Apple Tablet Rumors Amuse

Apple's Steve Jobs once reportedly said while canceling a planned Apple device, "What's a tablet (computer) good for other than surfing the Web on the toilet?" Now, we're apparently going to find out. 

Rumors abound that Apple will announce a tablet device, that is a PC with touch screen and no keyboard, on January 5th with availability around April. 

While I normally try to ignore tech rumors, since they are a dime-a-dozen and largely wrong, these seem worth following because of the implied changes in Apple's strategy, and because the version that makes the most sense comes from a man who used to speak at conferences I ran: Kai-Fu Lee.

Lee made the business press when he left Microsoft to join Google, and the two tech giants started suing each other over trade secrets. 

Now, he's created a blog in China to promote his latest start-up Innovation Works, and is apparently resorting to tech gossip to drive viewership and thus publicity. 

Lee's version might come from contacts within Foxconn, the Taiwan-based manufacturer that builds Apple products such as the iPhone in China (at factories known inside Apple as Mordor, as in "Steve is going to Mount Mordor"). 

Foxconn is also an investor in Lee's new incubator firm. Given how livid Steve Jobs gets over leaks on Apple products, one can hope Steve doesn't connect the dots back to Foxconn, or some assembly contracts might be coming up for bid soon. 

At any rate, here's one version of what the Apple tablet will be: 

Looks like a big iPod Touch

Screen: 10.1 inch LCD

Virtual keyboard

Costs: $800 or so.

Has a slot for a SIM card, i.e. cellular modem. 

3D graphics card. 

Now, what makes this intriguing to me, are separate articles saying Apple is negotiating to offer TV programming by subscription via iTunes -- which would make Apple a competitor to cable and DirecTV. 

There's also a lot of speculation about the Apple tablet competing with Amazon's Kindle for ebooks and magazines. But, frankly, there is a lot more money in broadcast than in books. 

Lee's site on Sina.com is here, but requires registration and is in Chinese. 

We'll see in the happy New Year!

Comments

[Ehkzu]

Many years ago I figured the Chinese & Japanese would be the vanguards in tablet tech because word processing is so painful using their character sets. As I understand it you have to type in a Western alphabet; the software picks the ideograph it guesses you mean from an internal list of synonyms & puts that on the screen. If you meant a different ideograph you have to go back & change it.

How much easier it would be if you could write the ideograph on the tablet and have the computer use character recognition (again depending to some extent on context, I admit). If this would be made to work reliably, seems like it would ease word processing, and at the very least enable word processing entirely in the writer's chosen language.

Of course for this work requires great OCR software and a whole lotta processing power. I think we have the latter now; not sure about the former.

For Western use I still don't get it. But then I'm a fast touch typer. I have the same sense of befuddlement about hunt & peckers as I do about those who can't drive a stick shift. Who are these people, and do they come from remote Appalachian hamlets of inbred mouthbreathers?

www.blogzu.blogspot.com

[JimF]

@Ehkzu. Good points, but I don't think handwriting recognition is high on the tablet vendors' lists these days, having gotten burned with less than successful results before.