Apple Tablet Rumors

A response to Tablet Rumors Getting Pretty Specific as posted on MacLife

Fatigued of tablet rumors yet? Some of us are. Then something comes along that really jazzes us up.

At first these whispers started out rather vague, with conflicting sizes and hardware specs, but as the year closes out specifics are starting to coalesce. Is it a secret too big to keep or is it the bandwagon of rumor-mongering? Only time will tell.

I try pretty hard not to get  into the whole follow all the rumors of new stuff that might or might not be in development, but the thought of an Apple made tablet has me drooling.  Now to make sure we’re all on the same page, a little Wikipedia:

Generically, tablet PC refers to a laptop or slate-shaped mobile computer, equipped with a touchscreen or graphics tablet/screen hybrid to operate the computer with a stylus or digital pen, or a fingertip, instead of a keyboard or mouse.

Ok, so we’re clear what a tablet is?  Cool.  Now I’ve never really been a huge fan of the whole tablet idea. Well, I like the idea, but there have always been some major flaws with the ones I have played with.

Input method is the biggest issue that I’ve run into.  Anyone ever used one of the older Palm Pilots?  Ever tried to write on one with the shorthand?  Yeah, it didn’t work very well.  If Apple really does come out with a tablet, they are going to have to get around this, somehow.

I can’t see them going the stylus route, they’re easy to lose, and the feel really isn’t that great.  Since what I’m picturing, and what several of the articles that I’ve read seem to be pointing towards an oversized iPhone or iPod Touch, this leads me immediately to thinking of the touchscreen on them.  Not too shabby for texting and such, but pretty temperamental when it comes to longer strings of text.  And could you imagine trying to type quickly on a full size touchscreen?  I just don’t see it being efficient at all, since you just lose that whole tactile interaction that you have when using a standard keyboard, making it prone to mistakes.  So speaking of tactile, has anyone used the Verizon Blackberry with the clicky touch screen?  If you have, it’s pretty much failsagna (related to lasagna, but much more failtastic).  They could go with the whole slide out keyboard dealie that a couple of the tablets have, but that’s gonna make the sucker fat, which isn’t the way Apple tends to roll.

The maclife.com article is talking about how this isn’t going to be a netbook, more an eBook reader.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  If eBooks where more realistically priced, I’d be more interested.  Is there going to be a new eBook store on the iTunes store?  I would assume so.  What are we talking about price wise, anyway?  Apple stuff isn’t cheap, and I really can’t see too many people dropping a G or so to read The Wall Street Journal on their iTab.

In order for me to get one of these suckers, it would have to have WiFi, and it would have to have a pretty banging web browser.  I expect it to play music and movies, of course.  You up the usability if iWork or MS Office is compatible with it, but this leads to other problems as well.

In the end, we’re all going to have to wait and see, but if anyone can make a tablet that the masses will yearn for, I think Apple is the one to do it (anyone want some Kool-Aid?).  This is the type of stuff the makes me wish that IU had an HCI undergrad program, btw Jennifer…