“Basically, take the iPhone’s newly-added video chat, put it in an iPad, and give the tablet a forward-facing 720p camera and you have the Cius,” Schenck reports. “The Cius can still connect to the Android Market for app downloads, but Cisco seems dedicated to avoiding the Cius becoming some generic jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none tablet with its HD camera and extensive communication options. While that’s going to make it stand out from the crowd, you can bet that it’s also going to end up costing quite a bit more than a run-of-the-mill tablet.”
Full article here.
Sam Diaz reports for ZDNet, “At 1.15 lbs., the device is an ultra-portable tablet that’s targeted at market segments that can benefit from real-time, video-based collaboration… It’s WiFi-enabled, comes with an accelerometer, has a detachable battery and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera.”
Diaz reports, “Customer trials of the device will begin in the third quarter, with general availability expected in the first quarter of 2011. Pricing details were not released.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nope. By the time Cisco’s business-centric, non-mass-market device would be getting up to speed, Apple’s iPad will do the same thing, almost definitely cost less, with easy and safe access to multiple times more apps, run on a better, more efficient processor, will be from Apple, not Cisco of all companies, while also being fully-compatible with the CEO’s Apple iPhone 4 which, oh-by-the-way, even if iPad never does, already offers video conferencing to business and every other user right now. Today.