4 ms·

Alan Kay: With the Tablet, Apple Will Rule the World

45 points by pchristensen 17y ago

Maciek416 17y ago
With McGraw-Hill's CEO for all intents and purposes confirming this product to be real and running iPhone OS, I'll be very surprised, and saddened, if a shut-tight, app-store-limited device like this will lead to world domination. Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? Are only a small number of people going to own powerful computers with which they can do anything they want, with the rest going through app stores and the cloud? It sounded good to me before, but now that we may all be on the receiving end, it seems disheartening.
- axod 17y ago
  2 words - Web Browser. App stores are just a stop gap until web browsers catch up.
- mortenjorck 17y ago
  The real irony here is that Apple could end up accomplishing what ChromeOS was supposed to, better than Google was going to. That would be strange. That said, Apple's interest isn't in thin clients because once they're too thin, it gets pretty hard to sell you a new one.
  - mikedouglas 17y ago
    A lot of users are lost in the functionality of modern desktop operating systems. For Apple, this means a worse experience and lost content sales. For Google, this means lost advertising dollars. It makes sense that both companies would eventually converge on trying to radically simplify the user interface.
    - SwellJoe 17y ago
      This is true. I think assuming that Apple will remain stubbornly wedded to their hardware business, and its hefty profits, at the expense of being there for the thin/cloud future isn't giving Jobs enough credit. We already know he understands where things are going, because of the ever expanding iTunes empire, and because of the App Store. It's unfortunate, however, that Apple wields this knowledge to evil end rather than good. (It is evil to use near-monopoly strength to impose closed ecosystems on consumers and developers, in case anyone here isn't already aware of that fact. We mostly all agreed on this when it was Microsoft doing the imposing, but now that it's wrapped up in a beautiful package and presented like it's a bag of magic beans to a credulous audience at Mac World, many of us forget it.) Luckily, I tend to think openness wins eventually, even if we have a few detours along the way. Hopefully, the detour won't last much longer in the mobile space. In content, it's finally starting to get straightened out. Consumers may be stupid, but they're also cheap, and openness tends to have some advantages there.
- moe 17y ago
  Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? I think it's a bit early for world domination plans, we haven't even seen the device. Also, to put things in perspective; the iPhone, which is considered a huge success, has only grabbed around 14% market share so far. It's not like the competition would just sit and watch...
  - bitwize 17y ago
    The vast bulk of high-end smartphones are now either iPhones or iPhone imitators. Everybody else just plays the game -- Apple changes the rules and the playing field.
  - koanarc 17y ago
    My thoughts exactly. As fascinating as all of this iTablet hubbub may be, I'm more interested in the attempts to one-up it that are sure to follow over the next ~5 years. For starters, considering Google's growing stake in the mobile market, just how long will it be before they want in on this action? Just how many steps behind Apple could they possibly be on this? iPhone :: Android phones as 'iTablet' :: ?? Apple makes new tech fashionable. Someone else can always come along afterward to make it open.
- bitwize 17y ago
  Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? YES. You want a guy like Steve in the driver's seat of how your platform should look, behave, and integrate with the user's daily life. Look at Linux: Its promise is that you can make it do or be anything and what has the open source community produced? Well, there's Ubuntu, a pale imitation of Windows in terms of integration, but by and large the open source community has switched to Mac. If the iTablet were completely closed hardware-wise, had super-restrictive third-party app development, but still offered books, Wikipedia, and video via an always-on connection, for sale or free download as appropriate, it would still be a freakin' boon to mankind. And with the right restrictions in place it would be something immediately beneficial for every user instead of just a geek toy.
  - Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
    > but by and large the open source community has switched to Mac. Allow me to at least question that assumption ...
    - dagw 17y ago
      Based on idly counting laptops at conferences and other gatherings it seems plausible. Yes some of those macs are dual booting Linux, but most are running OS X (based on highly unscientific and statistically weak observation) . I won't dare to estimate numbers, but if you ignore developers working on operating system and desktop based projects, I wouldn't be surprised if OS X is moving towards becoming single most popular OS among the remaining open source developers.
      - SwellJoe 17y ago
        I wouldn't be surprised if OS X is moving towards becoming single most popular OS among the remaining open source developers. This assumes a shrinking pool. Open Source development is happening at a higher rate than ever before, and the number of Open Source developers and users is higher than ever before. Yes, Apple has seen a dramatic increase in market share, but before that Windows laptops were abundant at Open Source conferences; before a few years ago, running Linux on a laptop was a harrowing and challenging experience, and most people (even developers) simply could not make it all work. I'm only on my second "fully functional under Linux" laptop, and I've always bought laptops with Linux compatibility in mind. Apple happens to make the nicest laptop hardware, and Mac OS X happens to run best on it. And, for many tasks, particularly tasks common to laptop usage, Mac OS X is an acceptable substitute for Linux in ways that Windows never was.
- hexley 17y ago
  I posted this in the other thread before, but I'm going to repost it here because people still don't seem to understand why the iPhone's restrictions are so important. --------------------- I don't see how it's anything other than a net positive, you gain in security and ease of use for consumers. If you're more hacker minded like this audience is, it's extremely trivial to jailbreak - the distinction being that it is totally independent and not sanctioned by Apple whatsoever. This is an important point. After working in user support I can totally empathise with Apple's decision to keep the platform closed via the App Store. The vast majority of the people buying these phones (ie, normal users - not geeks) are the ones who voluntarily install spyware on their PC's, click yes to every dialog box they see and execute random email attachments without thinking twice. They don't scrutinise certificate errors in their browser, use PGP, constantly have a bash window or two hanging around - in fact I think a lot of the people who have bought iPhones as fashion accessories would have trouble even changing their wallpaper. The iPhone undeniably has the biggest mindshare, and a very hefty marketshare slice of any high-end mobile communications device yet, one notably skewed toward people with large disposable incomes. Remember, it's constantly connected to the internet, has a connection to the phone network (and thus an unlimited tab conveniently linked to your credit card), knows where you are and even in which direction you're facing. It knows who you talk to, who your contacts are...etc. I could go on. The point is this device and it's associated popularity is a fucking GOLDMINE for the kind of people who write malware. The App Store and it's uncompromising restriction is the final solution to keeping this cesspool of a software "ecosystem" off the platform. Even if Apple provided an "Advanced" setting which gains you root access on your device the malware writers would simply instruct the clueless user to enable it, and I KNOW that 99.9% of people would do it without hesitation, for the promise of nothing more than a cheap thrill. All the EULA-type warning "this-is-a-bad-idea-and-we're-not-responsible" notifications in the world won't stop them. It's based on the same psychology as that study where an alarming majority of people would tell you their password for a chocolate bar. Oooh, kittens!!! cue screaming and convenient lawsuits targeting high-profile Apple when their phone bill arrives with a $50,000 total Yeah, I think we can do without that sort of thing, and Apple certainly doesn't need that kind of unrepairable damage done to their brand perception. We put up with malware on Windows because like it or not it's the de-facto standard, and consequently most people don't know any better. There is an almost bewildering array of choice when it comes to mobile handsets, and people are likely to go with the one that doesn't have a reputation for involuntarily emptying your bank account.
- CamperBob 17y ago
  Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? No point even asking questions like this, until you address what to do about the millions of idiots who click on every attachment they get and answer 'Yes' to every dialog without reading it. Because social efforts have failed to fix this problem, it's apparently a technical one, and the technical solution is to make it difficult for all but expert users to treat new mass-market devices as wide-open platforms. Sucks, but what else can they do?
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    What does security have to do with a tightly closed environment? You're conflating two separate issues, and when you come to the (obviously correct) conclusion that users are generally stupid and shouldn't be able to easily break their computer, that it has something to do with Apple deciding who gets to build applications and how one uses the machine. Apple does not provide better security in Mac OS X or on the iPhone than Open Source operating systems, in general. As far as I know, Android has at least as good a security history as iPhone for the time it's been in existence. Sucks, but what else can they do? They can do the right thing, and not act as gatekeepers. Or, they can do what they've always done, and maximize profits, minimize consumer and developer freedoms, and charge a lot for it.
    - pyre 17y ago
      > What does security have to do with a tightly closed environment? It's the (false) assumption that because someone controls what software goes onto the machine that it's impossible for 'unapproved code' to run on the machine (or that 'approved code' has been thoroughly vetted against all possible inadvertent or malicious security risks). > The can do the right thing, and not act as gatekeepers. I wonder what people will think once the first AppStore app gets approved by Apple but turns out to be a piece of malware. I'm sure Apple has indemnified themselves against liability in such a case, but there are plenty of people who feel it is an impossible scenario.
      - CamperBob 17y ago
- actf 17y ago
  >Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? I think all signs to point to yes (assuming you use "we" to mean the population at large and not HN). Outside the mobile world, look at the example provided by consoles. They epitomize the idea of a locked down environment. Look at how popular they are compared to PC gaming. I think that consumers want the slick, easy to use, "it just works" environment much more than they want an open environment. People don't like it when they have to sort through the web to find software of marginal quality. With a closed system a gatekeeper filters this out for them. I think there will always be a market for those who want an open system, but it will take a back seat to closed systems. It'll be interesting to see how this can be implemented in practice. The idea of a "root mode" for advanced users and "simple mode" for regular users seems like one possible solution.
- netcan 17y ago
  It seems like the immediate future, at least, is diverse. Thin, thick, everything in the cloud, your machine is also a server, closed, open, appliance The PC has been extraordinarily open so far, when you think about it. Imagine users of a phone or music player being given easy tools and encouraged to tinker with the way it stores music or contacts. Sounds outrageous. The reality is that many (maybe most) users are confused by the fact that they can to music via itunes or via the file system. They definitely don't want to think about whether or not itunes is making a copy of that mp3 file in a different format, just remembering its location or moving it. Open comes with a learning overhead.
  - pyre 17y ago
    Not necessarily. You can have a tightly integrated system that is not a closed system. There was nothing (technical) preventing Apple from implementing their libraries/framework/graphical frontend on top of a Linux backend. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems more like a business decision (i.e. 'Not invented here' or "We don't control it") and/or license issue (i.e. 'GPL is viral') . (I know that Steve was CEO of NeXT and brought that platform with him and that's what they used, but it wasn't necessary for them to do so.)
    - netcan 17y ago
      I think we're talking about different parts of 'open.' I'm taking about access (sanctioned and encouraged), for regular users. Basically, the front end. In the backend, low level stuff these things take on a different meaning. You're probably right about the business decision. In the sense that I'm talking about, Android or ChromeOs may be closed. I'm probably using the wrong words and being confusing, but I think there is a relevancy here.
shalmanese 17y ago
Real Story: Some off hand comment made over 2 years ago is dredged up to provide a tantalizing headline which is put in place solely to drive traffic.
- kqr2 17y ago
  Well, he also claims to have spoken to Kay late last year: Kay still wasn’t sure whether Apple would actually come out with a tablet when I talked to him late last year, noting that such a device could theoretically compete with the company’s iPhone business. But, he added: “I bet a thousand dollars that they had a five-by-eight-inch version for the last couple years in house.”
  - blasdel 17y ago
    The original series of prototypes was called the SafariPad, and one of the form-factors was similarly Newton-sized. Apparently only good for surfing the web on the toilet.
    - michaelcampbell 17y ago
      You say that like it's bad. =)
lurkinggrue 17y ago
At this point I would not be surprised with the headline "Apple tablet to poop rainbows and give you a pony."
- icefox 17y ago
  Done http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1079784 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1079784
10ren 17y ago
5x8? add a keyboard, and it's very close to the eeePC's dimensions. Differences: - much lighter (because ARM uses less power, therefore lighter batteries for same battery life; lighter construction in general; and lighter because no keyboard. - connectivity (3G). This really is an internet appliance. BUT I really don't think it can work without a keyboard (please make me famous by quoting me if I'm wrong!) Possibly, a large touch-screen keyboard would be workable enough to be useful, even without tactile feedback; but I really think it would be mainly a gimmick. BTW: I typed on a video-hire kiosk's touchscreen today, and although slow, it was much less frustrating than I expected.
- bitwize 17y ago
  Spend much time on the go with a netbook and you will find out how much more essential a (multi) touch screen is than a keyboard for something that's primarily intended as a browsing device (as opposed to a tiny, tiny computer you can do your Excel spreadsheets on).
moron4hire 17y ago
5"x8" doesn't fit in my pocket. I have a paper notebook here on my desk that is 5"x8". I never use it. I have a moleskine that goes with me everywhere. It's harder to write in the moleskine than the larger notebook, but then I don't ever have the larger notebook with me, so it doesn't matter. If you're making me give up ergonomic input by giving up the desktop, I need to gain portability. That's why netbooks sucked so hard, input sucked and they weren't more portable than my laptop. The on screen and slideout keyboards on the iPhone and Droid are awful, but at least the devices fit in your pocket. And can we please get over the techy self importance? The iPhone is pretty popular -- amongst geeks and rich people. Most people who have cellphones in general still have the freebie brick or folder that came with their plan. Just because Apple has done something to make a big splash in our pond called the tech industry doesn't mean our pond is large enough to matter to The World. According to this site (http://www.wirefly.org/news/cell-phone-facts.php http://www.wirefly.org/news/cell-phone-facts.php), 72% of the US population owns cell phones. I don't know exactly what they mean by that, but if that's 72% of the approximate 300 million population of the US, then that's 216 million cellphone users in the country. According to Wikipedia, Apple has sold 42 million iPhone units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone). That's roughly 20% if you aren't accounting for people who have paid for upgrades to the 3G and 3GS models. This page indicates that 16% of the market owns PDAs in general, lumping the iPhone into the PDA category (http://ticketsdotcom.blogspot.com/2009/09/mobile-trends-americans-cell-phone.html http://ticketsdotcom.blogspot.com/2009/09/mobile-trends-amer...). Significant for sure, but not "taking over the world". Why should we expect a device of less utility than a cellphone to do better?
- dandelany 17y ago
  Wait, so you want a tablet that is smaller than 5x8", smaller than a netbook, and that fits in your pocket? You know you can buy those already from Apple, right?
  - moron4hire 17y ago
    That's my point entirely. Predictions that an "<insert-any-company> tablet is going to take over the world" are woefully self-interested and fail to consider what "the world" actually means. I'm sure from a technology standpoint, it will be a neat device, but it's only going to matter to technophiles, and even then, only for novelty.
jodrellblank 17y ago
This taught me what it would take to get me to click on another gigaom.com link - an implication of an interview with Alan Kay. It's right back on my "do not click" mental list, with an extra strong negative weighting. An article about how Alan Kay's comment from several years ago re: the iPhone suggests he might like the alledged new tablet, plus a quip from an interview a year ago does not a worthwhile post make. The only good thing I can say about not having a universal micropayment system is that I'm glad it cost them hosting and bandwidth fees to handle my page load. I hope it was disproportionately expensive.
dmn 17y ago
I know that the masses are going to fall in love with the upcoming Apple Tablet, but I still don't understand why its getting so much hype =/ Hopefully to stand up to the buzz, it is more than just a souped up iPod Touch. Am I one of the few to think that it might not be "all that"?

45 points by pchristensen 17y ago

With McGraw-Hill's CEO for all intents and purposes confirming this product to be real and running iPhone OS, I'll be very surprised, and saddened, if a shut-tight, app-store-limited device like this will lead to world domination. Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? Are only a small number of people going to own powerful computers with which they can do anything they want, with the rest going through app stores and the cloud? It sounded good to me before, but now that we may all be on the receiving end, it seems disheartening.

axod 17y ago
2 words - Web Browser. App stores are just a stop gap until web browsers catch up.
mortenjorck 17y ago
The real irony here is that Apple could end up accomplishing what ChromeOS was supposed to, better than Google was going to. That would be strange. That said, Apple's interest isn't in thin clients because once they're too thin, it gets pretty hard to sell you a new one.
- mikedouglas 17y ago
  A lot of users are lost in the functionality of modern desktop operating systems. For Apple, this means a worse experience and lost content sales. For Google, this means lost advertising dollars. It makes sense that both companies would eventually converge on trying to radically simplify the user interface.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    This is true. I think assuming that Apple will remain stubbornly wedded to their hardware business, and its hefty profits, at the expense of being there for the thin/cloud future isn't giving Jobs enough credit. We already know he understands where things are going, because of the ever expanding iTunes empire, and because of the App Store. It's unfortunate, however, that Apple wields this knowledge to evil end rather than good. (It is evil to use near-monopoly strength to impose closed ecosystems on consumers and developers, in case anyone here isn't already aware of that fact. We mostly all agreed on this when it was Microsoft doing the imposing, but now that it's wrapped up in a beautiful package and presented like it's a bag of magic beans to a credulous audience at Mac World, many of us forget it.) Luckily, I tend to think openness wins eventually, even if we have a few detours along the way. Hopefully, the detour won't last much longer in the mobile space. In content, it's finally starting to get straightened out. Consumers may be stupid, but they're also cheap, and openness tends to have some advantages there.
moe 17y ago
Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? I think it's a bit early for world domination plans, we haven't even seen the device. Also, to put things in perspective; the iPhone, which is considered a huge success, has only grabbed around 14% market share so far. It's not like the competition would just sit and watch...
- bitwize 17y ago
  The vast bulk of high-end smartphones are now either iPhones or iPhone imitators. Everybody else just plays the game -- Apple changes the rules and the playing field.
- koanarc 17y ago
  My thoughts exactly. As fascinating as all of this iTablet hubbub may be, I'm more interested in the attempts to one-up it that are sure to follow over the next ~5 years. For starters, considering Google's growing stake in the mobile market, just how long will it be before they want in on this action? Just how many steps behind Apple could they possibly be on this? iPhone :: Android phones as 'iTablet' :: ?? Apple makes new tech fashionable. Someone else can always come along afterward to make it open.
bitwize 17y ago
Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? YES. You want a guy like Steve in the driver's seat of how your platform should look, behave, and integrate with the user's daily life. Look at Linux: Its promise is that you can make it do or be anything and what has the open source community produced? Well, there's Ubuntu, a pale imitation of Windows in terms of integration, but by and large the open source community has switched to Mac. If the iTablet were completely closed hardware-wise, had super-restrictive third-party app development, but still offered books, Wikipedia, and video via an always-on connection, for sale or free download as appropriate, it would still be a freakin' boon to mankind. And with the right restrictions in place it would be something immediately beneficial for every user instead of just a geek toy.
- Raphael_Amiard 17y ago
  > but by and large the open source community has switched to Mac. Allow me to at least question that assumption ...
  - dagw 17y ago
    Based on idly counting laptops at conferences and other gatherings it seems plausible. Yes some of those macs are dual booting Linux, but most are running OS X (based on highly unscientific and statistically weak observation) . I won't dare to estimate numbers, but if you ignore developers working on operating system and desktop based projects, I wouldn't be surprised if OS X is moving towards becoming single most popular OS among the remaining open source developers.
    - SwellJoe 17y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if OS X is moving towards becoming single most popular OS among the remaining open source developers. This assumes a shrinking pool. Open Source development is happening at a higher rate than ever before, and the number of Open Source developers and users is higher than ever before. Yes, Apple has seen a dramatic increase in market share, but before that Windows laptops were abundant at Open Source conferences; before a few years ago, running Linux on a laptop was a harrowing and challenging experience, and most people (even developers) simply could not make it all work. I'm only on my second "fully functional under Linux" laptop, and I've always bought laptops with Linux compatibility in mind. Apple happens to make the nicest laptop hardware, and Mac OS X happens to run best on it. And, for many tasks, particularly tasks common to laptop usage, Mac OS X is an acceptable substitute for Linux in ways that Windows never was.
hexley 17y ago
I posted this in the other thread before, but I'm going to repost it here because people still don't seem to understand why the iPhone's restrictions are so important. --------------------- I don't see how it's anything other than a net positive, you gain in security and ease of use for consumers. If you're more hacker minded like this audience is, it's extremely trivial to jailbreak - the distinction being that it is totally independent and not sanctioned by Apple whatsoever. This is an important point. After working in user support I can totally empathise with Apple's decision to keep the platform closed via the App Store. The vast majority of the people buying these phones (ie, normal users - not geeks) are the ones who voluntarily install spyware on their PC's, click yes to every dialog box they see and execute random email attachments without thinking twice. They don't scrutinise certificate errors in their browser, use PGP, constantly have a bash window or two hanging around - in fact I think a lot of the people who have bought iPhones as fashion accessories would have trouble even changing their wallpaper. The iPhone undeniably has the biggest mindshare, and a very hefty marketshare slice of any high-end mobile communications device yet, one notably skewed toward people with large disposable incomes. Remember, it's constantly connected to the internet, has a connection to the phone network (and thus an unlimited tab conveniently linked to your credit card), knows where you are and even in which direction you're facing. It knows who you talk to, who your contacts are...etc. I could go on. The point is this device and it's associated popularity is a fucking GOLDMINE for the kind of people who write malware. The App Store and it's uncompromising restriction is the final solution to keeping this cesspool of a software "ecosystem" off the platform. Even if Apple provided an "Advanced" setting which gains you root access on your device the malware writers would simply instruct the clueless user to enable it, and I KNOW that 99.9% of people would do it without hesitation, for the promise of nothing more than a cheap thrill. All the EULA-type warning "this-is-a-bad-idea-and-we're-not-responsible" notifications in the world won't stop them. It's based on the same psychology as that study where an alarming majority of people would tell you their password for a chocolate bar. Oooh, kittens!!! cue screaming and convenient lawsuits targeting high-profile Apple when their phone bill arrives with a $50,000 total Yeah, I think we can do without that sort of thing, and Apple certainly doesn't need that kind of unrepairable damage done to their brand perception. We put up with malware on Windows because like it or not it's the de-facto standard, and consequently most people don't know any better. There is an almost bewildering array of choice when it comes to mobile handsets, and people are likely to go with the one that doesn't have a reputation for involuntarily emptying your bank account.
CamperBob 17y ago
Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? No point even asking questions like this, until you address what to do about the millions of idiots who click on every attachment they get and answer 'Yes' to every dialog without reading it. Because social efforts have failed to fix this problem, it's apparently a technical one, and the technical solution is to make it difficult for all but expert users to treat new mass-market devices as wide-open platforms. Sucks, but what else can they do?
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  What does security have to do with a tightly closed environment? You're conflating two separate issues, and when you come to the (obviously correct) conclusion that users are generally stupid and shouldn't be able to easily break their computer, that it has something to do with Apple deciding who gets to build applications and how one uses the machine. Apple does not provide better security in Mac OS X or on the iPhone than Open Source operating systems, in general. As far as I know, Android has at least as good a security history as iPhone for the time it's been in existence. Sucks, but what else can they do? They can do the right thing, and not act as gatekeepers. Or, they can do what they've always done, and maximize profits, minimize consumer and developer freedoms, and charge a lot for it.
  - pyre 17y ago
    > What does security have to do with a tightly closed environment? It's the (false) assumption that because someone controls what software goes onto the machine that it's impossible for 'unapproved code' to run on the machine (or that 'approved code' has been thoroughly vetted against all possible inadvertent or malicious security risks). > The can do the right thing, and not act as gatekeepers. I wonder what people will think once the first AppStore app gets approved by Apple but turns out to be a piece of malware. I'm sure Apple has indemnified themselves against liability in such a case, but there are plenty of people who feel it is an impossible scenario.
    - CamperBob 17y ago
actf 17y ago
>Are tightly closed environments like this where we want personal computing to go next? I think all signs to point to yes (assuming you use "we" to mean the population at large and not HN). Outside the mobile world, look at the example provided by consoles. They epitomize the idea of a locked down environment. Look at how popular they are compared to PC gaming. I think that consumers want the slick, easy to use, "it just works" environment much more than they want an open environment. People don't like it when they have to sort through the web to find software of marginal quality. With a closed system a gatekeeper filters this out for them. I think there will always be a market for those who want an open system, but it will take a back seat to closed systems. It'll be interesting to see how this can be implemented in practice. The idea of a "root mode" for advanced users and "simple mode" for regular users seems like one possible solution.
netcan 17y ago
It seems like the immediate future, at least, is diverse. Thin, thick, everything in the cloud, your machine is also a server, closed, open, appliance The PC has been extraordinarily open so far, when you think about it. Imagine users of a phone or music player being given easy tools and encouraged to tinker with the way it stores music or contacts. Sounds outrageous. The reality is that many (maybe most) users are confused by the fact that they can to music via itunes or via the file system. They definitely don't want to think about whether or not itunes is making a copy of that mp3 file in a different format, just remembering its location or moving it. Open comes with a learning overhead.
- pyre 17y ago
  Not necessarily. You can have a tightly integrated system that is not a closed system. There was nothing (technical) preventing Apple from implementing their libraries/framework/graphical frontend on top of a Linux backend. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems more like a business decision (i.e. 'Not invented here' or "We don't control it") and/or license issue (i.e. 'GPL is viral') . (I know that Steve was CEO of NeXT and brought that platform with him and that's what they used, but it wasn't necessary for them to do so.)
  - netcan 17y ago
    I think we're talking about different parts of 'open.' I'm taking about access (sanctioned and encouraged), for regular users. Basically, the front end. In the backend, low level stuff these things take on a different meaning. You're probably right about the business decision. In the sense that I'm talking about, Android or ChromeOs may be closed. I'm probably using the wrong words and being confusing, but I think there is a relevancy here.

shalmanese 17y ago

Real Story: Some off hand comment made over 2 years ago is dredged up to provide a tantalizing headline which is put in place solely to drive traffic.

kqr2 17y ago
Well, he also claims to have spoken to Kay late last year: Kay still wasn’t sure whether Apple would actually come out with a tablet when I talked to him late last year, noting that such a device could theoretically compete with the company’s iPhone business. But, he added: “I bet a thousand dollars that they had a five-by-eight-inch version for the last couple years in house.”
- blasdel 17y ago
  The original series of prototypes was called the SafariPad, and one of the form-factors was similarly Newton-sized. Apparently only good for surfing the web on the toilet.
  - michaelcampbell 17y ago
    You say that like it's bad. =)

lurkinggrue 17y ago

At this point I would not be surprised with the headline "Apple tablet to poop rainbows and give you a pony."

icefox 17y ago
Done http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1079784 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1079784

10ren 17y ago

5x8? add a keyboard, and it's very close to the eeePC's dimensions. Differences: - much lighter (because ARM uses less power, therefore lighter batteries for same battery life; lighter construction in general; and lighter because no keyboard. - connectivity (3G). This really is an internet appliance. BUT I really don't think it can work without a keyboard (please make me famous by quoting me if I'm wrong!) Possibly, a large touch-screen keyboard would be workable enough to be useful, even without tactile feedback; but I really think it would be mainly a gimmick. BTW: I typed on a video-hire kiosk's touchscreen today, and although slow, it was much less frustrating than I expected.

bitwize 17y ago
Spend much time on the go with a netbook and you will find out how much more essential a (multi) touch screen is than a keyboard for something that's primarily intended as a browsing device (as opposed to a tiny, tiny computer you can do your Excel spreadsheets on).

moron4hire 17y ago

5"x8" doesn't fit in my pocket. I have a paper notebook here on my desk that is 5"x8". I never use it. I have a moleskine that goes with me everywhere. It's harder to write in the moleskine than the larger notebook, but then I don't ever have the larger notebook with me, so it doesn't matter. If you're making me give up ergonomic input by giving up the desktop, I need to gain portability. That's why netbooks sucked so hard, input sucked and they weren't more portable than my laptop. The on screen and slideout keyboards on the iPhone and Droid are awful, but at least the devices fit in your pocket. And can we please get over the techy self importance? The iPhone is pretty popular -- amongst geeks and rich people. Most people who have cellphones in general still have the freebie brick or folder that came with their plan. Just because Apple has done something to make a big splash in our pond called the tech industry doesn't mean our pond is large enough to matter to The World. According to this site (http://www.wirefly.org/news/cell-phone-facts.php http://www.wirefly.org/news/cell-phone-facts.php), 72% of the US population owns cell phones. I don't know exactly what they mean by that, but if that's 72% of the approximate 300 million population of the US, then that's 216 million cellphone users in the country. According to Wikipedia, Apple has sold 42 million iPhone units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone). That's roughly 20% if you aren't accounting for people who have paid for upgrades to the 3G and 3GS models. This page indicates that 16% of the market owns PDAs in general, lumping the iPhone into the PDA category (http://ticketsdotcom.blogspot.com/2009/09/mobile-trends-americans-cell-phone.html http://ticketsdotcom.blogspot.com/2009/09/mobile-trends-amer...). Significant for sure, but not "taking over the world". Why should we expect a device of less utility than a cellphone to do better?

dandelany 17y ago
Wait, so you want a tablet that is smaller than 5x8", smaller than a netbook, and that fits in your pocket? You know you can buy those already from Apple, right?
- moron4hire 17y ago
  That's my point entirely. Predictions that an "<insert-any-company> tablet is going to take over the world" are woefully self-interested and fail to consider what "the world" actually means. I'm sure from a technology standpoint, it will be a neat device, but it's only going to matter to technophiles, and even then, only for novelty.

jodrellblank 17y ago

This taught me what it would take to get me to click on another gigaom.com link - an implication of an interview with Alan Kay. It's right back on my "do not click" mental list, with an extra strong negative weighting. An article about how Alan Kay's comment from several years ago re: the iPhone suggests he might like the alledged new tablet, plus a quip from an interview a year ago does not a worthwhile post make. The only good thing I can say about not having a universal micropayment system is that I'm glad it cost them hosting and bandwidth fees to handle my page load. I hope it was disproportionately expensive.

dmn 17y ago

I know that the masses are going to fall in love with the upcoming Apple Tablet, but I still don't understand why its getting so much hype =/ Hopefully to stand up to the buzz, it is more than just a souped up iPod Touch. Am I one of the few to think that it might not be "all that"?