Apple’s Mac tablet is already a game changer
No one satisfies with vaporware like Apple. This device hasn’t been seen let alone used by anyone, but pundits of every stripe are tripping over each other to declare the Mac tablet, a.k.a. iPod touch on steroids, the next insanely great thing from Steve Jobs and his merry band of elves.
CNN Money is running a bit of fluff on the impact of Apple’s unseen yet fully imagined Mac tablet. We don’t know whether it will be priced at the purportedly magic $600 price point or more fully valued at a very Applesque $1,000, but some of us already have already seen the future.
“This will be the next big thing,” said Laura DiDio, principal analyst, ITIC. “Apple is going to wow everybody with the tablet.”
OK, but will the Mac tablet save the publishing business like the iPod did music? Are we all going to suddenly realize magazines to go (a.k.a. a Web site) are really where it’s at?
“Apple will come out with the tablet and blow everyone away,” said Dan Ackerman, senior editor at CNET. “Instead of taking along a Kindle and an iPod, that [tablet] could become the device you carry with you.”
On to the chorus…
And, then to sum up and pull it altogether, we’ve got another person who gets paid a lot to produce memorable sound bites.
“The Tablet will be awesome, and my guess is that it will be an instant hit for people who loved Kindles and people who want netbooks,” said David Wertheimer, executive director, Carnegie Mellon University, Entertainment Technology Center. “But then again, what I can’t imagine, Steve Jobs often can.”
Analyst, editor and college professor, who’s missing? About the only people still unaccounted for are Steve Jobs and a long train of people waiting online around the corner and down the block in a city near you.
And, well, they all might be right, but the odds that Apple’s going to produce another world beater grow longer every time they get yet another device just right. Remember how reviewers and pundits alike loved the G4 Cube, but it failed to sell?
Perhaps it’s time for Steve Jobs and Apple again learn a little humility?
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November 16th, 2009
How can a non-existent product be a game changer? It only exists in pundits minds. The tablet concept sounds great to me, but there are so many people insisting that tablets are automatically failures to begin with. Apple is really going to have to do a lot to change these people’s way of thinking. I think Apple’s tablet close tie to iTunes and content delivery will do it. Yet there are those Windows people that claim iTunes is a bloated piece of software that is useless. I can’t possibly understand how they see it this way. iTunes seems to be the key to the whole mobile revolution. I’m waiting for this tablet and I’m hoping it is just a big-screen iPod Touch. That’s just me, because even Apple fanboys are hoping the tablet will run a full version of OSX or at least a 3/4 variant. The standard iPhone/Touch OS will be just fine for me.
November 16th, 2009
iTunes does suck on the majority of low power PCs out there and there’s lots of them struggling with XP aboard – no where near as good as my old 1.67 Powerbook. People have to put up with it if they want to keep using all those iPods but let’s face it, Macs handle graphics better on low power processors so we don’t see the same issues. My recent core2 desktop PC machine is ok with iTunes but still not as good as the OSX version on an iMac with it’s laptop innards – so maybe Apple has no incentive to streamline the app …. *cough* GetaMac instead.
November 16th, 2009
The iSlate will be fantastic. I know because I think it will be. I think it will be because I feel it will. I feel it will be because…
It will also make your morning hot chocolate, fix your sandwich for lunch, and prepare elegant cuisine for dinner.
Too much punditry, too much build up I fear. But the closing sentence is unfair to Apple “Perhaps it’s time for Steve Jobs and Apple again learn a little humility?” They’re not the ones doing the promoting… unless you’re arguing that you want this to fail– and that’s just mean-spirited!
November 16th, 2009
Apple has not announced, leaked, hinted, previewed, or breathed a word about a tablet device. That does not sound like vaporware to me.
Also, Apple has not predicted success, domination, perfection, or massive need for this device which they have not named, revealed or even admitted to be developing. Seems irrational that Apple should be lectured on humility by someone who quotes other people then blames Apple for the expectation this irresponsible speculation creates.
That’s the keyword for this op-ed faux journalism: irresponsible.
November 16th, 2009
@filecat13
I agree entirely. And the author of this column needs to take some of the blame for the beat-up. I go to several other tech sites quite regularly, and I don’t see the same breathless reporting of every mention of the fabled Mac tablet like I see here with Mr Carlson.
While I will read Mac.Blorge to keep up with things in the world of Apple, I find same of his repeated cliches irksome.
The one that irritates me the most is referring to Apple as “our favourite fruit company”. Sorry, it’s not my favourite company by any means, given that often its actions appear to be just as mean spirited as their arch-rival Microsoft. And it doesn’t produce fruit.
November 17th, 2009
Doesn’t satisfy the definition of “vaporware”, when Apple has never mentioned the device. Why would Steve or Apple need to learn a little humility? For what? Perhaps, the author should learn not to ASSume something before drawing a conclusion?
November 17th, 2009
So far, I agree with the comments much more than the actual article.
Pointless article but insightful comments about “journalists” who think they can lecture Apple on how to handle, uh, is it the public? The media? Or something else? About something that doesn’t exist.
Ah, who knows. My comment is about as relevant as the article but with one major difference. I wasn’t paid the big bucks to write this.
November 17th, 2009
I agree with KenC on this. “Vaporware” is when a company talks about a forthcoming product, hardware or software, then fails to deliver, or seriously underdelivers. This is frequently done to muddy the marketing waters for a competitor who has beaten them into production. It’s closely related to FUD as a strategy.
Apple doesn’t talk about future products. The only exception to this was the iPhone, and that was because it (like all phones) had to break cover well before release when they applied for certification for it. And of course, history shows, they did deliver. And how!
Apple has not talked up, or talked about, the tablet. It’s all been the media: speculation, deduction, and sheer fantasy.
So, not vaporware. Fun though!
November 17th, 2009
TUAW: iTablet. Is it real, and can I have one?
FSJ: Yes it’s real. Yes you can. As soon as we’re done and you cough up the money. My advice is go get in line outside your local Apple store now, so you can be the first to get one.
’nuff said. The line starts here.
November 28th, 2009
I do not think this is “vaporware” – it is rumoured that Apple are going to release a MacTablet in second half of 2010. There are pictures of it on http://www.MacTablet.co.uk
The interesting thing about it is that its not just going to be a tablet – its going to be BOTH – its going to be a normal MacBook style laptop with an external OLED screen for ‘tableting’. It looks really good. For sure I’d buy one.