Rumor: Apple Tablet in 2010 for $500 to $700
With all the talk about iPhones lately, we haven’t heard much about that Apple tablet we heard about a few weeks back.
Today rounds of new rumors say the Apple tablet is coming in 2010, it will cost between $500 – $700 and will “shake up the netbook market.” Last month people familiar with the matter said that Verizon would offer a media tablet from Apple, alongside an iPhone Lite. The tablet was said to be somewhere between the iPod Touch and a MacBook. Basically, a large touch screen media device for watching videos and playing music. At the time, sources told BusinessWeek that the tablet would also have 3G browsing.
Today those rumors were freshened up and thrown back on the wire with Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicting that Apple will launch the device next year, as opposed to the previously rumored June launch at WWDC. Munster said in a note that Apple is endeavoring to fill the gap between the iTouch and the MacBook.
“Specifically, we expect this to result in a larger (7″-10″) touchscreen tablet that will launch in 1H CY10,” ZDNet cites Munster as saying in a research note. “Additionally, Apple’s consistent message that it refuses to launch a 'cheap' portable netbook, and its desire to differentiate itself in a maturing market before it’s too late (similar to the timing of iPod and iPhone), plus its gradual addition of multi-touch technology to all of its core products (iPhones, iPods and Macs) leads us to conclude this product will be a touchscreen tablet (not a netbook),” he added.
According to Munster, the OS on this thing will be neither the iPhone OS or OS X, rather an adaptation that would bring an OS more robust than what’s running on the iPhone and optimized for multitouch.
We like the idea of a giant iPod touch for browsing and listening to music or watching videos -- but at $700? No thanks.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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mforce2 It's from Apple , of course it will be pretty expensive. People will buy it anyway though. Apple is good at selling expensive stuff.Reply -
dman3k It will be call innovation even though there are touchscreen netbooks and notebooks running on Windows 7 RC.Reply
If the Vatican hires Apple Marketing Team, I'm sure the Holy Roman Empire would be great again... -
jacobdrj The iPhone (with a dataplan, or without one) ends up costing around that much anyways.Reply
700 for a tablet is fine. The question is how good will recognition be? How powerful will the system be? How much battery life will it have? What apps can it actualy run? Will there be a keyboard, or will it be just a 'big iPod Touch'? -
stryk55 The interesting thing will be to see how Apple can truly differentiate itself for this product other than aesthetic design and the OS, given that almost all netbooks currently run some sort of Intel Atom set-up. Of course, by this time we could be in the next generation of netbook components...Reply
Would you pay the premium for the aesthetics and OS? Not me... -
alvine mforce2It's from Apple , of course it will be pretty expensive. People will buy it anyway though. Apple is good at selling expensive stuff.Reply
yeap and for people who only care about the looks and will not mind the premium rather than getting better internals -
jacobdrj saturn77A 7" screen for $700? LOL!It will fail.If the battery life is good, and it runs a dual core, with a half decent graphics solution, yeah, a 7" tablet is fine @ $700. This coming from an engineering student who loves tablets for note-taking and a paper-free enviroment...Reply -
This is all specultation and you can already say it will be overpriced and/or that it will fail?Reply
Apple is taking its sweet time but there are many markets they haven't invested yet like the tablets market. They do good with their other product lines, why would they fail?
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waffletronic The only way I'd buy something like this is if it had a stylus + multitouch. Multitouch is great for navigation and gross manipulation (not fine work) and a stylus would be great for writing/drawing. Preferably something like Wacom's Penabled stuff. I'd totally buy that in a heartbeat. But if it's just a giant ipod touch? No way.Reply -
tipoo I still like the Samsung Q1, its realy unfortunate that UMPC's like the Q1 never realy took off. Maybe Apple can do better.Reply