Google’s plan is to offer a device that would function as “an e-reader that would function like a computer,” Vance and Bilton report. “Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device — said the company had been experimenting in ‘stealth mode’ with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.”
MacDailyNews Take: Eric T. Mole loves “stealth mode.” After all, it’s the very mode in which he operated while on Apple’s Board of Directors and also, of course, while on some other “excursions.”
Google’s tablet UI concept demo:
Direct lonk to video via YouTube here.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple leads. Google follows. As usual.
And, Microsoft says, “Hey, no fair, Google! Following Apple around like a brain-damaged, three-legged puppy dog and calling it ‘innovation’ is our ‘strategy.’ And, we like it. We like it a lot.”
[Attribution: The Huffington Post. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Robert S.” for the heads up.]
How is this Google copying Apple? Apple are not the 1st company to create a tablet computer. It also looks nothing like the iPad.
I agree that the timing is ‘odd’ but Google is an Internet company, so they were bound to move into phones and tablet devices. I think the release of the iPad has made Google rush to get this out, before the iPad takes up a huge tablet market.
It is too big I think, but if it was smaller, I’d be interested.
Google is too into the cloud to have anything but a 3-G tablet
I certainly don’t see this as a competitor to the iPad. If the concept video shows us anything, it’s way too big. However, I do see this concept as a possibility for future desktops. Think about it:
Right now the iPad case will open up into a wedge so that the iPad is lifted up in the back and easy to type on and look at on a table, right?
So, how about having a big screen do the same? How about having the iPhone OS on a table computer this big with a wedge (stand) to raise the screen? Onscreen keyboard? The onscreen keyboard goes away on command. Everything is touch-based. The iPhone OS with more power becomes the new MacOS. The OS is out of the way. The apps are the star. Work gets done.
Seems like Apple could make something like this a reality. I have an iPad. I see that concept as the future of computing. I see the OS as it is now fading into antiquity and everything becoming touch-based. This would be the way to do it.
I have been wondering about how a desktop could become like this for a while since I saw the iPad and now have had my hands on it. With this concept, I now see how it could be implemented. How much easier life and computing could become, eh?
The gPad…. Ha, ha
Google, Hello Google —
Stop copy Apple!!!!! You’re acting just like MICROSOFT.
@BiteMe
part I: I don’t give a fsck
You forgot to say it doesn’t have enough buttons.
I have not ever missed having Flash video on my iPhone. I am ready to speculate that I won’t on the iPad, either.
No SD card reader?!?!? OMFG!?!?! Wow. I’ll never be able to get stuff on the iPad wireless using any of a number of apps..wait, I will. I’m sure that printing will be on that list soon, but I really don’t give a rat’s ass since I don’t ever print where I will be using the iPad (buses, planes, bars, my dungeon, etc).
part II: your brain is defective
I know you can only think in binary fashion, but some Apple fanboys actually don’t mind “competition” and actually don’t hate all other products. For instance, going by this video, on the new gPad I’ll be able to wear black latex gloves while I use the touchscreen. That’s pretty cool. It appears it will also have a copy of the iPad keyboard, so there will no learning curve. Also sweet.
Seriously, I have no problem with google and think competition is great because in the mobile device sector it just provides proof that just beating Apple with a spec sheet does not deliver the goods that consumers actually want. Though maybe you are enthralled by the rapture that is “The Social” and, from that particular heroinesque cocoon do not know that the iPod is still around.
If you are unable to use the internet without flash and need to print and download photos from your SD card directly to your device, you want a laptop or a desktop. Even if the gPad can do all that, I would not be interested unless it beat the iPad in terms of UI, compatibility with my content libraries as they are now, and had all the apps I want available, and syncs seamlessly with OS X. Maybe by the time I’m buying my second iPad the gPad will be around to compare the two.
For something that large, customers will just get a 17-inch MacBook Pro. A desktop GUI is more appropriate for a device that shows separate windows and a file system, and has a large enough screen that makes having separate windows reasonable. This is why I think iPad (the current concept) will not get too much larger than a clip board (which is almost the current size). A touch-based interface becomes awkward, once the device becomes too large to hold or cradle in one hand and use with the other hand. If you always have to place it on a flat surface to use it, and move your arms all over the place on its large screen, then it might as well be a laptop computer with a desktop (keyboard/mouse) GUI.
However, I would not be surprised if Apple eventually released a touch-based device that worked well with a large screen. I’m just not smart enough to guess how that might work. But it won’t just be a larger version of the current iPhone OS, and I don’t think the user will be touching the large screen directly, having to suspend their arms in the air for hours at a time, and move them about wildly.
Sorry, “BiteMe”. You’re obviously trying, but you’re not nearly as clever or funny as Zune Tang.
Don’t quit your day job.
Or do you work the evening, or even O/N shift, at the drive-thrugh?
MDN word; “expected”. As in, “It is expected that pathetic Trolls will post on MDN.”
It is nice for desktop computers, but for tablet it will be difficult to open windows.
The day of the big race. Jobs is on the starting line. Others are in bed unaware that there even was a race. Race starts. Others are looking for their shoes….
I could go on, but you get the picture.
When will the rest of the world get it? You can’t lead if all you see is the back of your competitor!
I’ll pass in favor of the iPad — why pay good money for a want-to-be solution?
Damn, I thought it was an induction cooktop.
“Apple leads. Google follows. As usual.”
*cough* multi-tasking *cough*.. *cough* ads *cough*…