NY Times source: “You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet”

Seth Weintraub
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December 23, 2009
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It's hard to remember any time where so many tablet rumors were flying so furiously.  The NY Times steps in this evening with their take.  While mostly a rehash, they do drop a hint that there might be some new, unexpected type of interaction to this tablet.   According to their source, a recently departed Apple employee, “You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet.”

Speech recognition is hot lately. Apple is big on gestures.  They have patents on all kinds of wild interactive methods of operation.  What could this mean?

Oh, and after many stops and starts and many redesigns, Steve Jobs told one employee that he's finally ready to go with this one.  Specifically, this employee said: “I can’t really say anything, but, let’s just say Steve is extremely happy with the new tablet.”

And finally, we've also got a tip that Apple is in talks to pick up a small NY-based company that will help them with their tablet content.

Comments (24)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 23, 2009 - 7:27pm

The Moses graphic is fairly funny ...

 

Scott (not verified) | December 23, 2009 - 8:04pm

Telepathically controlled? O.o

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 23, 2009 - 8:20pm

First off no and I mean no Apple employee who Jobs made any comment to about a new product is going to leak it. No way, no how. That is just plain bull sh_t. He would no longer have a job anywhere!

Second, maybe he would take a chance on saying that if its not a tablet per se. Also, maybe the surprise is a laser projected keyboard. Maybe not, I want to keep my job also. 

Dr.Evil (not verified) | December 23, 2009 - 8:33pm

I think you miised the part of the article that descibes the person as "recently departed" which to me means that he/she no longer works for Apple. Besides, his/her revalation wasn' exctly earth shaking the way your comment was.

Olternaut (not verified) | December 23, 2009 - 8:38pm

How "recently departed" is he?  Aren't a lot of these NDAs for employees still in effect about a year after the person leaves the company?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 23, 2009 - 8:59pm

Most have a 18 month non-compete clause and three year non-disclosure. 

He lied enough not to get caught. Just like the person who leaked Apple would be hosting an event that was all about the "brick" right before the event releasing the unibody Macbook. I also find it funny how appleinsider.com uses the same quote but nothing is mentioned about a "departed" employee. They also quote a "current senior employee".

If a story seems fishy it is fishy.

My take for what it is worth is that Apple is drumming up attention before Google releases its phone the first week of January.

Apple is also getting a lot of very free publicity. The more rumors and lies agh I mean stories that Apple leaks out the better the press. Then bam headlines galore when the product released isn't a tablet at all but something far cooler and far more practical then as a very wise CEO once said " a tablet is good for computing on the toilet and that's it"

 

9to5Mac boon (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 6:34pm

You mean he's dead?

 

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 23, 2009 - 8:49pm

I would love to see live streaming from my Apple TV to the tablet or any media for that matter anywhere. That would be nice.

labrats5 (not verified) | December 23, 2009 - 9:35pm

I'm not gonna say anything about the mythical tablet itself. However, I would like to share this anecdote: over Thanksgiving, the subject of e-readers came up. My Grandnother said she had looked into them and decided that there was no point, since she can't read on the small 6" screens and can't justify spending $500 on a device with such limited functionality as the kindle DX. I asked her what she wanted, and she said all th e-reading stuff is nice, but she needs to be able to easily annotate. She also loves art books, so color is a must. And she wants to be able to borrow books for free like she does from the library. She wants the NY times, and the ability to read her websites and play her crossword puzzles. She is also an artist, so some doodling functionality would be great.

 

Just then my aunt chimed in to say, "wait til Apple reeases the tablet. It will blow everything else away".

 

Yes my friends. My 60 yer old non-techie Aunt has heard of ad is entused about a product that has not even been annnouced or confirmed to exist. God damn Apple kills at marketing.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 12:30am

Perhaps a webcam that can see hand gestures - e.g. a flick of your wrist will trigger a page turn.  Or proximity detection - have your hand close to the touchscreen and it'll zoom in to help with button touching.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 1:05am

Imagine typing with 10 fingers - zoom zoom zzoomm zoom !

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 1:46am

Eye tracking

dhfilippini (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 1:48am

... one word:

TEXTURE.

 

I bet the new touch device will feature texture that will dynamically map itself in conjunction with interface controls.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 2:08am

Haptic Feedback

 

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 7:50am

Hat-trick feedback. Three of everything.

Olternaut (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 2:29pm

And of course, this new interface technology will also find itself in the 4th gen iphone.

2010 for Apple is looking good.

QdK (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 8:52am

ONN did a news item on it: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary

 

The MacBook Wheel ;) 

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 11:11am

brought to you by Palm

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 12:29pm

i can't see a practical use for this thing, other than flopping out on the couch to surf the web and watch a limited selection of videos.  it will be too expensive as a toy, and too big to be portable.  pass. 

flame on.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 2:02pm

There is one thing Apple is good at ... thinking outside the box and as much as we love their devices they also restrict us to what Apple thinks is good and best for us, it's a love hate thing .. we love their products but bitch about if only they let us do this or that or unlock something ...     But thats what makes their products so great. So I think with the long rumoured tablet ...  we will again be blown away when they release it and everyone says Hell why did we not think of doing it that way it just makes so much sense ....

 

Be prepared to be blown away again ...

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 4:33pm

Maybe the tablet will be revolutionary like the iPhone.

Prior to the iPhone, I could just barely tolerate pulling out my Razr to make a phone call, much less hit "2" 3 times for a stupid "C" (ie 2,2,2 wait 2 wait 5,5,5 wait 5,5,5 space 6 wait 3,3 space 5,5,5 wait 2 wait 8 wait 3,3 wait 7,7,7). 

Now, I practically look for a reason to take out my iPhone. I can't really imagine going too far without it. Not only a phone, but a calendar, web, email, photos, and also not forgetting the 100,000+ apps (lots o` games :). 

I'm definitely in line to look hard. But I will have to be convinced that it is what I will need (ok, the lust factor may get the best of me).

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 24, 2009 - 7:23pm

The success of the ipod was because it took soemthing people were already doing - downloading music - and gave it a more useful, stylish tool. The same with surfing the web and the imacs and macbooks. And of course the phone, people already loved phones to death, apple didn't invent that, they just gave it a more stylish form and some nice innovations to bring things forward.

The problem with the tablet is that it is not zeroing in on something people are already doing a lot of. It seems like it's trying to not just invent a product but invent a use for it too which is a tall order. Most people still don't read ebooks, despite the hype, and that's not likely to change other than incrementally.

As to how we interact with it, my bet is that we scratch it behind the ears. Now that's something we'd never expect.

garybau (not verified) | December 25, 2009 - 5:24am

the tablet is '..set to do for publishing what the ipod did for music"

paraphrased from S.J. 2007

 

think school textbooks, magasines, newspapers

 

and you are beginning to get the picture!

paper print is dead or at least dying...with a terminal condition

JIT publishing to the web will replace it, however, the established legacy of published documents needs to also be accessed...and it's more energy efficient!!

save the trees...

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 25, 2009 - 7:24am

you gotta use your cock to interact with it