Report: Apple working on large-screen iPod Touch
Could we soon be seeing a beefed-up iPod with a bigger screen?
(Credit: Apple)Apple is expected to release an iPod Touch device with a 7- to 9-inch screen in the fall of 2009, according to a report on TechCrunch that cites three independent sources.
One of TechCrunch's sources claims to have actually handled one of the prototypes, and Apple is talking with manufacturers in Asia about mass production of the device, according to the report.
Certainly at that size, the device would be more of a tablet than an iPod, and tablet rumors have been floating around Apple for years.
There was a fury of speculation in August after a number of Mac sites pointed to a U.S. patent application granted for what appeared to be the mythical Mac tablet. AppleInsider published a description of the device discussed in the application, which appears to bring a lot of the iPhone's multitouch functionality to a slate-like tablet computer.
Earlier this year, CEO Steve Jobs implied Apple was watching small-device categories like tablets and Netbooks to see if they actually take off as a mega-trend. But Jobs has also quickly shot down talk of an Apple-produced competitor to Amazon's Kindle, which has been interpreted as a sign Apple was doing just that.
However, tablet PCs in the Windows world haven't sold very well, and the concept has almost completely fallen off the radar screen of the PC industry.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
Those of you who haven't tested out the current Touch you can magnify the screen of a page like this on that small display so it's legible. Scroll around the page with finger commands. Even type in replies in comment boxes like this all by wireless. It's the iPhone without a phone, but you have 802.11 to connect you to the outside world. It also seems to have GPS when you do mapping, however I didn't see claims of it having the GPS. I noticed it knew that I had changed physical locations on the map grid and the map changed automatically.
how would anyone have known the iphone would've been such a success?
Apple fears the Flash...
:-(
Its not about Adobe not wanting to support the iPod or OSX. Sure Adobe and Jobs have a disagreement on some issue but the thing is Flash was, is and will always be available for Apple. Even Microsoft's Silverlight is available as an alternative to flash. THEY ARE BOTH READY FOR OSX.
The reason why Jobs doesn't want flash on the iPod is because Jobs is afraid that business from itunes would disappear as many sites that run on flash provide free access or even free downloads to music and other stuff. Playing free games online that use flash would discount iTunes downloads of games and other apps. Its one of his worst nightmares.
Jobs wants a full version of Flash for the iPhone, not Flash-Lite which is what every other smart-phone has. He's not against Flash, he's against a crippled version of Flash.
Personally, I'm against crippled versions of Flash too. Like I said in my earlier post, Adobe doesn't like to support anything but Windows, claiming that the "integration into the OS" makes it work better.
Don't believe me? Try out Flash on a Linux distro or on OS X and tell me there's no difference.
As I also said and have reiterated in this comment, it's not the OS, it's Adobe that needs to create compatibility.
1. I can use a keyboard with it, be it from a docking station, wired, or BT. Provide a port to stick a broadband modem in it - I will be able to leave my MBP at home more often then not.
2. Don't build it in mainland China - made in Junk-land will turn me off.
3. Don't lock down the OS quite so much - I would pay a premium to get a "Pro" version that will allow me to run apps on it.
I have an iPhone. I don't need a bigger iPod. I need a smaller version of my MBP. Nip this sucker in the bud - if you're not going to build it, Axiotron's got my money. Better yet, work with Axiotron to really nail this concept.
Affordable for how long? The entire US economy is contingent on the Chinese economy and the Chinese economy is contingent on the US economy. If we started manufacturing our own goods, not only would we be able to control the quality of those goods, but we would also be creating jobs for our own people to be able to afford those goods. Stop being so ignorant.
Apples products are a perfect example of quailty products MADE IN CHINA same with RIM's blackberries my 8700 is solid.
Most cars and trucks sold in America are made in America, even Toyota's are made my American workers.
Things made in China are generally made cheaply or have toxic ingredients(tainted milk and pet food, lead paint in toys).
There are factories in China with quality control and good working conditions, and then there are "factories" with almost forced like labor, where you either work at the factory or you do not have a job.
Things made in China do not generally have toxic ingredients, we hear through our media, about the worst of the companies and manufacturing procedures. Don't be so arrogant as to assume that America has better manufacturing then China, most of your products come from there.
Mark, Australia.
P.S reason I put foreigners in quotation makes in the last paragraph is because your all foreigners to the land of North America except Native Americans so stop ******** about outsourcing to foreigners.
At times I would rather have a quality product that was made in a ****** place than go with just a country that has a good name in the market but doesnt make quality products.
I am willing to pay more for quality whether it be made in USA or China.
Imagine taking that out in the public with you. You'll probably need a separate sling bag to carry it....LOL
I gotta say, for all the high price and snobbery of Apple, they have DEF got the industrial design down pat. No one can touch their designs.
Just wish I could afford them.
Use it as a touch screen remote for apple tv or the rumoured apple lcd tv,
access data on any mac within my network,
with a front facing camera it would be perfect for skype and ichat, it could make my iphone ring if i couldnt find it in the house (i have no land line and no friends so i cant use either of those),
i could put it in a sleeve on the headrest for people in the back seat to watch movies on in my car,
would make a decent sized ebook reader,
could be used as an electronic picture frame....
endless possibilities!
BRING IT ON APPLE
It can still fit into a jacket pocket, like a paperback or a Kindle. Granted it cannot fit into a pant pocket, but so what. If done right, this could be the thing that replaces nearly all of the still clunky/bulky input and reading materials for most (college) students, who?s large screen notebooks and incessant key-clicking have become a real nuisance in classrooms over the last 10 years or so.
What it does need to be truly awesome however is (finally) functional handwriting recognition. Only then will it be a true game changer, and basically become the eBook/Textbook reader and note taking device of choice.
I have thought for a long time about what it would take to make handwriting recognition really work (better than the Windows Tablet version I played around with a few years ago, etc.), and the answer is, the software simply needs to learn our personal squiggles from the ground up instead of always tying to be so ?AI? intelligent about it. Each letter and each word is simply a cypher of sorts. That way there could also be much better support for a personal form of shorthand and abbreviation expansion, etc. They would all simply be a form of writing ?gesture?.
(Presumably Apple still has all of the HwRecog research stuff from the Newton, no? Whatever happened with all of that?)
Then you simply need to train it for a half hour or so from the ground up, and create a very fast/elegant one-touch correction mechanism that basically says: We thought you said? please type what you meant here: ? with touch keyboard already opened. Every word, now matter how idiosynchratic your scribbles, could then be recognized. And it could autoexpand your oft-used shortcuts, e.g. ?M-A? to ?Mike Arrington? asf.
Imagine writing blog posts ?by hand? this way. There is a certain immediacy of scribbling your thoughts that in my experience the keyboard/screen paradigm cannot match. E.g. I do my best copywriting by hand, but am then left with the nuisance of having to get it back into digital format.
Add to this some innovative new software ideas similar to Apple?s existing touch paradigm, and allow e.g. circling of content to create Mindmap-like entries and line-drawn linking between them, and you would really have something that goes way beyond the current computing paradigm. Same for an annotation overlay of eBook texts/textbooks that is badly needed to make eTextbooks truly viable to use.
Please, please, I could really use this yesterday. I don?t see BTW why it needs to cost more than $500-600, the iPod Touch is now near $200 retail in the base version, and the only significant cost driver should be screen size and a bit more memory.
[Edited to remove prohibited spam.]
[Edited to remove prohibited spam.]
Still not "innovative", however. A patent granted on such a device would fail on prior art and obviousness.
1. Price, it was sky high price and people couldn't simply afford it.
2. No multi touch, compared to what IPOD touch supports today, so it was a tedious thing to work with it.
3. Crappy support: lets face it, Windows, ANY WINDOWS, sucks when it comes to touch support. OCR might be OK, but the rest is utterly crap imho.
Who wants to lug around a brick that does less than both my smart phone and my laptop for nearly the same price?
RIP, both tablet and netbook. Unless, of course, someone comes up with a better product? And who might that be?
And you know what? If Apple does it, and they're successful? We'll read so much drivel about how it wasn't their idea.
Gotta love it.
I suppose if one is used to using crap from Microsoft then, when someone comes up with a better idea, the best one can do is display their misery in a public forum. God bless them.
Unless you're just saying people would find something to complain about, in which case I agree. It sound like you're trying to state that Apple should get credit for the entire idea, when in reality, all they did was implement it well. If thats the case, you're wrong and ridiculously so.
In any case, the netbooks are still really useful and are still big sellers. I don't see why you think the market has already spoken on that booming industry. Hell, newegg recently added an entire section devoted to them.
As long as you are happy with a cell-phone like limitation of a virtual / slow entry keyboard, that is fine. If you want to compose a real message or use the device as a laptop then you're going to be severly crippled. That's why the tablet laptops that are convertible with the built in keyboards (Lenovo, HP , Dell, Toshiba) do well but others like the Fujitsu Siemens tablet only models do not.
Different needs for different people. Who knows, it might do well. It might not.
*YOU* are the reason most people that hate Apple, do so. If people didn't act as if Apple was infallible (which they aren't) and do have flaws in their products (which they do), people honestly wouldn't care as much. Its just that Mac users are so smug about it that its hard not to hate them.
Someone seemed to know. Prolly Apple's CEO. But, then again, going along with the mob mentality, it isn't politically correct to give someone credit for success these days. The best we can do is question their temperament, management style or health.
Better to have a full size (though still sleek) wireless keyboard to be carried in e.g. a backpack to class, while still having the smaller form-factor of the mid-size tablet to read on the train, asf.
- by JohnFredC December 31, 2008 7:16 AM PST
- It must must must have a camera. I would buy an iPod Touch in an instant if it had a camera. 2MP is enough for my purposes, though video is also important to me.
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- by dcmichie January 1, 2009 11:11 AM PST
- They need to up the 2MP in the iPhone to at least 5MP, in fact all phones need too, I'm tired of the 2MP camera phone ads. Ooooo a 2MP camera in a phone! Most phones have it.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (66 Comments)Brain dead not to include the camera in the original Touch. They'd have had my money already.