* Nehalem based MacBook Pro (I'm still waiting til June, heh)
* iPhone OS (iOS?) 4.0 to FINALLY allow multi-tasking. Memory was doubled in the 3GS for a reason right?
* iPhone freed from the shackles of AT&T and allowed to roam on Verizon, T-Mobile and... Sprint!
* 128 GB camera toting digital compass wielding GPS utilizing 3.5 Generation iPod touch
* Mac OS X 10.7 Developer Preview (little early for this)
* Multi-touch optimized iWork & iLife 10
What I will probably see instead:
* Apple iPad Slate Tablet Niner with 10.1 inch screen, 1280x720 resolution screen, ARM Cortex A9 processor (maybe some Tegra2 goodness), dual cameras, 3G to any US carrier, HDMI output, scaled up iPhone OS with crazy amounts of multi-touch, touch proximity tech, doing fanciness with newspapers, magazines, touchy EA games, and e-Books and media, retail for $1000, $600 subbed, out in March. Which is fine I guess.
My problem is as an owner of an iPod touch, why do I need an Apple tablet? The girl has the always connected Kindle and books on the e-ink display are breath taking - Apple won't have this technology if they want color and video (unless they've been talking to the Pixel Qi kids). An LCD screen does not make a great e-book reader, but if it does a ton of other stuff I guess Apple is forgiven. I can already surf the web on the can, what revolution is occurring here that I'm missing? Didn't Jobs himself say no one reads anymore? Maybe he got into Twilight and Naruto manga ("wouldn't it be nice to have a device that can easily consume PDFs and JPGs for reading..."). For me to even consider this thing rather than just buy a MacBook that can do a TON more (you'll never see NES emulators in the App Store) it would have to be able to play my HD movies without reconverting and output in high definition via HDMI. I want Flash in my browser so I can watch Hulu on the go (or give me a farking Hulu app). Want me to play games? Give me buttons. Want me to type? Give me a Bluetooth keyboard - I can't type on the touch, you think I can type on a much bigger device? Give me interactive content like Wired and EGM (and Maxim, heh), that would be fun to read. Utilize those 2 cameras and give me for real video conferencing with a new souped up iChat. The girl wants kitchen software - throw that in the bag. Another suggestion would be a Minority Report style iPaint program using your finger for ultra precise complex PhotoShop-esque image manipulation. Just make it do something that my touch cannot do nor can a MacBook Pro - like 3D head tracking or automagically deliver pizza when it detects I'm hungry through it's back sensors and pixel cameras. :)
I'm not being a hater. The iPhone has come a LONG way from the initial release (seriously, no copy/paste nor MMS?) so my few qualms with it are no multi-tasking, no keyboard and ahem AT&T. Tomorrow could change that and my hater flakes could dissipate. However this Apple Tablet, I just don't see the purpose of it - what in the world could it do, in multi-touch glory, that would make me drop 600 to 1000 bucks? If it was substantially cheaper I could eat some crow, but this is Apple. I don't want a fancy pants iPhone OS, I'd rather run full Mac OS X and not be tied to Apple's draconian App Store model. All haterade aside, when the iPhone debuted in 2007, I was mystified - the significance of that Apple event was tremendous and I remember thinking this could change everything - and it did. A tablet? I don't think that will change the way I do things like how Apple changed the way I use computers and my phone. Steve Jobs has been quoted at saying this tablet is the most important thing he's ever done... really? My dreams of a true convergence device have been dashed before - I just don't think battery life and form factor are there quite yet - we're close. However, if Apple is successful in herding all of the book, magazine, music, TV & movie providers to make interactive content simple, legal and cheap to acquire AND fun to consume (I would subscribe to an interactive Dragon Ball manga in a heartbeat) THAT will get me excited. New, cool, flashy, cheap, widely distributed, easy to consume CONTENT across more than just this tablet is what has me a-flutter - content is king! I'll be waiting with baited breath - hoping to be proven wrong... and I'll be waiting for the 2nd generation Tablet too so they can get the bugs out like the first generation iPhone and touch ;-)
