Hacker News Reader

Comment by wildwood | Hacker News Reader

Oh, my, yes. People have been wanting tablets for ages, and they've especially been wanting a tablet from Apple for ages.

It's possible that they might be able to mass produce something like this in the $800-$1k range, given that the base MacBook Air starts at $1800. And this would have a lot more in common, hardware-wise, with the Air than with the Touch.

To get sufficient buyers, I think they'd have to get it down at least to the $500-$600 range, or maybe even lower. And I don't think that will be feasible, especially given how people would expect to use it. The screen area is 4x, which multiplies requirements for memory and processor and network throughput and batteries... which all still has to fit in a sexy form factor.

Still, it would be sweet. :)

View on HN

TechCrunch recently specced something like this out and they came up with low cost model, 7in-9in, running Linux/Firefox, w/ WiFi for $200. Not bad...Of course, there's no way Apple will release a low end, low cost anything

Any idea what kind of battery life TC figured, for their spec?

Why would it be sweet? What do all you people who want tablet computers want them for?

I completely see that laptops with digitizer screens that can be turned into tablet form factor are enhanced laptops. Laptops+. Laptops 2.0. Yet they haven't really taken off, and nobody (except me) seems to think they're cool.

Instead people (you included) want Eric-the-half-a-laptop.

Why?

I use the iPhone for web browsing. My wife uses it a lot for e-book reading. It would be much better with a bigger screen. If your mostly reading with only a little input, a tablet about the size indicated is very interesting.

I also use the iPhone for web browsing, but there are scant few places where I am all of: not at home or work and didn't bring my full laptop, yet can't manage with just an iPhone and would have been willing to bring a midsized thing and wouldn't prefer device with keyboard. Which isn't to say I want an Apple-netbook, but instead dream of an even better iPhone.

The iPhone wouldn't be better with a 7" screen; it would be at home because it wouldn't fit in my pocket - after all, I really only want one convergence device and that's got to be centered around my phone because a) that's the main functional thing that I want to carry around everywhere and b) what good is a portable device without a cellular radio these days anyway?

However, I can probably sum up my reply to:

I feel unjustifiable angst that Apple might be spending some of their limited quantities of human effort building a wretched minitablet instead of any of the iPhone improvements I want to see, therefore I don't want it to happen, therefore I wont believe it even if trusted sources have actually held one.

The battery life on such a device would ensure that I have to keep buying a new to replace the old one that I keep smashing out of frustration.

You can buy laptops with digitizer screens now, but the software to take advantage of the digitizer is not as usable as the software that currently runs on the iPhone and the iPod touch.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com