Re: [NTLK] No Rumor-Mac Tablet

This will be interesting on two fronts.

To make a really good tablet they have to do a little more than just
enable Inkwell. Have they been able to do some customisation of the
interface? I use my Mac everyday with only the trackpad on the
PowerBook and a Wacom tablet and it works well but chording with the
keyboard is still necessary (despite the buttons on the stylus) to
achieve the same results that one does with just the Newt stylus alone.

Secondly, will it demonstrate that there really is a market for a Mac
tablet and are they in danger from Apple releasing one if there is? I
don't see Apple taking risks with small markets like this and I don't
believe they would go down the route of a ruggedised variant either,
so the Axiotron is probably secure in its niche. But it might
precipitate an Apple ultra-portable or even a tablet in the future if
the market develops significantly.

Jobs is a canny guy and it will need more than just a change in form
factor for it to be sexy to him. There has to be some kind of fusion
with another aspect of daily life for which the tablet is a better
solution.

A tablet would now probably come in at the same sort of price the
Newton did when it was new and that didn't stop a lot of maniacs
(err, like me...) buying those ;-) OK, I have to admit that if a
slim, light Mac tablet were to appear, I would buy it for something
around $1k - but I'm just a sucker with no family to support.

Size will be everything. A little wider than the MP2K but all screen
and very thin would probably do the trick. Any larger than that and
you are looking at a MacBook (yuck, hate that name). Any smaller and
you lose the ability to decently web browse or do any real work and
you have a PDA, and Apple are not going to make any more of those.

Joel.

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