Apple plans 22-inch touch-enabled iMac for 2010 - report
There’s life beyond the tablet - Apple also intends introduction of a giant touch-enabled all-in-one PC (iMac?) this year, those ubiquitous reports from Taiwan tell us teasingly.
Sure - everyone’s already going ga-ga on the perhaps set for launch this month 10-inch Apple tablet (or tablets), but Apple’s game to reach out and touch stretches all across its CE ecosystem, it seems.
“Apple reportedly plans to launch a 22-inch touch-enabled all-in-one PC in 2010, in addition to the current non-touch 21.5- and 27-inch iMacs,” according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.
Production of the new touchy-feely 22-inch iMac will be given to Quanta, with Taiwan’s Sintek Photronic supplying touchscreen panels, the paper noted.
Looks like Apple has a much wider vision than competitors thought. Discussing rumours of a tablet from Apple, Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates remarked, "If Apple blows it out of the park, we know that that's what the space is going to look like for a while.”
Is Apple planning something a little bit bigger? It has, after all, been a while since we heard Jobs intone, “oh, and just one more thing.”
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Comments (28)
21.5" and 22" - aren't they a bit too close to each other ? Maybe 21.5" will get replaced by the new one. Will be exciting to see it ! Btw, anyone has a clue when new MacBook Pros maybe coming out ?
I think its actually 24 inch and 22 inch long in dimentions the same way my mbp is 17 inch but 15 inch long... i cant think of anything funny to say like i usually do... Im gonna go with.... 'Thats what she said'
I waiting for "Magic Tablet" and better iPhone 4G with 3.7-4.1 inch screen full BT, Radio flash camera maybe video calling than this. But Touch iMac can be good for my Parents :).
Would be useful sometime to have a touch screen, more for casual use. Walking over and interacting with dashboard, Frontfrow and basic stuff in finder and the dock.
I think it was HP who had some quite nice touchscreen all in ones.
These demoed well in shops, as you were standing, but imagine the ergonomics when you have one at home?
The screen is at your head/shoulder height - with your arms oput stretched for any length of time it gets tiring very quickly.
What would be better is a larger touchpad on your keyboard, like your laptop but just a bigger touch area.
I think it was HP who had some quite nice touchscreen all in ones.
These demoed well in shops, as you were standing, but imagine the ergonomics when you have one at home?
The screen is at your head/shoulder height - with your arms oput stretched for any length of time it gets tiring very quickly.
What would be better is a larger touchpad on your keyboard, like your laptop but just a bigger touch area.
It would run a touch version of Aperture and Final Cut Pro and Logic...! (I supposw it will be expensive)
And for the common user... iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband...
... to run one of those PB or Acer flatscreens that are "Windows 7 only" on my Mac mini ...
It's not likely that Apple would release a touch-screen iMac like the one in the picture. Like others have commented, the ergonomics of such a thing would be awful. An iMac with a normal screen and some kind of large touch-surface for input would be more likely.
Come on People, this is ridiculous! Who will run such an iMac? Where is the Concept? Hello Dell+Sony+Co. I doubt that!
VESA mounted touch screen? I'd imagine it could work better if the resolution was higher, to use as a draughtman's style table. Angled toward the user from horizontal, at a nice distance to lean over whilst working.
Jonny Ive knows about ergonomics. Does Apple seriously think they can see a market in what is effectively Microsoft's "Big A$$" table".
If you have to work at less than arms' length then the screen better be good enough to minimise eye strain etc...
Not to say they couldn't. Apple will be bringing Touch to Mac OS X, but there's little point till either 10.7 or WWDC updating developers. We do multitouch, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense to have a 7" multitouch pad, like a mousepad, than put multitouch on an iMac that's being used in a vertical position.
What a pain... i will stick with my mouse. Unless it is a wacom thing. Any one who says that there will be a touch screen version of Final Cut Pro and Logic has never used them...they use keyboard short cuts, which is about as easy as it gets.
Yeah, um, I don't want to have oily finger prints all over my nice pretty screen. But hey, if it floats *your* boat ...
The comments listed here us why tech companies need to be careful which customers they listen to. Users often want features that seem useful in concept but lack any real thinking.
Until someone invents a way to automatically remove finger print grease from a screen I will keep using a regular display. I can't barely tolerate the finger prints on my iPod Touch let alone work all day staring at dirty 22" display.
No thanks!
...you put your fingerprint grease on everything, on what you touch, what you eat & even what you itch.... Go wash your hands.
Perhaps it will allow several kinds of input - gesture, touch, Magic Mouse, keyboard, etc. A touch screen could be nice to have but not worth downgrading in screen size from my 24" iMac to a 22" touch screen. I doubt Apple would pump a lot of money into simply matching the HP TouchSmart.
If this were to run some kind of Mac/iSlate OS hybrid (or allow for both, like Frontrow), this might work out quite nicely. Just Mac OS X with touchscreen... not so much, small buttons + all functions (menu bar, close, etc.) on the left doesn't seem that great for touch.
I would gladly trade two touchable iMacs for one i5- or i7-based iMac sans reported problems.
It's probably a leak from Apple so that the competition will feel the need to divert their resources to developing similar devices. Apple will instead keep their R&D focussed on useful machines with good ergonomics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#Gorilla_Arm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#Gorilla_Arm
Don't assume that for a touch screen to work, one has to physically touch screen. Apple will or already has something better....
Yeah, people will touch themselves instead, to get the touch screen to work.
Ok before everyone jumps on the bandwagon, have you thought about how you would use the touchscreen when the screen is orientated like the present iMac? There is no way that you could use a touchscreen all day, your arm would be hurting in the first hour. In fact I am not sure that you could even use one for more then a few minutes. Now if you were standing up it might be easier, you do that now with walk up banking facilities, but you aren't doing this for more then a few minutes. There have been many studies on how to implement touch screens and it all comes down to how you position the monitor. If the monitor is at an angle above horizontal then you might be able to work with it for quite a longer time then with it at 90 degrees to the horizontal.
Guys, you are not really reading this through. They are saying this is in addition to the 21.5 and the 27inch iMac. If this slate hits the corporate business sector and the medical community like I think it will then it makes sense to create an iMac (mostly for these folks) that is touch screen. Because as someone mentioned earlier it makes a lot of sense if you are standing doing work, checking someone in or maybe checking their records, but not if you are sitting at your desk at home trying to use it. In that case I agree that a touch pad with display for keyboard function makes more sense. Also look at the patent for smart home stuff a few pages back. Who wants one controlling their house? I know I do. Just my two cents.
This might go hand in hand with the Touchscreen version of iWork rumored to be in development.
I didn't think much of the HP touchscreens or those of the other pc oems because the apps for it are afterthoughts and layered on top of Windows.
This is where Apple shines. They wouldn't put a touchscreen into their desktops without integrating it into the OS and into some apps. And making it feel natural. And if they think it sucks they generally don't release it.
People who sit and stand on tills in supermarkets use this technology everyday.
The main problem I see is the applications. Snow leopard in its current form would not make a good touch experience, and like previously mentioned a touch version of a complicated programs, especially video editors like Final Cut or Premier are really not worth it. I could see some uses for more basic tasks maybe a touch i-life that was suggested a while back.
What I really like the idea of is a frontrow experience, have an imac attached to your wall in the lounge connected to your music system and just flick through your music and videos. Your own personal dukebox.
I will touch the screen with my thoughts emanating from Apple's iCranium - the aluminum hat that protects my head from the voices and transmits my brain waves, fer sure.
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