This is soooo old news...

If you want real mac news, when it can still be considered "news," than I suggest www.macminute.com, www.appleinsider.com, etc... What a waste of my time this slashdot link has been.

A "video iPod, with wifi, bluetooth, built-in microphone & iSight, and with iChat" sounds more like.....a tablet MAC!


Can we get off the iPod comparisons for once. If I wanted streaming video and wireless broadband internet access in my hand...why would I want it on an iPod?? Wouldn't a laptop or tablet COMPUTER be more up to the task??

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Guest wrote:
...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....?
...

Umm, no...The market has shown the exact opposite of the items you are talking about.
The same market has also shown that tablets are not selling well, nor does the market see the demand increasing any time in the near future for tablet pased computing.

THAT is what his point was. What was yours again?

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Guest wrote:
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.

I highly doubt Apple will ever bring a $2,000 remote control/iPod to market.

But now a manufacturer will finally make a tablet worth buying.

Does everyone have to take patents on everything possible to take patent on?

Patents are very bad and make technology progress slower, make end-user products less good and more expensive.

Yeh, invent a cure to cancer and AIDS and take patent on that, and take patent on seatbelts and why not underwear.

At least not for the avg. individual ... until iChat AV (after IM took hold).

And what about what iPods have done for (legal) music downloads and MP3 players?

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Watch it take off when Apple releases this pruduct.

You people are idiots. This is a design PATENT! Nothing more!

Someone earlier wrote that you might see a G5 Powerbook and 3Ghz PowerMac before this is released.

In reality, you will probably see a G7 Powerbook and 6Ghz Powermac before SOMETHING resembling the illustrations in this DESIGN PATENT is released.

"As Seen On TV" (a reputed Apple Employee) posted on Slashdot that there are clues hidden within the patent even though it's obfuscated by the tablet description.

To prove his point, he posted the link to an Apple patent for a rotary mouse that turned out to be the ipod clickwheel patent. Apple hid the design of their iPod Mini click wheel inside a mouse patent.

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=20030076303.PGNR.&OS=dn/20030076303&RS=DN/20030076303

So, the point here is, things aren't necessarily how it appears. Apple typically applies for patents that deliberately misleads competitors so they can't try to copy a concept. This means don't take it as face value. Yeah, it looks like a tablet, but is it a tablet computer, probably not in the traditional sense of what we've seen from the PC manufacturers.

My guess is that this device serves as an universal remote control (IR, anyone?) that grabs songs and videos from your computer and streams it through your network through Airport Express to your consumer devices. It just happens to be packaged into a tablet format.

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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.

Ummmm, No, I have seen those. It's called a LAPTOP. A tablet does not have a keyboard built into the device...hence the name. You write on the screen...like a...tablet.

This "electronic device" might be Apple's remote control for iTunes and the Mac. Ignore the size, as it is just one embodiment of the design patent.

See ongoing commentary on /. AsseenonTV wrote "don't jump to conclusions" and pointed people to a previous patent on an input device with rotary dial to control a scrolling display, which has a mouse with rotary dial as one embodiment. He implies that that patent was for the iPod clickwheel (which clearly fits the definition in the patent).

If so, then the patent references to the other tablets are just design-related, not function.

Apple releases iTunes 4.8 with video support, now they're granted a tablet-like computer patent. What if they're going to release a portable video player ? After all, the biggest problem with that kind of product is the small screen...

This is part of Apple's plan to become the hub of the home digital media experience. This device will act as either:

(a) a standalone computer/controller device for all the digital media in your home with an intermediary device (MacMini?) as the actual hub connecting the video, stereo, etc. and holding the content.

(b) The touch screen control panel/input/display for the MacMini-based digital media center.

Whew! What a refreshing attitude!

Glad to have you here...

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

Market forces only dispose of an idea for the moment, many ideas are recycled and recycled and recycled until it makes sense for the moment-there were touch screen LCDs in the early 80s and were a big failure yet you find them all over the place now or how bout the Newton and how many Palms and Blackberries do you see on a daily basis? To use the reasoning that if it was tried once and didn't quite work speaks to perpetuating banality over attempting innovation-I'd rather we had the later than the former.

Maybe an iTunes jukebox device... Tablets arn't really a hot seller. I'd love a iTunes interface for partys and such.

Wow. I've never seen so many posts in a such a short time. And I thought the iPhone got people excited!

"I cannot beleive you said that. iPod was a scam... mac mini is a scam.... Its apple's marketing department that make their rubbish and terminally flawed products seem "cool" and you idiots are stupid enough to waste your money on these poor products."

You've confused Apple with Microsoft, again. Microsoft is the one that gives terminally flawed products an enormous push with their marketing department, not that they honestly need to, considering they've already done one good job of locking consumers into buying Windows.

Say it with me, now. Microsoft. You are thinking of Microsoft. Not Apple.

"You are so ignorant and stupid that you fail to realise that you can buy things which are faster, cheaper, and easier to use. "

Easier to use? Sorry, but Windows isn't very easy to use when it frequently crashes, hides basic options behind "Advanced" buttons, and is generally designed with all the comfort in mind of a seatless bicycle.

Faster? Sorry, but Macs are the ones being clustered to form low-cost super computers. Not Windows PCs. Here's a nice reference for processor speeds:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/processors.html

"This product will be rubbish but you will all buy it anyway because you lack any sort of intelligence. "

I won't buy it because I think the idea of tablet PCs in general is retarded. Other people, however, WILL buy it because they enjoy quality. Which according to you makes them stupid.

"oh really?!?!?!? how about the dock on mac osX... remind anybody of the taskbar thats been on windows since windows 95??? no???"

The OS X dock reminds me of a project from NeXt Computers. I'm pretty sure that's also where Microsoft stole the TaskBar from. Or was it from someplace else? I forget. But I do remember that the Task Bar wasn't Microsoft's invention.

"if you press appplekey+tab you can flick between applications... REMIND ANYBODY OF WHAT WINDOWS DID AGES AGO WHEN YOU PRESS ALT+TAB?????? NO????!!!!!"

It's funny; using the Mac OS for so long prepared me for Windows, because Windows copied almost every single key command from it. Not to mention the Start Menu, which is nothing but a knock-off of the Apple menu that pops up from the bottom of the screen instead of the top. Then there's the fact that Microsoft copied holding the shift button to select multiple files, and... I'd be here all day if I listed all the things Microsoft lifted from the Mac OS.

Apple (well, Steve..) said 2005 will be the "year of HD video". So.. it's the HD tv of tomorrow, so simple.

Perhaps, it'd integrate iSight, too, so it's a video phone as well. And.. if they do it Right (which, often, they do) such a gadget could well be an iPod-like wave to new territories. Thumbs up!

"So, the point here is, things aren't necessarily how it appears. Apple typically applies for patents that deliberately misleads competitors so they can't try to copy a concept."

Maybe Apple's planning to make their next line of monitors ultra light-weight, detatchable from the base, and touch-screen enabled, with a wireless connection to the computer itself. Or just touch-screen enabled.

"So.. it's the HD tv of tomorrow, so simple."

Hey, maybe that's not so far off. What if it's essentially a video iPod, with input jacks that allow it to be used just like a normal TV. Combine that with the harddrive, and it could work like a combination TV/TiVo that can interface with a Mac for use with a possible iPics Video Store, and maybe even be used as a monitor/controller so that it would basically double as a tablet PC.

Tablets suck, even Apple ones. It's just not a good way to use a computer.

Apple definitely has to come up with something much better than the TabletPCs by HP, Toshiba, and Acer. Hopefully they'll include the possibilities of all connection options, i.e. bluetooth, Edge/EV-DO, WiMAX.

The operating system alone would revolutionize the tablet PC

I was reminded of Star Trek: TNG. The show had handheld touch displays, IIRC called PADDs.

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loki wrote:
The operating system alone would revolutionize the tablet PC

I've always said, OS X is ALREADY made for touch screens. With the way the Dock, the Finder, and the iLife programs are designed they're pretty much set to be manipulated with a finger. With the big, bubbly icons and controls there's very little you'd have to change.

I'd love to see a touch-screen aware OS X that allows you to use the mouse AND a finger. So, for example, you could use the mouse to select a song in iTunes and while you're using the mouse to set a star rating you could hit the "play" button at the same time with your finger. Current touch screens would cause your cursor to jump to that point. A well-designed OS could be programed to NOT move the mouse but to simply activate the button you've hit. Or imagine simply using both hands to drag clips around in iMovie.

I've always said that's what the next iMac should be. If they actually did something like that then I'm sure a portable version would be very popular too.

That's been the real issue to Tablet PCs. Don't convert a regular laptop into a tablet PC and charge me three thousand extra for the use of unique little tools that don't really improve the way that I work. I would make it into a file server for fast file exchange and the sole purpose of reading and viewing documents of all kinds with some light editing. I'd include both Bluetooth and WiFi for conductivity.

Could this be the vPod/Document reader? Apple's iTunes now offers video files with album downloads. The next step would be DVD quality video downloads. Something a lot more realistic that HD movies for download. All G3/G4 are able to view and playback DVD quality videos but only the G5s are able to play HD.

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Anonymous wrote:
The next step would be DVD quality video downloads. Something a lot more realistic that HD movies for download. All G3/G4 are able to view and playback DVD quality videos but only the G5s are able to play HD.

That makes sense. Really, there's no point in having actual HD video on a small screen. (Small compared to a television, I mean.) When you blow video up to 40" or more you can really see the difference between SD and HD. But on a 15" laptop screen the difference is not nearly as great. Sure, the difference is still there, but at that scale you're spending a lot more bandwidth for only slight gains.

DORKS

JUST GO TO THIS LINK FOR A PHOTO http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/breaking_news_apples_real_tablet_display_grid_computing_connection/

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Anonymous wrote:
DORKS

Heh heh...it beats the alternative, that's for sure.

A design patent is not the same as a utility patent (the type one normally associates with a new and unique invention). A design patent is on the non-functional aspect of the product - i.e. the container.

Apple could also benefit from integrating this tech into the iMac G5 series as well as their monitors.....


..or the iPods. Replace the buttons with one large screen.

Newton Reloaded, perhaps?

I'll make a small bet that Tiger will be history before the iTablet hits the shelves.

I have been waiting ofor one of these for sometime. As an artist I can justify the cost.

Have fun waiting. I have one already. It rocks.. Don't be a hater

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Guest wrote:
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.

This statement is well observed. What I'd like to see is a touchsensitive WiFi Screen for a Mac Mini. For those instances where a keyboard and mouse are needed I'd want to use bluetooth between those and the screen which relays everything back to the mac mini via the WiFi.

For more sophistication how about a Mac Terminal Server that can serve more than one WiFi screen. Great for mulituser households.

This is NOT a tablet mac. This is the rumored Video iPod. Think about it...

Touch screen buttons = cool
large display required to enjoy movies or music videos = obvious

By disguising the Video pod as a tablet mac and by catering to everyone's fantasies, Apple has cleverly concealed the patent's true purpose. After all, the patent was filed as "electronic device"... kinda ambiguous, dont'cha think?

Unfortunately, this patent was filed before some reports, that Steve had axed a pen-based project and publicly announced (again) that Apple will not make a Mac Tablet because there would not be sufficient demand.<br />
In response I've decided to "rally the troops" and put up a petition to show Apple, that there are more than enough potential Tablet Mac users to warrant a product.<br />
You want a Tablet Mac from Apple - Sign the petition!

Petition:
http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/tablet_mac/

Petition Status:
http://www.thetabletmac.com/content/blogsection/4/42/

It's an interface for a system. It hosts the video subsystem and input subsystems. With Bluetooth for input transmission and advanced wireless to carry video signals from a "base" computer and the ability to switch between available "Bonjour" hosts. This is the full size version. The iPad will follow this iTablet.

This will replace the tablet PC as the new paradigm for mobile computing.
Code Name: Tabla Rasa.

An Apple a day is good for you.
Happy Camper

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Guest wrote:
A "video iPod, with wifi, bluetooth, built-in microphone &amp; iSight, and with iChat" sounds more like.....a tablet MAC!


Can we get off the iPod comparisons for once. If I wanted streaming video and wireless broadband internet access in my hand...why would I want it on an iPod?? Wouldn't a laptop or tablet COMPUTER be more up to the task??

As processors and RAM grow ever faster, and more compact, for portable use I'd rather have a package that slips in my pocket. Vertical applications for such a device, which is lighter and far less intrusive than a laptop, would be a goldmine for 3rd party developers. Doctors are already using pods to carry and transfer medical files. What Dr. wouldn't want the ability to instantly conference with a specialist, while offering an iSight view of the patient? Imagine police officers with the ability to conference calls with visuals of suspect? Use your imagination.

Perhaps it will have a fold out stand or one that you can use like alot of table photoframes. And a USB or Bluetooth keyboard & mouse for when you want to use it as a standard computer mode. Then just pickup and walk around in tablet mode.

Would be very cool. Wireless around the screen, bluetooth, wireless/wired lan and a good powercell. Probably use a similar hardware to the Mac mini for video and processor with a laptop size or even smaller harddrive and so-dimm ram.

How can you patent something that has already been developed as a product. It even mentions HP / Compaq's tablet. I wonder why they even bothered...

"How can you patent something that has already been developed as a product."

Apple didn't patent something that's already been developed as a product. It's a design patent, not a utility patent.

Well I can undestand not having a Federation badge on Figure 9 but why not give him pointed ears at least?

I think apple will make a high speed airport for video transmission to a display device and the tablet will be able to access "screen data" while the hot and fat CPU will be remote. So. I wireless screen. Just my thoughts and I am sticking to it.

There is a difference between a technology patent and a design patent and they are meant to protect very different things. Further patents aren't granted based on who makes something, rather that it is deter

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Guest wrote:
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.

There is a difference between a technology patent and a design patent and they are meant to protect very different things. Further, patents aren't granted based on who makes something, rather that it is determined that the technology is sufficiently unique and non-obvious. Tard, indeed.

I agree that Apple really made disk-based players take off after they were introduced by others, especially, Creative (five years ago, the 6 gig Creative Nomad was one of the hottest gadgets and broke new ground, and we looked at it like WOW, 1000 SONGS in a unit the size of a CD player?! Wicked!). However, the Tablet has been embraced and pushed by Microsoft big time for years now and they just are not selling. I love the idea of a tablet. I bought a Graphire tablet and love both using the pen for navigation and the cool art I can do. Imagine the fun I could have drawing right on the screen. But the average user is not going to be doing anything like this at all.