Apple planning low-cost tablet?
If Gene Munster's predictions come true, we could be seeing Apple's answer to the netbook market by the middle of 2010.
As reported over on the Silicon Alley Insider, analyst Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray believes that Apple is looking to release a touchscreen tablet-based Mac with a screen size somewhere between 7-10 inch by the middle of next year.
Based on “indications from our component contacts in Asia, recent patents relating to multi-touch sensitivity for more complex computing devices, comments from [Apple's COO] Tim Cook on the April 22 conference call, and Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi along with other recent chip-related hires,” Munster believes that the company is heading towards a low-cost tablet device as its own answer to the rising popularity of netbooks.
Munster believes that the device will be closer to an oversized iPhone or iPod Touch than the ModBook third-party MacBook-based tablets we've seen in the past, and will feature a customised version of Mac OS X with an increased feature set when compared to the iPhone.
With Munster predicting a price of somewhere between $500 and $700 (£317 to £444), the tablet would be a smart move for Apple to capitalise on both the popularity of the iPhone and the clear market for low-cost highly portable computing devices without being seen to backtrack on its very public derision of the netbook paradigm.
Would an official Apple tablet get you all excited, or can the world live without an oversized iPhone clone? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums Replylow cost, multi-touch, Mac OSX, what can go wrong?
A netbook offering with multi-touch? Yeah. Believable, understandable.
Low cost in real world terms? Not a chance.
Low cost in comparison to a 17"MBP with all the trimmings, maybe.
I'll believe it when I see it, but can't help thinking that the market for 'proper' tablet PCs, as opposed to glorified PMPs like the iPhone or iPod Touch, is still too small. That said, I could see a couple of our designers going for a multi-touch machine running 'proper' OSX but it doesn't really float my boat (but then, I develop software)
I'd much rather see them (re)release something along the lines of the old 10" iBook - that struck a nice balance between portability and usability even if it was fearsomely expensive at the time.
Tablets are normally used for image editing etc. I highly doubt a 'low cost' panel is going to be able to handle this kind of thing.
And anyway, you can already buy a Modbock can't you?
Apple and low-cost?
Dude, that's a oxymoron
IMO Apple releases this and they have a potential big seller. I know we'd buy at least one and maybe 2, one for each of us. My current machine is MacBook Pro dual booting to XP which is what I use most of the time but it's still overkill for surfing, blogging, photo reviewing and email purposes.
In B4 Nexxo and his awesome tablet
You could use an on screen keyboard anyway, and it would be much better than the usual ones since it's multi touch.
What's the point of netbooks? Cheap price. Is Apple going to be cheap compared to others? I don't think so. What will the point of buying one be? It's Apple. It doesn't really even matter if it has no proper keyboard, it's more expensive than competitors and fails at something like battery life. Just put that marketing machine into action and you'll have a market. iPeople will just suddenly feel like smudging a small screen with multiple fingers is the best thing in the world.
If I had a tablet machine, chances are the first thing I'd do is hook a proper keyboard up to it. Kind of defeats the object, really ...