NYT: What will the tablet do? Steve Jobs: "Surf the Web in the Bathroom?"

Chauncey Dupree
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October 04, 2009
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New York Times has another tablet piece today.  Nothing too insane but some nice little nuggies:

The tablet debate has been going on for quite some time within Apple, according to the Times' sources.  They had one running on a Power(hungry)PC in 2003.

“It couldn’t be built. The battery life wasn’t long enough, the graphics performance was not enough to do anything and the components themselves cost more than $500,” said Joshua A. Strickland, a former Apple engineer whose name is on several of the company’s patents for multitouch technology.

The best bit?  Jobs himself shelved it on multiple occasions, saying, in essence, what they were good for besides surfing the Web in the bathroom?

They go on to speculate that the tablet will be a big, glorified iPod with a 100,000 application App Store on day one.  Yada Yada.

 

Much more background from the Times here.

Comments (13)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 04, 2009 - 8:16pm

So Apple is pushing this tablet just to push it? It makes no sense. Apple will join the Kindle's and such other tablets, but, will not join the netbook crowd?

Could it be that Apple is happy being such a minority player?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 05, 2009 - 6:53am

It is still very possible that Apple will can this tablet non-sense. Apple is working hard to be more then a minority player in the consumer electronics field.
Apple changed its name from Apple Computer to just Apple to reflect this change. Apple can ill afford to have a failure of product at this juncture. As noted by Jobs the Kindle is a failure. People don't want to be lugging around 10 inches screen.
Lets just look at mess the iPod Touch has become because Jobs was out for 6 months or so.
I for one think Apple would do far better selling a netbook like computer based on the Air.

Christopher Palian (not verified) | October 04, 2009 - 8:46pm

there could be several uses, both conventional and non-conventional...

non-conventional:
- A non traditional print media outlet, featuring interactive content, sound and videos.
- A digital notepad, like using a special pen to take notes and convert them into a PDF, handwriting or drawings in a multitude of colors. http://www.amazon.com/SolidTek-DigiMemo-692-Digital-Notepad/dp/B0009OD4CS
- A presentation aid, kind of like the KeyNote remote app for the iPhone
- Connect to a mac and act as a add-on tablet, mirroring the monitor and allowing a pen/touch as an input device like Wacoms expensive tablets

Conventional uses:
- Run special apps from the app store on a larger screen
- Watch and listen to Movies, podcasts, audio content loaded from iTunes
- Do everything the iPhone and iTouches do now and more.

feDeX (not verified) | October 05, 2009 - 5:09am

iTouch? WTF is that? oh, you mean iPod TOUCH, right?

Luis Alejandro Masanti (not verified) | October 04, 2009 - 9:11pm

As far as I understand Steve Jobs' product philosophy, the tablet would have to do "one thing" spectaculary. Then, with time, Apple will add the other facts.

iPod was excelent on music. People asked for photos, videos and recording,,, everything happen several years after the introduction.

iPhone was excelent in mobile web browsing (normal phone, normal iPod), apps came after.

What is the "one thing" that define the tablet spectacularly?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 04, 2009 - 9:19pm

Shopping.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 04, 2009 - 10:41pm

Excellent Point! I like the way you approached this idea!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 12, 2009 - 8:28pm

They might call it iTAB. Browsing with many tab capabilty, no crash.ipile

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 04, 2009 - 10:50pm

If the new Apple Tablet would let us send videos from the bathroom than I think that would be worth it. I'd be uploading to YouTube every morning!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 05, 2009 - 12:10am

Apple iTablet:

- Light and small. As much as possible. Hint: the MacBook Air is too heavy and too large. A 400 to 600 g and 5 to 7 inch would be great.

- Mac OS X (touch version) inside to run NATIVE Keynote and PowerPoint.

- Video-out and USB2 ports to connect to videoprojectors and use USB2-based remote controls like the Keyspan-by-Tripp Lite

The idea is to always carry it with you, on your hand, pocket, purse or bag. With a tremendous halo effect on all corporate, education and domestic markets. The ultimate presentation tool.

More:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_itablet_design_and_technica...

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 05, 2009 - 4:15am

I have a netbook and it is a device that Apple should be concerned about. Not everyone bought one because they are inexpensive. It is practical for many reasons and an Apple tablet should be as versatile not a crippled Archos media tablet.

antipole (not verified) | October 05, 2009 - 7:02am

If an iTablet was fit for the bathroom, then it might also be fit for outdoors use - yes please. I am using an iPhone for marine applications and have to keep it in a waterproof bag (actually designed for using a camera under water). The touch screen does actually work thus. Now I would just love an iTablet that could be used in sea spray and rain. So Job's throw-away comment was actually quite relevant.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 05, 2009 - 10:39am

Apple needs the iPad to be more than a big iPhone.
Here is where they thought we were all headed nearly 20 years ago.....this is a good start for how the iPad can change the game with netbooks:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5144094928842683632#