I will buy this 341 nanoseconds after it's released!

Definitely a scoop!

Now I figure out a justification to buy one

If they were granted a patent there must be something about it that is clearly different from and innovative over and above other "Tablet PCs".

Any hint?

this is old news. almost a year old. please.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/13/apple_tablet_mac/

http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/341/C3099/

like, it's a tablet... hasn't the market shown that they're not all that great anyway???

Why would you wait so long. Geesh this would ROCK!.

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Guest wrote:
I will buy this 341 nanoseconds after it's released!

I think that's in the patent somewhere.

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Guest wrote:
this is old news. almost a year old. please.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/13/apple_tablet_mac/

http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/341/C3099/

Actually, it's not old news, but the article as originally written didn't make that at all clear.

What's new is that Apple has been granted the patent, and some illustrations that demonstrate the product. The illustrations, in particular, are important in that they definitely show the product as a handheld device with a touch screen. This was not shown in the original patent application.

The article has been updated accordingly, and I appreciate the note!

Bryan
Editor
TMO

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Guest wrote:
If they were granted a patent there must be something about it that is clearly different from and innovative over and above other "Tablet PCs".

Any hint?

Think not tablet, but video iPod, with wifi, bluetooth, built-in microphone & iSight, and with iChat for the pod! With the last over wifi broadband, Steve's revenge on the carriers locking out Moto's iTunes cell.

No more blind dates. Just gotta stay home on Saturday nights, pop those zits, and watch some streaming videos of your favorite band<s>.

It should be noted that Tiger will be very functional with a touchscreen, more so that previous versions.

OS X Tiger would make it unique. I'll take six, please..

What is different? It doesn't require Windows

It will probably be a while before we see tablet Macintosh, if at all, these things take time. However, I am anxious to see what Apple is going to do with the patent.

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Guest wrote:
If they were granted a patent there must be something about it that is clearly different from and innovative over and above other "Tablet PCs".

Any hint?

Those are ILLUSTRATIONS, not "photos." Argh! Please fix headline.

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macnut wrote:
Now I figure out a justification to buy one

It might help if one was actually available for purchase.

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Guest wrote:
Those are ILLUSTRATIONS, not "photos." Argh! Please fix headline.

Good point, Guest!

The title has been edited accordingly.

Bryan
Editor
TMO

Think about it, people put a mac mini in their cars because of size and cost. Now with this (along as cost is ok) you can have a touchscreen and the computer for one price!

As far as the pictures are concerned the device is far too thick to be handable like the pic with the person shows. It would be too heavy to be handled like that. Just imagine to hold a Sony Vaio for quite some time and write something onto it.

hum.

Wonder if Apple just come out with it.

They got the printing industry in their hands.

Might help students hauling all those books on those poor backs.

I can actually envision something like this.

Just expand the ipod to a bigger screen and add touch to it.

</strike> Like a missing strike tag?

It's a Design patent which is really just a way of registering the way something looks, not how it functions. There does not have to be any functional improvement over existing similar products.

How long would it take if I decide to type my resume on a table????
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Just wondering....

macs suck .

Tablets are great tools but they're not the same tool as a normal PC. The market is still largely trying to sell them as an alternative to a notebook or even a full PC and they really aren't the same. Likewise they are not a replacement for the PDA. They are great for touch screen or pen applications and applications that are mostly viewing. They are great for mobile applications that require wireless networking and portability (ever try carrying a notebook while using it?). Once we start seeing tablets combined with voice command we'll see more of their possibilities reached I think.

They're perfect for lots of vertical apps for things that might replace old hand held charts and similar applications. They're also perfect for things like removable dash-mounted computing for cars, wheelchairs, etc. Personally I love them as personal communications devices. You can lounge with them and do online chats, web browsing, and media playback more comfortably than you can with a notebook.

Overall I like tablets better than notebooks but I don't think we've seen any really good tablets yet or really good tablet apps. Maybe Apple has some ideas on those problems.

Yeah. Just like flash mp3 players and online music stores.

...like say, 18 years?

"Tablet: The Personal Computer of the Year 2000"

http://www.thearling.com/text/cacm/cacm.htm

whoopty freakin doodoo

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like, it's a tablet... hasn't the market shown that they're not all that great anyway???

the PC market has, because you have to run crappy WinXP Tablet Edition. While it's not *that* bad it's still XP. XP's GUI doesn't lend itself well to pen-input, however OSX is ideal (and has handwriting recog built in as part of the OS instead of some weird mutant extention like in Tablet Edition) I was planning on buying a Powerbook within a couple of weeks, but i may wait a little while (til the end of June or so) to see what i can hear about how fast this puppy can and will be brought to market. I just hope it's convertable...the sketches dont' show that, but i hope it is. all they need to do is put a swivel hinge on a 15" PB and integrate a pen-input screen

I want one for my tv room, hopefully it has a huge HD for music, what a great combo, Needs functionality to control tv, and components. Nice to check the net during commercials as well. Or to set in a stand in the kitchen for an online recipe.

Apple's UI has long had the makings of a good tablet or slate computer, with its fixed menu, large friendly icons, and InkWell built into the OS. They've just been holding off for one reason or another ... most likely because tablet PCs are still very much a niche market.

Doesn't stop me from wanting one badly, though

Where tablet PCs would really make a mark, is in education. The trick will be to keep the price point low enough to make it appealing to the education market. Economies of scale, though, are still keeping the unit cost of the input/display quite high. That's been the hurdle with Windows based tablet computers: too expensive for their most effective markets.


Geoffrey

See this site for a distinction...

http://www.bitlaw.com/patent/design.html

so what?
less powerful, ugly, slower and its built to run mac os (ew)
give me a laptop running debian anyday

Can we get a G5 Powerbook first? Come on. You giys are getting scammed. I like the idea as much as anyone, but I think we are being thrown a decoy.

Get the G5 in a PowerBook and Make a G5 3.0GHz PowerMac and then see if you have a need for a tablet?

If you have ever seen a Tablet PC, it has a screen that can rotate 180 degrees and slip over the keyboard and then you can rotate the screen 90 degress.

This concept looks like it is all screen, and significantly thinner than a Tablet PC. No keyboard at all. Looks like those pads that everyone carry's around on Star Trek.

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metavurt wrote:
like, it's a tablet... hasn't the market shown that they're not all that great anyway???

Sure. Like the market has shown that HD based mp3 players really don't sell all that great, that flash based mp3 players don't sell all that great, that online music stores really don't do all that great. This is Apple we are talking about, so what's your point....?

All all due respect.

With Tiger, you can now "Save to iPhoto" from any application's print dialog box. When could you possibly need that?

This "article" is a waste of time. What is the patent actually for? Is the author totally ignorant of the fact that patents are for technology?

If you could patent "Apple makes a tablet PC", nobody could violate that, because it would be "somebody other than Apple makes a tablet PC". The only way to violate a patent on "Apple makes a tablet PC" would be to be Apple, and make a tablet PC. Since they're Apple already, and Apple owns the patent, there'd be NO POSSIBILITY OF VIOLATION, and thus nothing to protect.

To completely deviate on a tangent, if Apple sold the "Apple makes a tablet PC" patent to someone else, then they (and only they) could violate this patent, as then Apple would be making a tablet PC, in violation of the patent.

I think I like this tard's idea of patent law -- I'm gonna go patent "Microsoft makes an operating system" and "Ford makes a car" and make a bunch of money.

Good size, touch controls, etc. Eh. Mebbe.

It's a rectangle!

poop

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Guest wrote:
If you have ever seen a Tablet PC, it has a screen that can rotate 180 degrees and slip over the keyboard and then you can rotate the screen 90 degress.

Hello! You are confused. There are many current tablet PCs that do not have a keyboard. I have a compaq at work for example! Many of them come with stands you and put them in where they sit on edge like a lcd monitor and you use a normal keyboard and mouse with them. This is not new.

There is nothing new here... (but then again we don't have all the details.)

Jorgie

iPod Helps Radiologists Manage Medical Images
http://www.rsna.org/publications/rsnanews/dec04/ipod-1.html

Imagine being able to access patient data over WI-FI...

I don't get this! Tablets are incredibly useful devices!

The problem is that most people have not even been exposed to them yet! I am constantly amazed when I tell people and show them what a tablet pc is and they say they did not know these things existed. And this should not be a surprise--I believe I have only seen a Tablet PC in a store once.

Almost everyone thinks these things are great once they become familiar with them. As far as I am concerned, this is just a case where the companies making the things haven't done a good enough job educating the average computer/laptop buyer.

As a guy said before, you wont see this untill you get a 3 GHz PowerMac and a G5 PowerBook. This is all bogus. Also, then you will see a new iBook before this comes out (taking into consideration they dont discontinue the iBook line )

Then... you get to the problem of portablity... I could see if you beefed the iPods screen to like a 3.5 inch widescreen display... but i dont belive that this could possibly be apples culprit to an "iPod Video"

It is assumed that Apple will release an iPod Video soon anyway, because of the new Quicktime compatability feature in iTunes 4.8.

I dont doubt that this is a real patent, but when it comes down to it. when will apple do it? they dont really have a market for it.... their market is not really buissiness people, but people in the entertainment industry! (iLife... and no more AppleWorks?!)



Its a Windows thing, and even they cant do their OWN thing right!

Where can I get one?

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The 180 degree rotating screen type of Tablet PCs are refered to as convertibles, as they can be uased it either tablet or laptop mode.

There are already Tablet PCs that resemble Apple's design, refered to as slates. I haven't seen any slates in person, but I know there are sites out there lisitng dimmensions and other specifications for Tablet PCs already on hte market.

The other, somewhat up in the air, point is that it appears Apple's design is completely touch sensitive. Sometimes the term is overused for any direct display input, but taken literally it would become hard to write since you typically rest your hand on the "page." I'm certain Apple will change that, if not already, to a digitizer "pen-based" system, or possibly integrate both, the latter overriding the former when active. Tablet PCs moved to digitizers, and away from resistave touch input, quickly after the first commercial generation because of input problems.

I really want one, please tell me where to get it.
Also why is my other post not showing up?

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I really want one, please tell me where to get it.
Also why is my other post not showing up?

Auto-Versicherung

That isn't true. Those are convertible Tablets. They're are many Tablets in the original slate form factor and they are very thin.

It always takes Apple to define a market. PC Tablets have had a luke warm reception. Watch it take off when Apple releases this pruduct. iPod was not the first MP3 player. It was the first decent one.