Of iPhones and Apple Tablets

International Herald Tribune has an article with excerpts from an interview with Steve Jobs. Jobs is asked some questions about potential products:

Q: Will there be an iPhone?

Jobs: "One never knows. We don't usually discuss products we haven't announced."

Q: What do you think of the tablet PC?

Jobs: "We're not sure the tablet PC will be successful. It's turned into a notebook that you can write on. Do you want to handwrite all your e-mail? We have all the technology ourselves to do that - we just don't know whether it will be successful.

If Apple ever makes an iPhone, I'd be first in line to get one. I recently got a Motorola v60. Its a decent phone, but thats it.. just a phone. I can't sync it to my Mac, can't store any addresses (only phone numbers), and can't organize anything. It'd be awesome to see a smart-phone from Apple because I have yet to see a smart-phone out there now that really appeals to me, and I'm counting on Apple to blow away the competition and release a killer product that will revolutionize the market (think iPod...)

Originally posted by nickmcghie
I'm counting on Apple to blow away the competition and release a killer product that will revolutionize the market (think iPod...)

Take an iPod, which has oodles of storage space, and a DSP. Give it Inkwell, Telephony, and an input LCD, and you have my pants dream...one empty pocket!

The tech is all there, it is just a matter of merging things successfully into one killer device.

I've said before, and will say again, if Apple can consolidate all my pocket junk (phone, iPod, PDA), I'd pay $999, and average consumers would likley pay $699.

Tribute? Don't you mean Tribune?

I think that what Jobs said clearly states that an iPhone will be coming out in the near future. I just hope that the price is less than what the Sony phone that works with iSync and Bluetooth. I guess that only time will tell.:rolleyes:

Interesting contrast. On the iPhone, Steve says they don't comment on unannounced products. On the tablet, he makes a comment. Sounds like the iPhone is on the way (existant but unannounced) while the tablet isn't going to happen. Pity about the tablet: I'd love to have a cheap device I can sit in bed or in front of the TV with while working. Doesn't need to be a laptop without a keyboard, it just needs enough grunt to send data over airport/rendevouz to communicate with a desktop: let the desktop do the processing, and have the tablet control it. The technology is indeed all there: Apple Remote Desktop, airport, rendevouz and inkwell add up to a very nice remote control device. Please can I have one?

Changing the subject, when are they going to release an iPod with a colour screen and the ability to play movies? Archos have stolen a march on them with the multimedia jukebox, which is ludicrous - a multimedia ipod should have appeared months ago.

Q: What do you think of the tablet PC?

Jobs: "We're not sure the tablet PC will be successful. It's turned into a notebook that you can write on. Do you want to handwrite all your e-mail? We have all the technology ourselves to do that - we just don't know whether it will be successful. [/B]

Just because we may not want to write all our email by hand does not mean there aren't an awful lot of daily situations where handwritten input makes more sense ... such as meetings and classes, when you don't want to interrupt what's going on with the click-click of keys while typing, or you may not want to display what you're looking at/workling on to any casual person walking behind you. I'd love to use my Powerbook on the subway, but popping up it's beautiful screen is like advertising "Hey! I've got a pretty expensive, yet lightweight and thin (ie easily concealed), laptop in case anyone wants to snatch it and run away."

There's no reason, with a tablet PC/Mac, to not support both handwritten and keyboard input. You could plug in a separate keyboard, have one built-in, or even use the tablet's display to use a virtual keyboard (the display is presumably pressure sensitive in order to accept handwritten input). You may not write much by hand in Cupertino, Steve, but you really should go out into the *real* world and watch how people actually do things ... then provide them with an elegant way to do it that makes money for Apple.

If you don't want a tablet PC, I'd settle for a Bluetooth pen as an accessory to an iPhone, which coulkd store my handwritten input for subsequent iSync'ing to my G4 for Ink recognition creation of PDFs of my input, as long as:
-- the iPone had some iPod-like storage (I probably don't need gigabytes fo storage on my iPhone, though)
-- the iPhone were a digital recorder (like my Olympus DM-1: 20+ hours of recording on a 128 Mb SmartCard) that iSyncs to iTunes (but use the DSS format instead of the bulky mp3)
-- design the Bluetooth pen so that it doesn't require special paper ... re-brand an OTM Technologies pen

As long as things will iSync up, I don't necessarily need continuous net connectivity ...

"We're not sure the tablet PC will be successful. It's turned into a notebook that you can write on. Do you want to handwrite all your e-mail? We have all the technology ourselves to do that - we just don't know whether it will be successful.

RIP iWalk

thanks steve, we were in need of the extra nails in that particular book-sized coffin. :p

Originally posted by robodweeb
I'd settle for a Bluetooth pen as an accessory to an iPhone, which coulkd store my handwritten input for subsequent iSync'ing to my G4 for Ink recognition creation of PDFs...

sounds like anoto to me

i_b_joshua

sounds to me like he is saying that that the iPhone is in development. Of course, Jobs is not stupid, and he could just be playing games with the interviewer.