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Apple Poised to Launch Portable, Touch-screen Entertainment 'iTablet'
A fake rendering of a possible Apple PC tablet. Photo Illustration: Factoryjoe/Flickr (Creative Commons)
San Jose Mercury News
July 28, 2009
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Apple is poised to once again revolutionize the entertainment industry _ this time with an “iTablet” portable device that lets users download and read digital books, watch movies and play games while also sparking new consumer interest in music albums packed with material such as video clips and liner notes, according to a new report.
The touch-screen Internet-connected gadget, which the company could launch before the holidays, aims to do what Microsoft failed to accomplish and would instantly compete with Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and a soon-to-launch device from Barnes & Noble, the Financial Times reported Monday. The iPod touch-like device is expected to have a 10-inch screen.
Analysts and bloggers have talked at length about an Apple tablet device, with many pointing to an early 2010 launch.
Some have speculated the new product would be an extension of Apple’s iPod line, which owns 70 percent of the North American market for digital music players but is starting to lose momentum. Last week, the company said iPod sales sagged 7 percent to 10.2 million during the quarter that ended in June as compared with the same period a year ago.
Some analysts say such a product could fill a potential lucrative niche in Apple’s product lineup between the iPod and the iMac.
Apple would be leery about releasing a tablet gadget that could compete with its MacBook computers, said Stephen Baker, director of industry analysis for the research organization NPD Group. Apple’s laptop lineup is more of a premium product aimed at consumers willing to pay more for a better computing experience. In the second quarter of this year, Apple had just under 9 percent of the U.S. PC market. Its iPod and iPhone pocket products, though, are aimed at the masses, as a tablet-type gadget would be, as well, he said.
“They need to keep those kinds of products away from the MacBook line. They don’t want to give people a reason to trade down,” Baker said.
Despite the latest rumors, longtime Apple watcher Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, isn’t convinced the company is ready to unveil some sort of new touch-screen device any time soon.
“Apple has a lot of products that they test and play with in the lab. It’s unclear to me whether this is a lab project or a real product,” he said.
He does, though, believe some sort of new digital album concept is in the works. The plan, code-named “Cocktail,” is to bundle features ranging from video clips to lyric sheets with albums, according to the Financial Times.
“It’s about re-creating the heyday of the album when you would sit around with your friends looking at the artwork while you listened to the music,” the paper quoted an unidentified executive familiar with the project. The companies are looking for a September launch, according to the report.
lando786
3 months ago
10 comments
Alot of people don't like apple, I personally don't buy into those "fanboy wars"because come on with gadgets like these and Microsoft's "Table", how can you not be excited about all these companies new devices. This looks amazing.
Yes Apple seems to just launch upgrades of other devices, but isn't that what competition is all about? You see this type of business model almost everywhere nowadays, you might as well just cave in and enjoy a little of everything that's available.
verakot
3 months ago
116 comments
Can't wait for this baby...
MurphysLaww
3 months ago
12 comments
I can only hope that Apple attempts to get the he education market back that they lost years ago. We are on the cusp of an extreme change in the delivery of educational content. I have found close to 80% of my text books over the last two semesters available in e-book content. If this continues, and Microsoft/Apple can put some marketing muscle behind applications like One-Note, then the tablet PC market can take off. Nobody wanted to carry 10lbs of books, and then a 4-7 lb laptop/tablet. If you can replace those 10lbs of books with a 4.5lb tablet with the books in e-form it starts to look stupid not to do it. Now that we're pretty close to there, the first company that does it right will have access to a 20 million post-secondary student market, and that's just in the U.S.
I've used tablets since 2005 in Calculus, English, Art History, and Physics classes. It has allowed a fairly unorganized student stay highly organized. In my classes now, there are no tablet PC's, and perhaps 5% of the students have laptops in class, and perhaps 1 in 10 of those are apples, so they don't really have to worry about cannibilizing their non-existent market.
They just have to do it right. I actually postponed a tablet purchase for months, waiting for Dell to release their XT, only to be surprised, and intensely disappointed in what they came to market with. So much so, that when a severance package was offered by Dell to my wife, I suggested she take it, as it was another in a long line of questionable moves by the big D leading me to believe that they were on the wrong path.
bisi006
3 months ago
4 comments
This seems more like a toy. Macintosh has always operated in this pattern. They wait for the next big thing to come out, and then they find a way to make it better by adding extra programs and features to it. The PC came out before the Mac. The mp3 players which Hp Helped create, was invented before the Ipod, The Hp Jornada is a touch-screen pocket PC and now Mac has one.
Justen
3 months ago
212 comments
If they're looking to create a tablet pc-like device without the full capabilities of a laptop, they're going the wrong direction. Tablet PCs aren't selling to people who want a netbook-like experience, they're selling to high-end business and medical professionals who make use of their unique capabilities. Unless Apple somehow can produce this thing for under $500, in which case they might actually hit the gadget market rather than the PC market - still, it'd be no competitor to a tablet pc, which is what tablet pc users like me are screaming for.
Obligitory QQ more, lying recording industry. Universal cut 300 jobs last year? Boo hoo, you could have kept them all by cutting the $38 million paycheck you hand to your CEO. He's clearly not earning it if your business is dying. Crash and burn, you greedy fucktards.