“It seems very likely that Apple will be introducing a new OS X machine sometime between now and the end of January. All indications are that it will be a tablet Mac with a 10″ touchscreen,” Dan Knight writes for Low End Mac. “Beyond that, speculation is rampant.”
“I can’t envision an Apple tablet being less powerful than the iPhone and iPod touch. If anything – if Apple hopes to compete with netbooks and small Tablet PCs – it needs to have at least as much processing power as today’s better netbooks,” Knight writes.
“My best guess is that the MacTablet will use the same 1.86 GHz CPU found in the MacBook Air, combined with nVidia GeForce 9400M graphics, just like every portable Mac made today. Only a dual-core CPU is going to provide the power to comfortably run a true multitasking operating system, and I don’t think it’s going to run anything less than Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard,” Knight writes. “Yes, I think it’s going to be a real Mac, not an overgrown iPod touch.”
Knight writes, “There’s no reason it couldn’t run the iPhone OS concurrently with Mac OS X, much as virtualizers allow running Linux or Windows on today’s Macs (or include an iPhone emulator). The power is there.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: One year and eight days ago, we reported a rumor that Apple’s secret product is ‘MacBook touch’. Said 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.
Our source subsequently told us that “the SuperDrive will not be part of the finished devices, ‘It was just in some of the prototypes for various reason(s).'”
Perhaps our source was just one October too early?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]