“With the new tablet device that is debuting next week, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs is betting he can reshape businesses like textbooks, newspapers and television much the way his iPod revamped the music industry—and expand Apple’s influence and revenue as a content middleman,” Yukari Iwatani Kane and Ethan Smith report for The Wall Street Journal. “In developing the device, Apple focused on the role the gadget could play in homes and in classrooms, say people familiar with the situation. The company envisions that the tablet can be shared by multiple family members to read news and check email in homes, these people say.”
“For classrooms, Apple has been exploring electronic-textbook technology, these people add. The people familiar with the matter say Apple has also been looking at how content from newspapers and magazines can be presented differently on the tablet. Other people briefed on the device say the tablet will come with a virtual keyboard,” Kane and Smith report. “Apple is also negotiating with television networks such as CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC, for a monthly TV subscription service, the Journal has reported. Apple is also working with videogame publisher Electronic Arts Inc. to show off the tablet’s game capabilities, according to one person familiar with the matter.”
“The tablet, which Apple currently plans to ship in March, will have about a 10- to 11-inch touch screen, people familiar with the situation say… One person familiar with the matter said Apple has put significant resources into designing and programming the device so that it is intuitive to share. This person said Apple has experimented with the ability to leave virtual sticky notes on the device and for the gadget to automatically recognize individuals via a built-in camera. It’s unclear whether these features will be included at launch,” Kane and Smith report.
“Apple has also been planning a revamp of its iTunes music service by creating a Web-based version of it that could launch as soon as June, say people familiar with the matter. Tentatively called iTunes.com, the service would allow customers to buy music without going through the specialized iTunes program on computers and iPhones,” Kane and Smith report. “People familiar with Apple’s plans say a central part of the new strategy is to populate as many Web sites as possible with ‘buy’ buttons, integrating iTunes transactions into activities like listening to Internet radio and surfing review Web sites.”
Full article, which also claims that Apple is “in serious discussions with Microsoft Corp. to incorporate its Bing search engine into the iPhone as the default search and map technologies,” here.
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, no. We don’t care who they are; short of Steve Jobs walking in here to give us a personal demo, somebody can “share” (read: smear their greasy fingers all over) our Apple tablets when they pry them from our cold dead hands. We don’t even like people looking at our iPhones, much less smearing their H1N1-encrusted fingers all over them. Get your own tablets!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jack F.” for the heads up.]
“WSJ: Apple envisions multimedia tablet that can be shared by multiple family members”
As long as it’s not your family or your member. The Tiger Plan.
say people familiar… sick of reading this?
People familiar with analysts’ plans say they speculate to drive web site traffic.
Oh yeah…if Bing gets on my iPhone, there’d better be a way to change it from that to….well, anything else.
I’ll predict that you can share the content – without sharing the device – by using a wireless connection to mirror the tablet’s screen to your HDTV.
NBC seems suspiciously absent… bada-bump!
Those people say that those familiar with Apple’s plans for the device, say that these people are familiar with the situation and add that there are people familiar with the situation, that there are people that are also familiar with the gadget.
There seem to be an aweful lot of people familiar with Apple’s plans and new products, and they seem to be very chatty. Why can’t some familiar with the situation actually provide some useful information, like a video of the product actually working, instead of just repeating rumors we have already heard?
I heard a rumor – and it was true – that I don’t know jack shit.
“Apple has experimented with the ability to leave virtual sticky notes…”
Uh, wasn’t there an application called Stickies back in OS 9?
“For classrooms, Apple has been exploring electronic-textbook technology, these people add.”
Full Sail university has already converted to electronic textbooks. A tablet that would make a textbook more readable would probably be rapidly adopted by this progressive institution (they already provide MacBooks to all students). The outrageous cost of textbooks would make a tablet very attractive–assuming the cost was substantially less than a laptop–as it should be.
“People familiar with analysts’ plans say they speculate to drive web site traffi[c]”
And we all know the untold riches found in Google Ads on your Website right? LOL
@justme2
Stickies still lives on as a current app for OS X Snow Leopard. Look in your Applications folder.
That said, this tablet is not going to be like any old tablet. This will be a complete reinvention of the conventional thinking. I love how they sidestep the business market and focus on home and education. That’s really what is going to make this a success, as it has with their past products.
For iTunes.com… makes sense. One day many moons ago, Steve Jobs said that website-based music stores “sucked”. Well, iTunes.com will be the reinvention of that, thanks largely to their Webkit project pushing web innovation
I just hope nobody has a Surgeon that accidentally leaves one of these inside his patient.
Hah!
I reckon the iPad will open and shut like a paper book,
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around vertical hinges, instead of the horizontal hinges
like a Mac Book Air.
The reader will be able to rapidly scroll back and forth through the
pages of book, simply by swiping fingers back and forth across
the screen, thus emulating the way one thumbs through a
paper book.
Finished reading—just close it like a normal book.
Talk about he said she said….
…people familiar with the situation say… One person familiar with the matter said Apple has put significant resources into designing and programming…
Kind of like, His people contacted her people who then contacted their people who told me personally that the person first discussed how their people would interact with the other people, but they wanted to remain anonymous due to the situation. Huh?
One word “porn”
Media is getting desperate in their rehashes of this thing. They’re all starting to read like retweets of the same twit.
Number one mistake of the press= To think it’ll run iPhone OS
Number two mistake of the press= To think of the tablet as a standard tablet, like they thought the iPhone would be a standard phone with pretty design and an Apple logo
I want to see what comes out on the 27th. I have a MBP and a touch. Really do not need a tab/pad/slate/whatever. If my MBP ever dies, then I’ll get one.
The fact that people familiar wit all sorts of details and situations can’t keep their mouths shut, already makes them unreliable and untrustworthy…
I’ll wait for Rev.B.
Online betting company Paddy Power has opened a book on ‘What will Apple name their new product?’
Apple’s long rumoured tablet is expected to be announced on 27th January 2010. iSlate, iPad and iTablet are all heading the pack, which also includes a few unlikely names including EtchaSketch, a 500/1 bet for those feeling courageous or stupid.
Paddy Power’s current betting odds.
iSlate 4/5
iPad 7/4
iTablet 5/1
iPage 8/1
iPaper 10/1
iRead 12/1
iProd 16/1
iCan 16/1
iBoard 20/1
iCon 25/1
Magic Slate 33/1
The Apple Core 100/1
The Googlebuster 100/1
The Apple Peeler 100/1
The Microsoftner 100/1
iCan’t believe it’s not a newspaper 100/1
EtchaSketch 500/1
“Can I get a little ketchup to go with that plate of re-hash?”
“Waiter! More Kool-Aid for me and my cool friends! Snap! Snap!