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Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Tablet is ‘most important thing I’ve ever done’

Monday, January 25, 2010 · 2:16 pm · 44 Comments

“Fueling expectations some more, a new tip today [via TechCrunch] hints that even Apple chief Steve Jobs has high expectations for the tablet rumored to be launching at Wednesday’s special event,” Electronista reports.

Electronista reports, “Several eyewitnesses, allegedly including Apple executives and Jobs’ friends, say they’ve heard Jobs state that the project is the ‘most important thing I’ve ever done.’”

“Jobs has long been rumored as having devoted full attention to the tablet, especially since his return from medical leave in June,” Electronista reports. “Most believe he last gave a similar level of care during the development of the iPhone.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Just in case expectations haven’t been set high enough.

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Comment Feed

44 Comments

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True Believer

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 3:59 pm · Reply

I hear this tablet will revolutionize human existance and will take us to the next evolutionary step, homo sapien superbilis. That, and solve every problem.
KenC

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:03 pm · Reply

Nonsense. The iPhone is the most important thing Steve has ever done, because it laid the groundwork for the Canvas.
bizlaw

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:03 pm · Reply

The tablet is going to need storage like a laptop, not 64 or 128 GB. If it’s going to handle movies, a new media format for magazines/newspapers, music, photos, etc., it will need serious storage space. You can’t be connected all the time or have everything streaming all the time; over-the-air connections simply aren’t that good yet and consumers won’t accept not having access to their stuff.

This may well be Jobs’ most important achievement, if it indeed hails the introduction of 3D multi-touch interfaces. That’s a huge shift in computer interaction, one which (if accepted) will put Apple in the driver’s seat for years to come thanks to patents and other legal protections. It will be something Microsoft can’t copy.
Demon

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:05 pm · Reply

The iPhone is the Jesus Phone (not an Apple label) and the unannounced iSlate is being called the Jesus tablet (again not an Apple label). Then along comes Google suffering from an inferiority complex no doubt attempts to coin the Nexus One as a Super Phone, what’s next for Google and companies like it that try to generate and coin their own buzz phases for their products? Complete an disastrous product failures just like the Zune. Ballmer labeled it’s wireless song sharing feature “Squirting” after all who wants to Squirt crap to each other (ok, I guess there are some that might get into the whole scat squirting thing but, still it’s not a very big market). The Nexus One Google’s Self declared “Super Phone” is following the Zune path. Once customers realized that the Super Phone was buggy and had no real customer support, meaning it wasn’t so super, after all. Just an over hyped Google/HTC average and was more of a Joke Phone without the laughs.
spinaltap

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:12 pm · Reply

Only two more sleeps to go…
MacDust

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:13 pm · Reply

Enough about the tablet. I want iLife ’10 to include editing of iTunes Extras in iMovie/iDVD
medelegant

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:13 pm · Reply

There has been so much speculation around this device and so many rumours that I can see that it will be very difficult to live up to any expectations being set from all this hype.

Apple is not run by a bunch of iDiots. It seems to me that Apple would not allow the hype to run so amok as to allow the announcement to be underwhelming in comparison. This new product will shock the world – it must or Apple will be seriously damaged. With everyone’s imagination running rampant, and this showing up in the mainstream media on a daily basis, surely Apple would have to put the brakes on this with some sort of statement or denial.

As for the operating system to be used? Apple has always maintained that the iPhone OS is in fact Mac OS X. It appears in all their on-line sales training literature as Mac OS X – noting that the iPhone browser IS Safari. This new tablet will run Mac OS X…
There will be lots of RAM, lots of storage and a decent battery for long run time.
Buster

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:24 pm · Reply

Steve…the most important thing I want you to do is….focus on your health and live a long life. Giving only half your attention on a product is more than any other CEO giving 100%.
The masturbating bear

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:31 pm · Reply

A close associate is good friends with a very high exec at our favorite company. That person confirmed the news. Of interest is that my associate was also told that a stream of trucks have been arriving at the Apple campus in the past weeks filled with books to be scanned.

On Wednesday, don’t just look at the hardware. Give deep consideration to the alliances and partnerships, and how developers are involved. Think of the soon to be announced new product as the castle, but every castle needs a moat surrounding and protecting it. You can be sure that the competition will be responding quickly with me-too products of their own. But it is that moat I just mentioned that will give Apple a strong competitive advantage.

And keep asking yourself, why is Apple building a large data center in the southeastern US? Sometimes, the most significant things in an Apple announcement are barely mentioned, much less noted and understood by the media, analysts and pundits. This could be the case on Wednesday.

Finally, remember that what gets announced is merely version 1.0, for all that infers. That it the announcement will happen is of course highly significant. But think ahead 5, 10, 20 years from now, and imagine what will be. Imagine the unplanned and unexpected advances that will relate to the announcement. These are interesting times.
Rot'nApple

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:36 pm · Reply

Until the next new idea product launch…

Kind of like saying with the new Intel chip, the new MBP has the fastest speed ever… until the next Intel chip in the next MBP…

I wonder if Steve will dust off his iPhone Keynote where he talked about ‘Every once and a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything… One’s very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. 1984 intro’d the Macintosh… and changed the computer industry. In 2001 intro’d first iPod… and changed the music industry. Today were introducing what would be the iPhone…’

Now fast forward to Wednesday keynote and it might go like this… ‘Every once and a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything… One’s very fortunate if you get to work on just one of these in your career. [Apple is fortunate in that we have had several.] 1984 intro’d the Macintosh… and changed the computer industry. In 2001 intro’d first iPod… and changed the music industry. In 2007 intro’d the iPhone… and changed the smartphone cell industry. Today were introducing what would be the Tablet…’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASkis57blsc
KiLleR

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:37 pm · Reply

@Ringgo

His real name is Steve…
Noodlefarmer

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:50 pm · Reply

Patience my children
bjh

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:54 pm · Reply

I suspect that the tablet will be more laptop-like than iPhone like. Hence the need for storage. And multitasking.
Big Als MBP

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 4:56 pm · Reply

@ Rev. Dr.,

“That’s got to make Lisa feel really good about her place in his life.”

Wadaya mean? He named his first real computer after her.
MDmac

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 5:21 pm · Reply

Simple.

Pick it up.
Speak clearly, e.g., “Mac Daily News”
Voila. Start viewing/reading

Speak clearly, e.g., “New York Times”
Voila. Headlines?…Sports?…Sunday Edition?…”yes”
Start viewing/reading

Speak clearly, e.g., “Avatar”
Voila. Grab your 3D glasses

Speak clearly, e.g., “Mail”
Voila. Dictate an email
Speak clearly, e.g., Send

Speak clearly, e.g., “Pages”
Voila. Start dictating your novel
Speak clearly, e.g., Edit
Voila. Multitouch key board
Speak clearly. Submit for publication
Voila. Collect royalties from iSlate Store

Speak clearly, e.g., Apps store
Voila. Enjoy, as fast as you can skim through the half million choices

All automatically connected to your preferred internet service provider via Wi-Fi or 3G.

Now if you could only hide it from the rest of the family.

Maybe not all there by Wednesday. But soon.
acid

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 5:30 pm · Reply

I think children and the elderly may be a big segment that will get and benefit from a tablet computer. I look forward to teaching my mom how to use a computer without having to learn what is a hard-drive, why right-click, or the whole window-file-menu paradigm.
Mac Man By Choice

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 6:50 pm · Reply

I disagree with this quote, whether Steve said it or not. I’d say beating a very deadly form of cancer should top the list of his achievements.

Still I can’t wait to see the tablet, if it really exists!
Brulek

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 7:28 pm · Reply

talk about whipping a bunch of people with obviously way too much free ‘brain’ time into a state of almost religious fervor…I guess this way, even if the device does’t meet expectations, since some people have so much emotional investment in it, they’ll convince themselves that it does meet expectation just to vindicate the emotional investment. Think Clark Griswald in Vacation in particular. In essence, total devotion to the device becomes a self fulfilling prophecy from the messiah of Apple.
smaugthewyrm

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 7:38 pm · Reply

if a business should learn at least one thing from apple, it is how to build vaporware hype to a frenzied level.

this is amazing.

i am already feeling the Reality Distortion Field!

WOOT!
Jack

Monday, January 25, 2010 - 10:11 pm · Reply

I cannot believe you simple dweebs who think there is some kind of merit in guessing the screen size. You might as well guess Steve’s shoe size if you think price and size are what this is all about.

One of the many big features of this device is that it is extremely low power demanding, and can and will have its battery charged by ambient light and by the sound of your voice. Got a low battery…. dial up your yappity wife and stat talking!

It will also have a 60Hz (50Hz for Europe) harmonically resonant inductive charger inside it that will also charge the battery when near a 60Hz electric field, which is almost anywhere in any building. It actually will not be resonant to 60Hz because at that frequency there are coupling problems that are quite inefficient, but rather it will take advantage of the noise and how dirty our power line signal actually is, i.e. a myriad of harmonics of 60Hz (no such thing as a pure sine wave on the power lines).

If your environment is suitable, you will even be able to plug your iPhone or other small power USB (5v) devices into this device and have it charge your iphone, at least a slow charge.

This is just ONE of the many features. The screen size is hardly an issue except to you fanbois who think you are so clever at trying to guess it. Sheeeesh… or should I say WOOT or Lawl or something else real ‘internet’ trendy?