What can't mac do........... very little, they can do it all!
Apple’s iPad Tablet Could Slay eBooks and Netbooks
* By: Rob Enderle •
* July 28, 2009
* Share
*
apple-ipad-5
Jobs may be ready to step away from Apple, but not before completing a tablet as his magnum opus.
On smartphones, Apple was late to the market, but if there is another vendor doing a better job of currently defining what a smartphone is, I don’t know who they are. With smartbooks, a new class of product based on smartphone technology that looks like a netbook computer, the market hasn’t even really launched, and already Apple appears to be moving to define it.
Word is they are rushing to try to have a product into the market in the fourth quarter. Were this anyone else, I’d say they had a snowball’s chance in hell of making it, but this is Apple, which likely has a patent on hell snowballs, so let’s chat about the Apple iPad this week.
iPod Sales Slowing
In what was a stellar quarter last quarter from Apple, the one really troubling mark was that iPod sales were slowing. Now, part of this was Apple drawing down inventories in advance of what will likely be a broad product refresh in August or early September, but I think it reflects on the fact that people are focusing more and more on smartphones, and not as excited about MP3 players as they once were. This suggests that Apple needs to move to the next big thing after the iPod, and while they are partially hedging this decline with the iPhone, it will probably be a long time (if ever) before iPhones will ever replace iPods.
Apple needs something exciting this year, and what better than something new and very different.
Apple iPadNewton + Tablet Done Right?
Steve Jobs both panned the idea of a Newton and a tablet PC, and strangely enough, the iPhone, iPod Touch and now this planned iPad are all combinations of both concepts. The iPad is likely the closest to what the Newton was evolving into given its size and capabilities, and the rumored design is identical to a tablet PC, albeit a small one.
If this were anybody else, I’d figure the chances that this will be successful to be slim or none, but Apple’s iPod Touch and iPhone have a user interface that will at least scale to 10 inches (the rumored screen size of this new device), and should work just fine.
Content is Key: Overcoming The Apple TV Problem
The problem for Apple, much like it was for the iPod, which it got done, and Apple TV, which it didn’t, is getting access to the media folks want to watch and play with on the device. It will be about the size of a Kindle DX, but it will need a decent book library if it is going to be used in that fashion. Luckily, there is a Kindle reader already for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but even Amazon doesn’t have perfect access (for instance, the Harry Potter books aren’t available on a Kindle). And Apple has never wanted anyone else to own the critical services on any of their devices in the first place.
Apple TV
No comments:
Post a Comment