This Guardian.co.uk article describes Steve Jobs presence at executive meetings and recounts his comments during a meeting with the National Institutes of Health CIO in 2002.
At the time, the iPod was just a year old, and the Microsoft had recently launched a tablet form factor PC. Jobs reportedly had a number of reasons that tablets were not a product he was interested in producing. These included
- small market - bad form factor - high wireless bandwidth not available - poor screen resolution for medical images
In September 2002, he made a similar public statements expressing doubts about the Tablet form factor
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
When questioned about the iPhone in the same NIH meeting, he described the convergence of computing and phones and said that product would "have to fit in your shirt pocket, and be better than either a phone or a computer by itself."
Readers should note that these comments were made in 2002 (almost 5 years ago) and may not be relevant today.
Friday November 6, 2026 3:27 pm PST by Juli Clover
When the iPhone Duo launched, we shared a list of some of the fun apps developers created for the new form factor. Two weeks out, developers are continuing to come up with fresh ideas, so we thought we'd share some of our favorites.
Games
Marbles Unhinged ($2.99) - Marbles Unhinged is a marble maze designed for the Duo. When you fold it, the floor turns into a ramp. If you stand the top...
Thursday November 5, 2026 12:59 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is launching five new products on Friday, November 6, following pre-orders that opened last week, including its first touchscreen MacBook Pro models.
The following new products will be available from today:
iPad mini with OLED display and A20 Pro chip
iMac with M6 chip
14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 chip
14-inch MacBook Pro with OLED touchscreen
16-inch MacBook Pro with OLED...
Apple plans to merge the iPhone's Action button with the Camera Control starting next year, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital."
In a new post on Weibo, the leaker claimed that a single press of the combined button would open the camera, while a long press would trigger the function assigned to the Action button. They explicitly clarified that the dedicated Action button would ...
