Get ready for Newton 2.0 MacBook touch?!
So says our source — the same one who tipped us to wireless iTunes Store sales direct to iPod, iPhone a week before Apple debuted it — in staccato fashion:
Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at “low” price that will reduce margins. Apple wants to move these babies. And move they will. This is some sick shit. App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too. By October at the latest.
MacDailyNews Note: This is a rumor. We have no other information. We cannot confirm this information independently at this time, but felt it plausible enough to bring to your attention.
We are working to develop new products that contain technologies that our competition will not be able to match. I cannot discuss these new products, but we are very confident in our product pipeline. – Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, during Apple’s Q308 Financial Results Conference Call, July 21, 2008
Apple had to mention the “device” since it’s the reason for the lower guidance. Op gave out just enough, and no more.
Predictably, the hacks interpret this to mean that Apple is being coy and secretive and doing the hype thing. To what would they have Apple attribute lower guidance?
“How can iphone apps fit visually on a MacBook Touch? You would think the UI and layout would need to be redone.”
@MegaMe
Think Dashboard widgets, only they run as normal applications. The SDK would allow app developers to also run in larger/resize-able windows if they so choose, existing iPhone apps will be a fixed size, but newer ones would be able to resize.
I expect the iPod Touch UI to be used as part of many “convergent” consumer electronics devices that can benefit from Internet connectivity and a good UI.
We currently have Touch+phone. I expect Touch+RealCamera and Touch+RealVideoRecorder (actually probably a combo device), etc.
As if Apple would want to bother about a SuperDrive on a device like this when they didn’t even go for it on a MacBook Air. Apple doesn’t want to bother about discs anymore, especially not on a ultra-portable device like this. Don’t you think?
Lets take all the things that have been floating around and put them together. Apple was working on multitouch displays with plastic rather than glass. Apple aquires a processor company. They say Product Transition.
All this means that Apple is going to revamp the whole iPod line with multi-touch versions at the same price points. Except they will use a plastic surface rather than the glass type one that iPhones have.
As for a multitouch laptop. I dunno. I don’t see Apple doing that just yet.
The MacBook Touch will be like at pomgraphik.com ? really funny
@bizlaw and @Hopshortage:
I think the multitouch keyboard they originally bought Fingerworks for HAS to be about ready by now, so I agree with bizlaw on that one. In fact, I said as much just yesterday elsewhere on MDN.
I’ve seen rumors a while back about Apple getting into the TV business, but then they came out with Apple TV instead. Apple’s version of a TV would NEVER be just a TV; it boggles the mind just to imagine what they would include (HDMI, etc.). But I guarantee you this: Steve Jobs is ITCHING to move Apple TV from a hobby to a business before some other company finally figures out the living room game.
In thinking about the rollout of an Apple-branded TV, I agree with Hopshortage; for simplicity’s sake, they would decide on one size and roll with that…probably about 42 inches with some home server capabilities built in, and your iPhone as the remote (among other things).
Cool, very cool. Remember back in ’01 when the Apple Retail Stores were brand new, how they USED to carry other people’s MP3 players, but when the iPod came out in October ’01, that stopped IMMEDIATELY? Right now, when you walk in an Apple Store they’ve got a Sony TV set up to demo the Apple TV. What would take the tech world by storm is something totally unexpected like that from Apple…only Apple tech in the Apple Stores.
Hey, you never know.
Peace.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cool smile” style=”border:0;” />
Olmecmystic
If Apple does release something like this, I’ll be a very happy camper especially if I can connect it to the blue tooth keyboard. It was suit my school needs perfectly. (crosses fingers and toes)
-M
That would be freakin’ sweet!!!
While this product may be in the pipeline, I agree with those discounting this as a “key product transition”.
I agree with those that expect that the product line that will be changing is the iPod. It was pretty clear after the iPhone came out that the iPod line would evolve towards that device. There will be room for the shuffle, possibly for the Nano, but certainly at some point the classic will be replaced by whatever the Touch evolves into.
Recall Alan Kay’s (whose work at Xerox PARC had such an enormous influence on Jobs and the first Mac designers) original vision of the Dynabook, “a book-sized computer that could be used in place of paper.” A Mac tablet-like device could be seen as bringing Kay’s concept to fruition.
In one sense, a device like this could function as a combination Pod Touch, MacBook, and Amazon Kindle. With music, movies, and TV shows already in the stable, Apple could add the remaining major media (print) to its ITMS store. One could download a book or magazine and take it with you.
Another possibility could involve the report from a few months back about Apple’s patent application for an iMac-looking docking station. Imagine popping a Mac-tablet into such a dock and instantly having a full-fledged desktop machine (a la the much lamented Duo). If the price was right, I would think such a combo could have wide appeal.
Yeah, nice little trick there: OS X running iPhone OS X.
Not gonna happen. It’s the iPod Air.
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/and-so-the-ipod-air-is-coming-after-all/
Let me guess a touch interface would mean no copy and paste, and you know that is not a priority right now.
Lemme say my piece…
It WILL BE a new product. And yes it does explain the margin hit when you ALSO take into account that Apple is going to be at the same time slashing prices on various products. This is all out bloody aggression by Apple. No longer on the defensive and no longer satisfied with their passive gains they are going to launch an all out attack.
New products plus slashing prices on existing prices in order to gain huge market share. That is what is going to effect their margins. Its going to be an horrific WMD bloodbath! I’ll see ya when the smoke clears.
@MikeK
It will be a new Mac Pro.
Cheers!
Wow this is nice! Where can I buy this?
Not a notebook silly…its a Mac Tablet. A small clip board that you jam your finger against all day until you get arthritis in your finger joint….not gorrilla arm but gorilla finger.
Its cool anyway.
My dream:
MacBook-sized touch screen computer, LED backlight, mid-size SSD, limited ports (audio, single USB?), Bluetooth, WiFi, iSightCamera?, GPS?, dock interface points for both portrait and landscape orientations
Dock – charges and provides desktop functionality. Contains optical drive, major hard drive (1Tb), maybe a mirrored dual hard drive, good mix of ports, WiFi base station, keyboard & mouse.
Think I’ll hold on to my iPhone money for a couple of months.
“This is some sick shit.”
That sounds like a Zune attached to a Vista PC……
TT: Did you watch Dateline’s “Tower Dogs”? Or were you on it?
This is BS. What would PA SEMI have to do with this? A large form tablet-type or otherwise new macbook would no doubt use x86 processors from Intel, not some new ARM variant crafted with PA SEMI. I COULD however see a small iPod-touch type tablet using an ARM core, particularly the newer Cortex variety — possibly crafted by PA SEMI.
lame, its been done, its called the Latitude XT. apple needs to come out with it, and it needs to beat the size, usefulness, and price of the XT. ($2,100)
honestly…who exactly needs such a device? I don’t think it sounds like something I might want. Oh well.
Given the success of the technology, it’s just a matter of time before such a product comes out….
That doesn’t make any sense for 2 reasons:
1) They didn’t include the SuperDrive in MacBook Air to keep it thin, but they’re going to put it in a tablet? No way.
2) PA Semi makes PPC chips usable in portable devices like iPhone, but for desktop-like devices with full Mac OS X, Apple uses Intel. And… in Snow Leopard, there will be no support for PowerPC. So… no PPC here.