Dreaming of an Apple Tablet | Hacker News Reader

Dreaming of an Apple Tablet

maxvoltar.com

16 pointsJeffJenkins12 comments

Nop, too complicated for an Apple product.

It will be just a 10" iPad specially designed for reading magazines, newspapers and books (99cts on iTunes), playing movies and videos (1.99cts on iTunes), but above all, believe it or not...

...games!

On the spot!

I just bought an HP/Compaq TC1100 "slate" form factor tablet computer. It has a removable keyboard and a docking station that are similar to the scheme described in the article. (But without a larger screen, though you can use a larger external monitor on the docking station.) These things have somewhat of a cult following now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Compaq_TC1100

I can see why. This thing is awesome! I can do everything in terms of browsing the web with the pen alone. The handwriting recognition is phenomenal. Also, with the pressure sensitive pen, it's like I have a portable mini Wacom Cintiq, which I plan on using to delve into art and drawing.

The Windows Journal program even seems to be an attempt to implement the "Digital Moleskine" functionality: http://www.rohdesign.com/weblog/archives/001600.html

I just love this thing! The design is of the same rounded corners philosophy of the white iBook, but in grey. It feels wonderful. I wonder why more of these things weren't sold?

Implement something like this, but with a few updates and better integration, and it would be killer. For one thing, incorporate GPS and location services. Integrate that into the media player, so you can do searches like: "What was I listening to the last time I was sketching at my favorite coffeehouse?" Or, in a more serious vein, how about, "Give me the notes I made the 1st night of WWDC?"

I also plan on downloading the Kindle PC program for this thing.

My biggest wishlist item for the tablet is strong desktop Mac integration. I'll probably buy one either way but being able to use it in conjunction with my Mac would add a lot of value. It could be used as a auxiliary display, input device, and have strong software integration. For example, when it's docked it constantly keeps track of which tabs I have open in Safari so I can just undock it and have the same tabs open in Mobile Safari.

I'd love to see a hardware keyboard. It's a chore typing on the iPhone screen. In particular, I think you could mount a keyboard on the back of the device, so that half the keyboard was on each side with T, G & B being the top keys on the left side, and Y, H, & N being the top keys on the right side. If the keys were touch sensitive, a transparent soft-keyboard could be displayed on the front of the device showing your finger positions. That should make it easy to adjust and allow you to touch type while giving you visual confirmation of your keypresses.

What about just having blue tooth - and the capability of working with an wireless kb?

The use case I want something like this for is so that I can browse the internet and write emails from bed or from the sofa. A wireless keyboard would make it much less useful in these contexts.

I've been thinking about the keyboard issue, and I think that no matter what, the ergonomics aren't there for a keyboard, hardware or otherwise in fact. It's really inconvenient to type on a 10" tablet. It's almost impossible to do one handed (unlike the iPhone, which while slow one-handed, is very usable).

Add to the ergonomics issue the fact that keyboards are not very useful for languages like Chinese, and you have to ask if there isn't another way that they might do input. Apple already has tech on the new macbooks that lets you draw Chinese characters on the touchpad with your finger. My bet is that they repurpose that for other languages and include it in the tablet. Handwriting recognition was a failure with the Newton, but I suspect modern predictive text input can sort out some of the issues that plagued that early tech.

I have no inside information on any of this, but it just feels like something Apple would do, knowing how much Jobs hates buttons, especially physical ones.

I love this concept.

Back in the day I had a Macintosh Duo laptop that you just slid into a dock that included full ports, a better video card, etc and to this day I miss that set-up.

I like the idea, but thiss caught my eye:

> Next, imagine an iMac sans the internal computer, just a screen with some extra storage, extra RAM, a stronger video card, maybe even an extra processor, and a docking bay for the tablet.

What part of the internal computer is missing from that list?

Exactly. That "docking station" wouldn't be any cheaper than an iMac; if anything it would be more expensive.

He just means the hard drive with the OS would be in the tablet.

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