Shawn Blanc:
I think the rumored Apple Tablet will be a thin, unibody touchscreen device with a locked OS. My guess is that it will be more like a MacBook Touch and less like an iPhone Pro. And though I think its introduction to the world will be less full of “WOW” than the iPhone’s was in 2007, I still think the Tablet will be awesome and maybe, just maybe, reinvent our approach to personal computing.
Jonas Wisser from his blog Malum Elegans:
The tablet is the perfect form to carry around. Book sized, so it fits in backpacks. Computer-sized, so it fits in laptop cases. No hinges to be broken, no keys to get stuck, and a minimum of buttons to get pushed or broken. Small enough that it can be used as a computer in your car—and believe me, car manufacturers will learn to provide a dock for it pretty quickly—but large enough to read the newspaper on in the morning.
His post “Tabula Rasa” is also worth checking out.
Levi Buchanan of IGN:
If you have ever used Microsoft Surface, you know that it inches us ever closer to that Minority Report-style of control. You use fingers to slide, zoom, rotate, and select on-screen elements. It really is quite easy to manipulate on-screen stuff with Surface, with the exception of one thing: typing. It remains to be seen if Apple has developed an alternate typing scheme for the tablet. Typing on the iPhone keyboard works, but it’s not ideal. Typing on a larger-than-iPhone tablet using a virtual QWERTY keyboard would be a nightmare. But otherwise, I think Surface is an excellent jumping off point for looking at how gaming might work on the tablet.
Digital-magazine publisher Zinio just released an eponymous app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, meaning you can now read electronic editions of Automobile, PC Magazine, Popular Science, and other pubs on the go.
Very interesting timing, no? It can’t be a coincidence that the app arrives mere weeks before the iTablet, iSlate, iPad, or whatever Apple calls the product it’s announcing later this month.
Elliot Jay Stocks:
THE TABLET WON’T BE A TABLET
Not in the way that everyone’s thinking, anyway. Because that’s just not Apple’s style. Have they ever just made a Mac-ified version of whatever’s already out there? No. Look at their history; especially their recenthistory: the iPod revolutionised the MP3 player. The iPhone revolutionised the mobile phone. We may have become used to them now (it’s hard to remember a time before the iPhone, isn’t it?), but don’t forget how groundbreaking they were at launch, and because groundbreaking is exactly what Apple do, there’s no way they’re simply going to bring out a tablet-sized MacBook Pro. Want that? Get a ModBook. Apple are thinking about the bigger picture.
Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac:
What if the iPhone were just the beginning? What if it is the establishment of a new paradigm not just for the smartphone but for the personal computer itself? It is no secret that the interaction metaphor established in 1984 is dated and not well scaled for the future we can see in our mind and feel is just around the corner. What if that thing we keep hearing rumors about will be the next “a ha” moment in this progression towards a new way to interact with our technical world? What if all of the work done to not build upon, but strip away, the Mac OS in Snow Leopard was to pave the way for this plan? What if Apple is about to reinvent the idea of computer interaction not just for the Mac but, once again, for the entire industry? As they have done with every single market they have entered before?
Dan Moren of Macworld:
If rumor proves true, the Apple tablet will boast a screen in the 10-inch range. I have a hard time picturing how I would enter text on a device of this sort. Obviously, I’ve got no insider knowledge of what the tablet will look like, as I’m sure will become readily apparent the moment it’s actually released. Still, I’m curious enough about how I’m going to use this device, that I spent the time painstakinglymaking upcalculating the odds on the different ways you might enter text on Apple’s new device.
(via Shawn Blanc)
