a mainstream market for the Kindle yet (we don’t believe they’ve even hit the magic 1 million sold mark yet, have they?) and Apple has never been one to lead markets, only consumer-ize them, so we’ll see…

Meantime, who wants one?

Today Apple dropped new Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro desktops, and Airport Extreme, and Time Capsule routers. Previously, we’d heard rumors about Apple waiting and holding one of their Special Events on March 24th, a “Spotlight Turns to Desktops” to bookend last fall’s “Spotlight Turns to Laptops” event. But none of today’s releases were as new or event-worthy as the unibody MacBooks announced last year, were they?

So, if Apple really is having a March 24th event — and it’s not just some interfanboynet make believe — what’s left for them to announce?

Well, March 2008 was the iPhone SDK Roadmap Event, where Apple began the process that ultimately led us to iPhone OS 2.0 and the App Store.

Could March 2009 give us a similar peek into the beginning of a beta process for iPhone OS 3.0? Could it show off an App Store-level complication on the order of an iPhone HD or iTablet, requiring the months before WWDC and an eventual summer release be spent testing new resolutions or screen sizes, or other hardware changes bound for the iPhone 2,1 model?

As stated explicitly in the title, pure and abject speculation at this point, but Apple does seem to like product cycles and symmetry…

What do you think?

Not had your fill yet with iPhone nano and iPhone Pro “sliders“? Want even more form-factor furor to fuel your pre-Macworld fires? TechCrunch and the iTablet to the rescue!

We’ve got this from three independent sources close to Apple: expect a large screen iPod touch device to be released in the Fall of ‘09, with a 7 or 9 inch screen. Prototypes have been seen and handled by one of our sources, and Apple is talking to OEMs in Asia now about mass production.

Of course, we all know the story about the iPhone originating as a tablet device code-named Safari Pad, as well as Steve Jobs’ statement that he’s just as proud of the devices Apple hasn’t released as the ones they have.

So, while we have no doubt that Apple already has working iTablets deep beneath the vaults of Cupertino, given the shape of the tablet market, which outside Bill Gates has yet to take off, who knows if they’ll ever surface as a production device?

Uptake on the iPhone/App Store platform and popularity of the “netbook” class ultra-mini laptops may make some feel it’s more likely now than ever, but with Apple you only ever really know for sure when Steve Jobs (er… or Phil Schiller) hold it up on stage.

Still, the graphic designer would love one of these babies. How about you?

Earlier this month, TiPb threw it’s hat in the ring of next generation handset speculation by predicting Apple would announce an iPhone HD in 2009. It just made sense to us, and apparently it’s beginning to make sense to others as well.

What happened? New York Times writer John Markoff dropped a rumor bomb:

The [unnamed search engine] company spotted Web visits from an unannounced Apple product with a display somewhere between an iPhone and a MacBook. Is it the iPhone 3.0 or the NetMac 1.0?

Jesus Diaz over at Gizmodo seems to be thinking what we’re thinking as well:

here in Gizmodo we are thinking about an iPhone HD with an updated 800 x 480 pixel display, probably coming in 2009.

So, is this just another wunderkind spoofing his or her web browser for lulz and chaos? Or is Steve Jobs already carrying around the prototype iPhone HD in his pocket, practicing the Keynote Boom! for WWDC 2009?

Oh, Apple, you tease! It’s not enough we’ve all heard the iPhone began life as the Safari Pad tablet? That Intel has leaked Atom-powered portable hints? That the rumors start up again every time the blogsphere even thinks you have a “Special Event” coming our way? Do you really have to go and show us your patents?

Apple Insider says:

Much of the 52-page filing describes methods for accurately detecting and deciphering a plurality of simultaneous contacts on a touch screen, which sets the foundation for future tablet-based products that users can manipulate using not only more than one finger, but more than one hand.

Design guru Jonathan Ive, among others, is credited with the innovation, which includes examples of window control, virtual keyboards, and virtual scroll-wheels.

No word, of course, on when or if we’ll ever actually get to hold such awesome mobile power with our own multi-touching hands…