“During the past 6 months… I have pieced together the puzzle which portrays a picture of what can be perhaps best described as Apple’s rival product to the Intel Ultra Mobile PC [UMPC] initiative which has unsuccessfully tried to marry Microsoft’s Windows OS to a highly portable computing platform,” David Sieger reports for Seeking Alpha.
“My strongest piece of evidence came from a trusted tipster about 4 months ago who described an image s(he) had seen of a mysterious touch screen device larger than the iPhone featuring one distinguishing button or depression on each side,” Sieger reports.
“Then about a month ago, another source revealed that Apple has shown significant interest in a 5.2″ 800 x 480 pixel touch screen design by Balda, a German company and the current iPhone screen supplier,” Sieger reports.
“This second piece of evidence reveals the real purpose of this new device, an ultra mobile device occupying a position between the 3.5″ iPhone and the much rumored 7-10 inch Apple tablet,” Sieger reports.
“This new Apple device, which could be an Ultra Mobile Computer, has not been sighted out and about the Apple campus or even in the area normally designated for testing new Apple products, suggesting that it’s still in the software and hardware design period,” Sieger reports. “Once it’s physically spotted outside Apple’s secretive labs, we may see an actual product release of 6-8 months…”
Full article here.
Your Ultra Mobile Mac. YUMM!
@Jacob,
It’s called a tablet similar to Wacom’s. Picture a mouse pad that uses multitouch and not a mouse.
Make sense?
Go get yourself a ASUS eee pc! Man they rock! Google that shit!
@ Tommyr-people complain that the iPhone/Touch don’t have enough memory and you suggest a mini computer with only 4 Gb of flash memory?
“…cleary …the future….”
Oh, really, Kreskin?
@jake
“a mac in my pocket, then I can just dock it on my desktop”
dock your pocket?
Dang thing is too small fer me.
Could it possibly be used as a touch screen controller for all things Apple, a portable screen for viewing video around the house, and a video-conferencing device all in one? Not to mention games?
And when not in use, it makes a dandy picture frame while setting in its charger.
@Jeff: 800 x 480 is close to a 16:10 aspect ratio, which is a common widescreen movie format, and would have a resolution of approximately 175 ppi which is in the ballpark of recent hi-res Apple products.
800/50 = 16
480/50 = 9.6
So this rumor does contains some internally consistent data, although that does not mean that an associated Apple product will materialize. I like reading rumors, but I am willing to wait and see what Apple actually releases next year.
The “MacTablet” already exists.
http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook
Jacob and @Jacob,
You both miss the point that multi-touch is not a new way of doing the same OLD things but a new way of doing NEW things.
Who cares that a stylus points up smaller objects when there are no smaller objects in your interface?
Who cares that your mouse travels twenty inches on a trackpad the size of two, when there is no need for a mouse?
If you don’t believe the power/future of multi-touch, then you need to re-visit how cool things like Microsoft’s Surface and Andersen Consulting’s monitors in O’Hare Airport are.
And we all know neither of those things works as well as the multi-touch implementation on the iPhone. Since the iPhone, I find myself wishing that multi-touch existed on at least the following devices:
– ATM Screens
– Self Checkout screens on supermarkets
– Check-in screens at airports
And I find myself mightly pissed off that it doesn’t already exist on:
– Portable GPS device
– Fixed GPS device on my Acura
– On my MacBook Pro (lets face it, holding CTRL-double mouse to zoom on a webpage sucks compared to double tapping the screen)
– On the LCD picture frame my wife gave me as an anniversary gift
exc post !
Got any pictures?
What’s the hard drive capacity going to be?