“Apple is one of the major leaders in the multitouch space and yet, the company’s desire to bring a full-fledged touch-screen device to store shelves has stopped with the iPhone. In fact, the most it has done in bringing multitouch to its computers is offering the functionality in the track pad on its MacBook Air,” Don Reisinger writes for CNET.
“But simply offering multitouch on a trackpad isn’t enough to make consumers want to flock to Apple products instead of HP or Dell machines,” Reisinger writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s Mac sales are currently growing at 20 times that of the PC industry, Don. That’s a considerable amount of flocking.
Reisinger continues, “Apple needs to embrace the fact that many people prefer touch-screen technology and create a Mac that offers the same basic functionality found in the iPhone.”
“Innovation has been a key to Apple’s success over the past decade and without it, the company would be nothing more than another computer vendor. But by releasing a Mac that eclipses the functionality of the tablet PC and fully harnesses the power of multitouch in a way that no one has seen before, Apple can create the computing world’s first iPhone-like success,” Reisinger writes. “And in the process, Apple could single-handedly propel the computing market forward into a new era where vanilla products are the exception and establish itself as the de facto leader in innovation.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple is already firmly established as the de facto leader in innovation, Don. As has been the case since the company’s inception.
Reisinger continues, “So what would it look like? Ideally, the computer could be controlled with the touch screen and if you prefer, you can type on it as well. For those who aren’t so keen on typing on a virtual keyboard, Apple’s touch-screen Mac should sport a physical keyboard that can be slid out. In terms of aesthetics, I’ll leave that up to Apple–I think it has proven to be quite capable in designing handsome products.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: 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
If it’s a “Mac,” it should NOT be touchscreen. The Mac’s “desktop” interface is optimized for using a keyboard and mouse. Apple will no doubt release a “tablet” computer, but it will be a scaled-up iPod touch, using the iPhone interface (after a few more revisions and enhancements).
Should Apple release a Multi-Touch™ touchscreen Mac?
Yes, Now, Laptop and Desktop!
I’ve been saying that I think Apple’s big September product line announcement which was referred to in the last quarterly profits report will be multi-touch as a virtual keyboard.
Using multi-touch on an iMac’s or iBook’s screen would be nice, but it’s completely impractical for input in most applications, like word processors, spreadsheets, financial apps, and even iTunes in its current state.
Touch screen iMacs have been around for awhile as aftermarket changes, and while they weren’t multi-touch, they are niche products. It’s simply not practical to have a vertical screen and try to work on your documents.
Adding touch is fine. I like the facility it adds to my MBP.
I do think that touch ‘only’ accomplishes many of the functions we need to have a fully featured computer with essentially no keyboard.
The essential added interface, as far as I can see, is voice recognition.
Any computer without the ability to take dictation is useless to most of us. The true ability to take dictation requires heuristics that computers are not able to muster yet.
A keyboard of some sort will always be required in any case but should not necessarily be built into a ‘tablet’ form factor but offered as a plug-in/wireless device. There should be a virtual keyboard, though, for mobility, not for inputting my doctoral thesis.
Oops!
I said: ‘I do think that touch ‘only’ accomplishes many of the functions’
I meant: I don’t think . . . .
“I think it has proven to be quite capable in designing handsome products.”
Understatement of the year. Possibly of all time.
I LOVE fingerprints and smudges on my monitor! It makes seeing and working SO much easier.
Sorry, but tablet computers have never really taken off. They can be perfect for certain vertical niche markets, but not as a general computing platform.
How many times has Microsoft tried defining, really just RENAMING, tablet computing platform specs? And how many times has it failed to catch on?
Even with Apple’s Mac OS X iPhone/touch platform there’s a limit as to what can be done with fingers gesturally. The next steps in speed and accuracy, unfortunately at this time, involve a stylus and a keyboard (for text entry).
Voice recognition works in some environments, but none that are public or involve working in group environments.
Gestural, touch-based computing has a ton of promise and Apple is really about the only player to watch to dfefine the next great interface breakthrough.
Belared hoorays for MDN, whose new mobile format is so much easier to load and read. Thanks a million
I’m ready to buy a Mac tablet – 12” x 9”, able to rotate from landscape to portrait, touch enabled with virtual keyboard, plus ability to use existing Mac wireless keyboards. With Kindle and other book reading capabilities. Of course with full OSX.
Glossy screen optional. Hahahahaha.
Unless I’m getting cash from an ATM, I’m not a big fan of touchscreens. There’s the ergonomic/repetitive-stress issue of possible shoulder, elbow, and wrist to consider as well as fingerprints on the screen. I do a lot of Photoshop and fingerprints on the monitor would not be an enhancement.
Looks obvious that having a “traditionally standing” screen as multi-touch device would be a flat nonsense anyway.
Maybe a 30 or 45° surface could be nice… yet not so many professional apps would take advantage of that technology by now.
since none of the geeks can answer the question “who’s gonna buy one of these instead of a laptop?” this kind of fluff should stay in Reislingers head.
Only if it is a touchscreen keyboard, not the main display.
Should Apple release a touchscreen Mac?
Sure.
Will I buy it?
No.
“If it’s a “Mac,” it should NOT be touchscreen. The Mac’s “desktop” interface is optimized for using a keyboard and mouse. Apple will no doubt release a “tablet” computer, but it will be a scaled-up iPod touch, using the iPhone interface (after a few more revisions and enhancements).”
you say tomato, or rather desktop vs tablet, and i say “who cares they are all running OS X.
the important difference between the desktop and the laptop and the as yet to offered tablet and the iphone/touch are pretty small compared to the overall picture. if they offer something in between the touch and macbook, in all details, they may have a winner.
if they offered a 7 to 8 inch touch screen, with more power and memory than the touch, but less than a macbook, and it got “touch” versions of things like keynote and pages, but could also run the iPhone apps like remote, they may have a winner.
people like to talk about finger prints and one poster mentions photoshop. this isn’t a desktop replacement people, anymore than the iPhone is. nor is it a phone replacement. it sits between them. talking about photoshop or repetitive motion is like talking about all the reasons a moped will never replace a 747. it totally misses the point of both devices.
the headlines don’t help. if they give the iMac a multi-touch screen, it will at best be a semi-useful add-on. if they create a whole new device in the space between the laptop and the iphone, a space most companies don’t even know is there, they create a whole new and active market.
think outside the box, skate to the puck, wake up.
“How many times has Microsoft tried defining, really just RENAMING, tablet computing platform specs? And how many times has it failed to catch on?”
i don’t know.
how long did MS fail to bring real web browsing to the cell phone? never really caught on did it?
maybe Apple should drop that whole “iPhone” thing i have heard rumors about……
keyboard shaped touch device on the way….. touch screen mac isn’t going to happen. Tablet, maybe. There will not be a need for a single screen only computer. The idea is ridiculous. could you imagine, you would have to stand or sit at the device. Motion sensitive later on, buy touch imput device is on the way, in multiple configs.
iCal it.
What’s with the bitchy “MacDailyNews Take” retort after every other paragraph? Reisinger isn’t slamming Apple, no need to get all defensive. MDN seems to get touchy when anyone insinuates that Apple is a minority platform. A great platform, of course, but a minority.
As to the first comment: It’s easy to grow fast when your market share is in the single digits.
And as to the second: Reisinger envisions a world where Apple’s great design becomes the majority. Right now Mac computers are a boutique, higher end product. We have seen from all the copycat attempts of the iPod and iPhone that Apple is continuously raising the bar of product design, and thus raise the mainstream to ever higher levels of experience.
Yep. I feel like the iPhone has prepared me for it.
I had thought this would be an interesting option, until I tried out HPs touchscreen desktop system. It became quickly obvious that on most desks, this would be ‘neat’ for the first day, and then the mouse and keyboard would take over.
Reaching out and touching the screen for periods of time will make you VERY tired.
So for a general purpose machine, I think it’s useless, but for specific applications (kiosks, tradeshows) itcould be useful.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think a multitouch input surface would be awesome.
Imagine a keyboard sized pad that displays a keyboard. Then when you go into an Audio app, a virtual mixing board shows up. In FCP, a jog/shuttle control, etc.
“That’s a considerable amount of flocking.”
Flocking… Flogging? Well FLOCK YOU TOO!
Quad Core, “Reaching out and touching the screen for periods of time will make you VERY tired.”
So you get VERY tired when you read a book that’s on your desk or lap? Just sit back in your easy chair with this ‘thingy’ on your knees.
There is NO way Apple is going to make an iMac-like system with multi-touch. Jobs and Ive are way to savvy to attempt an ergonomic disaster such as that just to apply their new technology to the Mac. I do think we are going to see some convergence of iPhone and Mac technologies in a new breed of computers, but maybe this line won’t even be called “Macintosh”. Almost 25 years later we forget that there were other computer lines at Apple before the Mac. Why not a new line of touch-based computers (done right) introduced on the 25th Anniversary of the Mac?
I’m amazed at the lack of ability to think outside the present user interface paradigms.
When you are writing something into a notebook, does that notebook stand upright at your desk, at your eyes’ height, about an arm’s length away from you? Who in their sane mind would ever want to put a touchscreen display upright???
For millions of years, humans have been working directly on the objects of their work. Cutting, pounding, slicing, grinding, polishing, writing, drawing; they used hand tools and interacted directly with those objects. Then, some fourty years ago, someone cooked up this counter-intuitive, completely awkward system whereby you would press buttons on some device (they called it ‘keyboard’, just like those musical keyboards), and something seemingly completely unrelated would happen on a glowing surface some feet away. Somehow, over the years, we all learned to correlate these two events and use this totally unintuitive concept. Generations of humans are now capable of rather quickly learning to work on one device and receive feedback on another.
(Multi)Touch screens will bring back the most intuitive way to work. We’ll have 24″ (or 30″) studio display – sized screens which will be lying on our desks (perhaps not much unlike the ‘Big-ass Table’), with which we’ll interact the way our great-grandfathers used to interact with work on their desks. Zero learning curve.
If anyone wishes to do any iCal-ing, here’s one for you: In five years, Apple’s entire computing line will be keyboardless and mouseless. From iPhone, all the way to iMacs and Mac Pros, with 30″ displays. Mac OS X will still be OS X, and user interface will be as intuitive as iPhone OS X. And it will be nothing like Windows Tablet, or HP’s touch-screen computers. It will be done right.
Another article based on nothing more than guesses…
Well, vast majority of articles about Apple’s new products are based on guesses, since, as we all know very well, Apple doesn’t talk about their new products.
This is perfectly valid type of journalism. It isn’t called reporting the news; it is called providing analysis and opinion.
@shen
> you say tomato, or rather desktop vs tablet, and i say “who cares they are all running OS X.
Who cares? There is a huge difference. They may be “OS X,” but the interface is completely different between a Mac and iPhone. The interface is what makes Apple products succeed, and Apple is too smart to simply patch up the Mac desktop interface to work on a touchscreen computer. That’s Microsoft’s game.
“Who cares? There is a huge difference. They may be “OS X,” but the interface is completely different between a Mac and iPhone. The interface is what makes Apple products succeed, and Apple is too smart to simply patch up the Mac desktop interface to work on a touchscreen computer. That’s Microsoft’s game.”
which is exactly what predrag and i are both saying.
over and over people pan the touch screen because the current interface model doesn’t work on it.
did Apple use the current interface model for the iPhone? no. it wouldn’t work. so why do you all keep assuming they will use the current interface model for a touchpad style of working? that would be stupid. and people keep pointing it out….
so why not use an interface that actually works on that style of system, and create a whole new model?
they seem to be trying hard, but all the mindless zombies keep saying it will never work.
….i guess that is why they are doing it in little steps. so that some day you will all look back and see this as a natural evolution you where involved with rather than the reality. that you fought it every step of the way.
what vision!
new rule, none of you who totally fail to have even enough imagination to consider this can ever make fun of Bill Gates again. after all, you all seem to think just like him!
I’ve been reading some other articles on possible Apple tablets that was posted on the internet today. Just google for em if you want to read.
Its looking more and more like the great iTablet or MacTouch will be debuting at MacWorld 09. This september will be about ipods for sure and quite possibly new macbooks. No tablet in 2008. 🙁
Oh well, most of the year is gone already so we might as well sit tight till MacWorld. OMGZ I can’t waittttttt but for some reason I’m enjoying the torture! 😀
Actually, Apple already has a design that is perfect, ergonomically, for a touchscreen Mac. It is the “iLamp” iMac. I am using one right now.
It has a wonderful, and wonderfully smooth, articulating arm: with one finger, you can pull the LCD forward about six or eight inches and down to about an inch above the surface of your desk; the LCD “floats” there above the desk at a perfect distance for using touch gestures. It is basically limitlessly and effortlessly adjustable. Then, with a finger you can slide it back to “desktop” height and distance.
People forget- many hated the new “computer behind the LCD” iMac when it first came out- because it was so poorly adjustable by comparison to the previous model.
If you’ve never tried moving the screen of one of these iMacs, you should- it really is a revelation. It has perfect ergonomics and mechanics. Apple could easily build a cooler, sleeker version of the “iLamp” with a touchscreen. A “desktop tablet”.
Sure, I won’t buy one but sure. My main PC needs the keyboard and mouse. Leave multi-touch for handhelds….
If my iMac had multi-touch, I would NEVER leave my desk… if you know what I’m sayin’ grrrooOOoowwww!
@ Olternaut
> This september will be about ipods for sure and quite possibly new macbooks. No tablet in 2008.
No tablet? The iPod touch is a small tablet computer. And it’s an iPod. If there is a new version of an iPod touch (or one with a larger screen), there’s your “tablet.”
Even in 2009, Apple is not going to be releasing a “Mac” tablet computer. That’s why Apple has no problem with the Axiotron Modbook
http://axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook
and is even cooperating with Axiotron to support the standard warranty for the MacBook parts they use. Apple’s eventual tablet computer will be the evolution of the iPod touch and iPhone, not a Mac.
Again, for all you idiots that don’t get it. Apple isn’t creating a touch screen monitor/iMac. It isn’t going to happen. Will they create a device the size of a keyboard (or about) that works like the remote app for iPhone/Ipod Touch, absolutely.
July 4th, I took 200 photos of the fireworks show here in Tucson, I took these photos with my iPhone. Try taking that many pictures with your iPhone and see how sore your shoulders get. Now after you do that you will understand why none of us will ever be standing or sitting in front of a screen that requires you to constantly swipe and pinch. It isn’t going to happen.
Or go use the HP touch computer, whatever it is called. And you will see how a great thought turns into a disaster of a product.
I’ll take a physical keyboard that has a touchscreen surface instead of keys.
That will be more than enough. I’ve played around on the HP PC with the touch screen monitor. It’s not all that it’s cracked up to be.
““Apple needs to embrace the fact that many people prefer touch-screen technology…”
This guy is totally (like TOTALLY) out to lunch. What is this so-called touch-screen Mac going to look like? An ergomically viable form factor hasn’t been invented yet. Maybe Apple will invent one someday, but that day is still far in the future imho. People cannot possibly “prefer” something they have never used. An iPhone is similar to a touch-screen Macintosh the way a pineapple is similar to a screwdriver.
It’s simply practical and realistic to think that they will very soon release all Multi-Touch iMacs, MacBook’s and other products. It would be dumb for them not to.
Perhaps a little bit more over the edge, but touchscreen seems to be yesterday’s gee-whiz. Tomorrow is the interface from sci-fi: a Minority Report virtual input is actually technically feasible now. But the software is what needs to catch up.
So what *is* Apple working on that they can’t let out yet? Specious speculation spews sporadically from the hacks with nothing else to write.
Mac’s should have a touch screen – a touch screen mouse!
The size of a mouse pad, the user can tap a mirror image of the deskstop! I don’t want my fingerprints all over my computer screen, but the mousepad can be wiped after finishing tasks, if needed.
On the new macbook pros, this new touch mouse replaces the touch pad. Double-tap to move the cursor to desired location. Hold down and scroll pages with a fingertip.
The new Macbook Pro Elite featurs a fullsized touch screen, replacing the keyboard. Tapping a selected corner of the touch screen toggles the keyboard to a mirror image of the LED allowing the user full touch access to the screen without smudging the LED!!! Perfect for arts and entertainment pros and those that don’t need the pressure of keys to aid in typing.
THIS WILL HAPPEN!!!
No. I don’t see how having to touch the screen when it’s farther than arm’s length away from me is going to be helpful.
Mark,
You’re onto something here….
Who in their right mind would ever want to have a touch screen upright, at arm’s length???
Let me try to spell this out a bit more specifically, since obviously many here aren’t able to imagine how touchscreen-only Mac would work:
The display would be thin, flat and HORISONTAL. It would be lying flat on your desk, just like an old-fashioned spreadsheet, a legal pad or a book. You’d be working with it precisely the same way you would an ordinary legal pad, piece of paper, a book, a spreadsheet, etc.
Is anyone here able to figure this out now.
I think you’re right on the money, Predrag, but I don’t think it will take five years.
I work with a lot of audio for fun–I would LOVE to have Logic work on a device like Predrag describes. Multi-touch faders and knobs woo hoo! Plenty of other great ideas out there as well, once you accept the inevitability of a paradigm shift.
Touch Keyboard. That is what they will do. Who the hell wants to smudge up their monitors or HDTVs or whatever? I don’t.
I own a busy pharmacy. I have worked on several different pharmacy systems one of which was touch screen based. We were evaluating several systems that were currently operating in stores in order to upgrade our store.
When we watched the touch screen system, it was really neat. It got me excited and served to sway my decision to install that system.
Now, of course, there are many variables that factor in the actual performance of “systems”. I gave a greater weight to touch screen ability than I gave to other factors, so that did affect our purchasing decision. However, we were only able to test the touch screen system for about 1 hour. It was fun and exciting while we were there and I couldn’t wait to get it installed.
It took only 1 week of full-time use to realize that the touch screen system was not what we needed. It wore us out physically. And that was just the touch screen part. (I would say that it did help with our exercise program though!) After 10 days, we were dying and had to beg another vendor to put us front and center to get another system installed ASAP. I would say that most of the problem was directly related to the pharmacy software programming itself not to the touch screen. After careful consideration and some real world experience, I would say to be real cautious and deliberate before jumping into another data entry paradigm. We are not at Star Trek levels yet. (Although I would love to have a transporter!!!!)
My wife and I have an iPhone. And we love them. But, honestly, I do not like to type on the touchscreen. I am a touch typist for the most part and would love to have an easier way to enter data. Voice(iSqueak), eye movement(iEye), body signals and gestures (iShrug) need to all be implemented. Way down the road probably brain waves or some kind of nerve synaptic interface will be utilized (iBrain). But for now we just move incrementally ahead.
So, until then, type away.
@Predrag
I guess we’re all too stupid to see the brilliance of what you can foresee, because none of us knew that you are in the prone position when you work at your computer.
What makes the Mac experience is mostly the software … the OS.
You can invent the greatest computer on the planet [read: the greatest hardware], but when the OS that runs it is wanting; well, you just loose out in the long run.
The proof is in the pudding.
to Upright:
It seems that you didn’t quite understand the concept. The computer of today splits your work into two components: one where you interact with it by providing input, the other, completely separate, that provides feedback. Current paradigm requires ordinary, upright seating, with the input device located below one’s hands, and feedback device at eye level, about arm’s length away.
However, before we learned to use these devices, we all used ordinary notebooks (and today’s generations still do that in school) writing stuff in. We do that seated at a desk, slightly leaning forward, against that desk, looking down at our work.
I’m not sure where you inferred prone position from this.
No touch screen desktop anything.
Pardon my lack of understanding but is it absolutely necessary that multitouch gestures be in contact with the screen in order to be effective? Could Apple not figure out a way of recognizing multitouch gestures ( by ichat cam for example) so as to use these commands within 6 inches or within 1 or 2 feet of the screen?
Imagine giving these commands by a wave of the hand IN FRONT of the screen. HMMMMMM!
Hmm.. a touch tablet to go the a keyboard and screen would be nice. Honestly, I don’t want my screen with lots of finger prints on it especially if I’m dealing with graphics. I’d rather use pen for those types of stuff… unless I’m doing finger painting and smudging I guess. But a touch interface for other programs like for music to move faders and controllers in addition to the screen would be very cool. Like the apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch.
Why is it that every innovation Apple comes up with MUST be integrated with a Mac? For years we’ve been hearing about a rumored tablet. Now with iPhone touchscreen technology all of these stories and rumors pop up about a touchscreen computer.
Apple DOES have a touchscreen, OS X – based computer. It’s called the iPhone.
another armchair product designer. it constantly amazes me how people who have no experience or expertise think that their opinions are worth something.
i bet he says “i don’t know anything about xxx but I know what I like”.
if you dont know anything about something, mate, keep it to yourself else you demonstrate your ignorance and arrogance to everyone else…
Apple are doing just fine without your “expert” advice thus far…
I think you’re correct in your guesses about the design of a flat/touch screen OS X comp, but I’ve got to say that I’ve enjoyed l.o.l. to all of the misunderstandings involved in other peoples responses. I hope you’re getting a laugh as well . . . but I doubt it. Good luck!
Really, the thing that makes the iPhone compelling and all other ‘smart’ phones lame is the experience. Apple did what no other company could do before, but create a fluid user experience that would resonate with users. They just didn’t replace the mouse click with a finger tap, they re-engineered the whole experience of human user interaction.
This is clearly the failure of the tablet PC. All they did was replace the mouse with a metal stick. Not very innovative. The UI is no different from a mouse interactive application. There is even a little pointer that follows the metal stick.
What was so revolutionary is that the mouse is dead on the iPhone. In a handheld device, this is easier to pull off. But for a whole computer to adopt this concept is a new challenge in itself. Where MS failed is where Apple needs to succeed. And simply introducing a laptop what tries to replace the mouse with a finger and not develop the experience to go with that would be as much of a failure as the Moto ROKR. Man, was that a joke!
The people at XOs are on the right path but they still have a long way to go.
I imagine that when Apple releases the TouchBook, this will be a revolutionary device where the human interaction is unparalleled. Or at least I hope.
I have to laugh out loud.
Microsoft failed to establish a market for tablet computers, so tablet computers have no market.
What bullshit.
If Microsoft made the first adding machine we might still be using an abacus.
Apple could do the Tablet Computer right, if Steve wanted one.
To FreddyThePig,
I don’t think that a 24″ touchscreen Mac will ever be marketed as a laptop computer any more than an iMac is marketed as such. Do you know anyone who has tried to use a 24″ (or any other size) iMac as a laptop computer? Why on earth would you then put a 24″ touchscreen computer in your lap??? For that purpose, you will probably need a (touchscreen) MacBook. The 24″ computer is for your desk (I thought this was rather obvious).
The general categories (desktop, portable/notebook, sub-notebook) will probably remain, as people will continue to need larger screen real estate when at their desks, and lightweight device when away from it.
Oh, and about the smudges; when you write on paper, leaf trhough a book/magazine, handle your daily work at a desk, do your fingers leave smudges? How do you solve finger-smudging problem in daily life? Perhaps the occasional hand washing might be enough, wouldn’t you agree?
Who in their right mind would ever want to have a touch screen upright, at arm’s length??? —predrag
This is exactly the point. Anyone who tries to use a device like this (vertical touchscreen) will quickly develop upper back, neck and shoulder strain. A truly absurd idea when you push past the “gee whiz” reaction and consider what it would actually be like to use such a device. “Welcome to Repetitive Stress City—Home of the Touch-Screen iMac.”
Unless I missed it all the posts, I’m surprised that no one has used the word that describes what you and Predrag are discussing. The reason touchscreen monitors won’t replace keyboards for regular computer interaction.
Ergonomics.
Wrist and forearm support is critical in typical, everyday computer usage. It isn’t hard to foresee that having to lift up one’s entire arm to properly use a touchscreen monitor is going to become (literally) a real drag in a very short time. I would guess that most people will get tired in less than half an hour.
Now… a keyboard with a touch screen surface on the other hand, yeah, that will work.
I agree – touchscreen on desktop is bad ergonimics. I don’t think I like it even if its horizontal on my desk as PreDrag describes.
I *do* like the idea of using touchscreen versions of the keyboard and mouse.
@HMCIV
Took the words right out of my mouth, y’did. Flock’im!
Has anyone else noticed that the only application there seems to be for multi touch on anything bigger than an iPod is moving random pictures around.
Here it is. The full Mac OS X in your pocket:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/gallery/image_med/15417
We need it for full blown NATIVE Keynote and PowerPoint presentations at our University. And we need thousands. And we need them now. Because even the MacBook Air is too large and heavy for us.
In a math class I’m in, our instructor uses a laptop that was donated by HP. I don’t believe it is officially on the market yet, but she has one.
You can flip the top section of the laptop around and close it. So it instantly switches to a tablet computer, with what looks like a 13″ to 15″ display, or a laptop with a full sized keyboard.
She can connect the tablet to a projector, and using a pen (part of the system), she can display presentations and write on the presentations in real time. It digitizes her handwriting, and lets her edit what she’s written if need be.
Slick as can be. Should Apple offer something similar? Well, not if Apple doesn’t mind being outclassed. I mean, it’s not just the technology, it’s the implementation. As long as the construction is solid (so that the computer doesn’t break in time when doing things like flipping the lid around), I’d say it’s too bad this thing can’t run OS-X. It’s that nice. Yes, Apple should make something like it, IMHO.
Should Apple release a touchscreen Mac? Yes, they can.
But are they sure people will buy it? I don’t think so. I won’t!
Fairings