What does the Apple tablet need to be?
There are a lot of rumors and opinions about what the new Apple tablet is and what it can do, but the more important question may actually be, “What does the Apple tablet need to be to succeed?â€
As far as is known today, the new Apple tablet actually is an iPod Touch on steroids, as one very early rumor had it. Since it almost certainly has a 3G wireless connection in addition to the normal Touch superpowers, we have a pretty good idea of what it can do, plus we know from supply chain leaks that it will be bigger and faster, which is where the “on steroids†part comes in. Let’s recap, then: we are going to have a bigger, faster Touch with an (almost) always on 3G wireless Web broadband connection.
Given those features, one can easily surmise the basic capabilities: Web browsing, email/texting, media of all sorts, and all of those apps. According to an MSNBC story, there are camps which feel that each of these capabilities is the most important if the tablet is going to make it, something like, “If the (insert capability here) works well enough, the Apple tablet will be a hit.†It is likely that everyone making any of those statements is wrong.
No single one of those features is going make a device like the Apple tablet, a device which needs to invent a whole new marketplace. It is all of those features, plus some others that Steve Jobs still has up his sleeve, plus a liberal dose of Apple cool, that will make the tablet succeed. However, any significant shortcoming in any of the basic feature areas could be enough to make the tablet fail. This new device needs several factors to make itself into a whole new consumer electronics category:
- Go-anywhere 3G wireless broadband internet (including VOIP), built in.
- Communications: email, texting and the afore-mentioned VOIP phone.
- Big-time media capabilities, including music, video, and print.
- The ability to run all the iPhone apps, plus all the great new apps that will be written for the tablet.
- The electronics coolness that only Apple can bestow on such a device.
If all of the rumors are correct, the Apple tablet will have all of these features, and in spades. If Apple did its usual masterful job with the broad strokes and the details, it will do them all well, and all of the hype will tell you that it already has all of the expected Apple mojo running overtime. Essentially, if the Apple tablet is what it is rumored to be, it is likely that the Cupertino geniuses have hit another mother lode like the iPod and the iPhone, this time with a device that is inventing a marketplace that was not there before January 27, 2010. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what all the excitement is about.
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February 11th, 2010
Good blog.
What do you think of the iPad Touch?
I tell ya, I was disappointed this thing could have been insane instead Jobs settled for a cheap device.
iPad Touch