It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place - H.L. Mencken
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Tablets are coming, maybe
THE MACHINE that pumps out tablet PC rumours has been in overdrive this week, as a number of firms are expected to launch units toon.
Dell is supposed to be launching a tablet based on Google's Android OS in January. Though it is supposed to launch at the Consumer Electronics show, which starts in just a few weeks, a call to the firm's PR earlier today yielded a standard, "Dell does not comment on rumours or speculation" response.
Elsewhere, developers are said to be rubbing their hands in glee at the idea of the still-rumoured Apple tablet, which supposedly will look like a big Iphone or Ipod and find a home in the satchels of Nathan Barleys everywhere.
According to a report at Information Week, Walter Luh, co-founder of Ansca Mobile, which makes the Corona development system for Iphone applications, has confirmed that an Apple tablet is in development, but at the moment languishes in development hell. "Until the project sees the light of day, it's never a foregone conclusion," he said. "Steve Jobs demands perfection and if he's not happy with it, it's not going to ship."
Although the Apple tablet is still only a rumour, Asus is the subject of another rumour that suggests it will be making a device to copy that. Or maybe the rumour mill is just cloning rumours.
Today Digitimes reported that the unit was "inspired by the rumours of Apple's planned tablet," suggesting that the Taiwanese firm thinks that all other tablets are pish.
Speaking of hard to swallow tablets, the newly launched Joo Joo - RIP Crunchpad - is at the centre of another controversy. The Joo Joo, which was the Crunchpad until the two parties involved fell out over its release schedule and ownership, is already in the hands of some early testers.
Now, it looks likely to also come to the attention of legal experts.
Micheal Arrington, founder of Techcrunch and the brains behind the Crunchpad, has lived up to his promise to not take it laying down that his partners jumped ship taking the booty with them, renamed it, albeit in a silly fashion, and relaunched it.
Arrington now says litigation is imminent. µ
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Yarr.. CAN NOT STAND APPLE FANBOIS.
Macboi: Wahh everyone is copying everything about Apple, including our awesome tablet design!
Someone with common sense: uhh... Apple doesn't have a tablet...
Macboi: They will soon and therefore that means everyone copied us!
For how many years have we been hearing these rumors? Jobs and Gates each have a tablet obsession, the market has been repeatedly uninterested.
Oh, and my previous comment - the most sucessfull protable TOUCH SCREEN computer is the Nintendo DS. They are the ones who brought touch to the masses, all the gen-Zs will calmor to touch because of an Italian plumber. Not because of Apple marketing.
@Jason:
The first patent for an 'electrical stylus device for capturing handwriting' was issued in 1888 (yup, over 100 years ago) so Apple was not teh 'inventor'.
The first commercially available tablet-type portable computer was mased on MS-DOS, the GRiDPad in 1989, two years before Apple's Newton emtered development.
The most commercially successfull portable computer has been the Nintendo DS. Yup, it can boot/run other OSs and save to flash and run homebrew software. So you can't even claim that companies will be riding Apple's marketing coat tails.
No one is copying Apple. Maybe copying Nintendo or Elisha Gray, but that bloke's been dead for a while, so...
@Robert Carnegie: There are so many speech recognition software packages out there, I think that having one not pre-installed shouldn't be a huge burdon. It's just a matter of time before having one as part of the OS will be considered anti-trust anyways, just like bundling web browsers.
Asus has a tablet, the T91. Maybe they intend to make another one (besides the T101H).
I need to use a tablet PC and Fitaly on-screen keyboard because I have an RSI-type disability. I don't know if that means I'm Gen Z. It has been quite annoying that all the affordable mini-notebooks recently have been Windows XP Home machines without the speech recognition option of Vista or Seven. This may be changing at last.
I never understood the obsession GenZ-eters have for smudging their screens. It must have something to do with them growing up from under obsessive IT dads of early days harrassing them not to leave their greasy paws on the new 14" "crystal ball" screen :) Parental damage seems irrevocable :)
Notwithstanding the Apple fanbois of course, if Apple releases tablet the n it must be divine in nature. :) I cant wait to see an average palm-size person try to resize the picture on a 12" screen using the patented gyno move.
Yeah, well you can pries my touchsmart tx2 out of my cold dead hands.
loled at the nathan barley reference
I would not call Asus “copycats”, as they started the whole netbook craze. Apple never did build a successful netbook. Any tablet that Apple brings out will be locked into the whole Apple ecosystem, with no user-serviceable parts (and tamper-detection to boot), with no ability for the user to customize it to non-Jobsonian standards. Reason enough to avoid it for me.
Any Microsoft offering will just be another magnet for hackers and malware to steal your ID, data, and money (and so will only be an option for victims...don't want to be one of those, either).
I hope Asus comes out with an “EEEtablet” something like this:
1) Secure, customizable open-source OS (like Android, some version of Linux, or Chrome-OS).
2) Full chicklet keyboard underneath a flippable high-res 10" x 6" Pixel-Qi capacitive touchscreen (usable in full daylight for reading ebooks on the beach, and so on). Stylus included. Usable as a netbook or a tablet (taking over both market segments by making all other devices obsolete).
3) Dual-core Atom (or AMD) processor with some reasonable 3-D graphics capabilities and the ability to run full-motion 1020 p video).
4) Easily-installable apps (perhaps building upon the Android app library).
5) 12-16 hour battery life (achievable with the Pixel-Qi screen and new 32 nm processors).
6) GPS and map navigation.
7) Wifi and 3G (just insert SIM card). Bluetooth earpiece included (for audio and telephone calls via Skype or Google Talk).
I hope book publishers do not drink the Apple koolaid, and sign “special” agreements with Cupertino that will just have to be clawed-down later by regulators. Same thing for audio/video (downloadable and streaming). Open standards and no manufacturer lock-in or DRM are the future; anything else is just a waste of money and effort (such as is happening with the Amazon Kindle, soon to be known as “kindling” which vanished while spawning devices such as the EEEtablet).
it's funny that the apple tablet is already spawning copycats even though it is not even out yet.
Android / Chrome + ARM = Tablet = huge phenomena (kids clamoring for it next Xmas)
Windows + Intel = expensive crapola = mega-fail
:-))))))
And don't forget the 10" Pixel Qi screen has found a home in "specialized tablet devices with multi-touch".
http://www.pixelqi.com/blog1/
Hmmm....wonder what that could be...?