Apple shares at a high on Tablet speculation
Microsoft could see a two-pronged attack in 2010 hitting both ends of their consumer market for Windows 7. It’s no secret that Google will be launching into the netbook / low end market by the end of the year with Chrome OS, but there’s been fervent speculation about a forthcoming Tablet computer from Apple, frankly the only company who can revolutionise this market and make “the next big thing every year since 2002” sexy at last.
As if industry watchers know that Santa delivered a very special package to Steve Jobs on Christmas day, Apple shares have risen by more than 11% in the last three weeks, and received an additional 1% push yesterday.
This is fuelling speculation that the big announcement will come on January 26th at San Francisco’s Buena Centre which they have booked for a “major product announcement”.
Looking at Apple’s product line up and the announcements they made in the latter half of 2009, when they released new iPods, the iPhone 3Gs and new Macs, the speculators could well be on the money this time. Certainly, from Apple’s perspective it makes no sense to encourage such a steep and sudden rise in the value of the company, only for the expected announcement to not come and that value to drop sharply afterwards, which could worry shareholders.
So what would an Apple tablet be? It certainly wouldn’t be cheap, that’s for sure. Apple isn’t known for cheap products and there’s no reason to assume they’ll start now. Such a high-end tablet would strike at the heart of Windows 7’s new multi-touch functionality on laptops and ultra-portables. This release, combined with Chrome OS at the end of the year would cause Microsoft significant problems in mobile computing.
A few years ago, against Windows XP for instance, this wouldn’t have been a problem because the laptop market was small. Things have changed now with laptops outselling desktop PCs in recent years. The sudden popularity of touchscreen phones and ebook readers has demonstrated how the consumer market seems to be moving away from keyboards at long last. Microsoft fought hard last year to get Windows 7 on to netbooks and the laptop / ultraportable market is a huge earner for them.
The biggest question mark sits over what operating system such a device would run. Both OS X and iPhone OS could do the job (with modification) but the latter would look more likely. This could spell bad news for OS X, which has already had a bad year. While Mac hardware sales are up, the lacklustre launch of Snow Leopard garnered significant criticism from the press.
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“OS Xi”! Its the next new thing from Mac's! They are holding back for their new OS! They are putting “i” in practically everything they are selling now, so why not put one after their OS? Makes some sense too: X = 10, XI = 11, Xi = 11 too, just with the “i” instead of “I”. X3
According to consumerreports.org, “We’ve yet to see a Windows laptop with battery life longer than 7 hours, unless we add an extended battery to the system … Our current Ratings of laptop computers (available to subscribers) also details several recently-tested Windows notebooks that also run for more than 5 hours, but those used an extended battery”<http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2009/04/acer-laptop-claims-8hour-battery-life.html> It'll cost you more for an extended battery, add more weight and produce more heat. Most that claims 9+ are netbooks which have smaller screens not regular laptops like MacBooks which does not need and no option for extended battery.
Well I was just shooting out some numbers here, but really in all seriousness, when will you ever be using a laptop actually working on it for more than 5 hours without having the accessibility to plug in to an outlet somewhere? I own an Asus G51 with a 9 cell battery and it only weighs 7lbs. And I can normally get about 4 hours of use out of it before it dies. And that's a gaming laptop.
And Alienware really isn't all that it is bragged out to be. If you know what to get (and know what you are doing) you can outbuild an Alienware. It's more just bragging rights than anything. “Hey, I own an Alienware!” Me: “Wow I don't care, and you paid way too much for it.”
On touch screen support and handwriting recognition:
OSX had handwriting recognition and graphic tablet support built-into the OS since 2002-2003(i think). Touch screen controls overlayed over the existing UI of operating systems is not the right way to go about it. that would be a 'hack', a 'bandaid' just to be able to have a bullet point on the retail box of the product.
The 'right' way(imo) would be the way they did it with the iPhone. compare the UI elements of the iPhone with the old Windows Mobile….things like buttons, scrolling, the way the characters pop out when you type on the iPhone, the magnifying glass when you move the cursor, even the way you downloand/buy and install new apps, etc….thats the way it *should* be. if all Apple had done was taken the OSX human-interface guidlines, and replicated it with touch controls of the iPhone, that would have been a failure in design.(i think some other companies have tried to do this and failed thus far, which is why they are trying to replicate the iPhone).
As far as laptops:
battery life, volume and weight matter. as a student i found lugging my 15″ powerbook around hard, i cant even fathom how my friends with dells and toshibas felt.
I'd gladly pay more for a laptop which is thinner, lighter and has more batter life than for one which is bigger, heavier and beefier. if i want desktop leve performance i'll get a desktop.
As far as “the lacklustre launch of Snow Leopard garnered significant criticism from the press”….considering this is Apple's most succesful OS launch, i wouldnt take that statement seriously. And considering that the kernel, APIs and development IDE are the same for the MacOS and iPhoneOS, i'd say they're all 'Macs' …… technically.
On touch screen support and handwriting recognition:
OSX had handwriting recognition and graphic tablet support built-into the OS since 2002-2003(i think). Touch screen controls overlayed over the existing UI of operating systems is not the right way to go about it. that would be a 'hack', a 'bandaid' just to be able to have a bullet point on the retail box of the product.
The 'right' way(imo) would be the way they did it with the iPhone. compare the UI elements of the iPhone with the old Windows Mobile….things like buttons, scrolling, the way the characters pop out when you type on the iPhone, the magnifying glass when you move the cursor, even the way you downloand/buy and install new apps, etc….thats the way it *should* be. if all Apple had done was taken the OSX human-interface guidlines, and replicated it with touch controls of the iPhone, that would have been a failure in design.(i think some other companies have tried to do this and failed thus far, which is why they are trying to replicate the iPhone).
As far as laptops:
battery life, volume and weight matter. as a student i found lugging my 15″ powerbook around hard, i cant even fathom how my friends with dells and toshibas felt.
I'd gladly pay more for a laptop which is thinner, lighter and has more batter life than for one which is bigger, heavier and beefier. if i want desktop leve performance i'll get a desktop.
As far as “the lacklustre launch of Snow Leopard garnered significant criticism from the press”….considering this is Apple's most succesful OS launch, i wouldnt take that statement seriously. And considering that the kernel, APIs and development IDE are the same for the MacOS and iPhoneOS, i'd say they're all 'Macs' …… technically.
[...] Apple shares at a high on Tablet speculation [...]
[...] Apple shares at a high on Tablet speculation [...]