I’m not the only person with lingering questions about the iPad, and there are far more than 25 things left about it that aren’t entirely clear. So I asked my Twitter pals–I’m @harrymccracken there–what their #1 remaining question was. I got lots of good responses. If you’ve got answers, or informed speculation, or even more questions, please dive in…
Tag Archives | Tablets
It’s Fast
Like John Gruber says, the iPad is a remarkably fast gadget. (The only thing that seemed less than near-instantaneous about it during my time with a unit today was the speed of the Wi-Fi–which is the one thing that Apple has the least control over.)
Gruber raves about the Apple-designed A4 chip at the heart of the device and says it looks to be the best mobile processor in the world; I wanna get a better sense of the real-world battery life before I come to any conclusions on that front. And presumably the fact that the iPhone OS was written for slow CPUs and is now running on a fast one is a major contributor to the overall sense of speed.
But if you’ve got $499 to spend on a secondary computing device and are trying to decide between an iPad and a netbook, the sheer zippiness of the iPad is going to be a major point in its favor.
I’m already having visions of the Stevenote in which Jobs explains to us why Apple is moving Macs from Intel chips to Apple’s own CPUs…
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Technologizer’s Apple Tablet Prediction Project: The Results!
Last week, I asked you to participate in an experiment: trying to predict a bunch of details about Apple’s tablet by voting on multiple-choice questions, then aggregating the results into a unified set of prognostications. Almost 300 of you participated. After the jump, we’ll see how you did. (Oh, and a note: Mike Munsell won our drawing for a $100 Apple Store Gift Card–congrats!)
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My First 25 Questions About Apple’s iPad
In the end, the one thing about Apple product events that’s utterly predictable is this: Some of the rumors will turn out to be true, and some of them will turn out to be false. And until you know which are which, it’s pointless to too many waste brain cells on trying to form any opinion at all.
This morning, we learned enough about the product we now know as iPad to start thinking about it seriously. But it’s not like all has been revealed. In fact, I’m still asking questions rather than coming to conclusions.
After the jump, in rough order of importance, 25 things I’m wondering about.
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The Color Era
Okay, one prediction while there’s still time to make them, but only one: From here on out, monochrome e-readers–even the good ones–are going to feel like part of the past, and industry will be surprised by how many consumers are willing to give up 90%+ of their battery life for color. Remember when the first color PalmPilot came out and the long-life monochrome models quickly went away?
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5Words: All Tablet, All the Time!
Game publishers await the tablet.
McGraw Hill equals loose lips.
One man’s tablet dreams detailed.
Visionary Alan Kay: tablet fan?
Tablet patents: still coming in.
Alleged tablet e-book pricing information.
Apple’s 1995 tablet concept video.
How Apple launches its products.
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The Long Fail: A Brief History of Unsuccessful Tablet Computers
“Insanity,” novelist Rita Mae Brown wrote, “is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” By that standard, the long history of tablet computers doesn’t quite count as insanity–manufacturers have tried a variety of form factors and features over the years. But the results are the same, over and over again: failure. It’s the classic example of a gadget that the industry keeps coming back to and reintroducing with all the hype it can muster–and which consumers keep rejecting.
Today, Apple is announcing its first true tablet. It took the company thirty-four years to get around to it, and it’s just about the only outfit in the business that abstained until now. Whether the device looks brilliant or misbegotten, all evidence suggests that there won’t be much that’s repetitious about it. Even so, it’s worth looking back at more than two decades of attempts to get tablets right–none of which really succeeded, and some of which failed on a monumental scale.
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One Stop for Apple Tablet Live Coverage
This is your almost-final reminder: I’ll be at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center tomorrow, Wednesday 27th at 10am PT to live blog Apple’s unofficial-but-yes-it’s-true tablet launch. Please join me at technologizer.com/appletablet for up-to-the-second coverage and conversation.
I kind of suspect that just about everyone who hangs out with me tomorrow morning will have multiple browser windows open so they can skim multiple sources of coverage. So what the heck–I’m making it easy. Our live page has links to the coverage pages at Engadget, Gdgt, Gizmodo, iLounge, Macworld, Slashgear, Ubergizmo, and Wired–and I may add more sources before the event starts. (Actually, feel free to suggest ’em.)
See you there, I hope!
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Apple Beats Earnings Estimates
Ahead of Apple’s anticipated unveiling of its tablet device later this week, the house lights have turned on, and the opening band is playing. Apple managed to (temporarily) break through the hullabaloo by announcing its 1st quarter earnings today.
Apple posted a net quarterly profit (US GAAP) of $3.38 billion on $15.68 billion in revenue. That earned stockholders $3.67 per diluted share as compared to $2.50 per diluted share for the same period one year ago. Among the highlights are:
- International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
- Macintosh computer sales increased 33 percent over the year-ago quarter. 3.36 million were sold.
- Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter (a 100% increase)
- Apple sold 21 million iPods in the quarter (an 8% decrease).
“We are very pleased to have generated $5.8 billion in cash during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $11.0 billion to $11.4 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $2.06 to $2.18.”
Doubtless to say, Apple’s tablet will affect its revenue into the foreseeable future – one way or another. We are also witnessing a shift to a product mix heavier in connected devices. One lingering question is: what is going to happen with Apple TV? Hopefully the company will answer more questions than it raises on Wednesday– the orgy of prognosticating is killing me.
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Tablet “Ad”
The fact that anyone’s giving even a nanosecond of thought to whether this might be a real leaked ad for Apple’s tablet is evidence that madness has descended upon us…