It’s just 10 days before an (unconfirmed) Apple event where most of the IT world expects for Apple to announce a new form factor. I have to admit, the fascination has also gripped me and so I’ve compiled the best YouTube videos for your viewing pleasure. All interspersed with a couple of the best links where I found these things.
From still images to videos, Dean Johnson has a post Breathing Life into Apple’s Tablet
Let’s begin with a funny spoof: The iSlate if it would have been invented 2010 BC.
Bonnier R&D published a research video on how a tablet-based e-magazine would look like and be navigated:
Time Inc. created a real live prototype of Sports Illustrated running on a tablet. Though I am somewhat disturbed by the two plastic hands manipulating it.
Techcrunch even got a hands-on, though it looks much less interesting running on an HP convertible Tablet-PC than, say, an iSlate:
10/GUI is an exploratory concept on how to use even more fingers in multi-touch than we are using today:
So one take on the UI would be to make it something completely novel as shown in these concepts. Though there exists this “spy video” showing the UI to be essentially multiple iPhone screens that you can move around. And an app store. Can you say: Virtual iPhone!
How could the iSlate look if it where designed by Apple? The sheer volume of user-designed mockups proves to us how much anticipation is there in the market for such a device. Who designs all of these? Graphic artists. What do those normally work on? Macs! Can we say “Mac Fanboys”?
Dr. Lee Beard from “Ask The Techies” has a great episode discussing the iSlate. Funny though that on multiple video sites (including YouTube) this is called “Part 1” when there is no Part 2 anywhere to be found.
Episode 99: Apple Tablet – E-Book: Truth and Speculation
But Tablets ARE become in reality. At CES NVIDEA showed off several Tegra-based models which are able to play up to 1080p video.
Yet, some companies still don’t think that users can let go of their beloved “full-size keyboard”. At least Lenovo seems to think that when designing their IdeaPad U1 Hybrid. Revision3 has the hands-on. But of course Apple would never settle for 5 fps UI.
The best and most elaboratly done (probable) fakes show the iSlate in two scenarios where a tablet form factor would truly shine. Both appear to have been fabricated by the same design company as you can judge be the identical interface, identical background noises and identical mess on the person’s desk. These are such great fakes because:
- Home button at bottom just like on iPhone
- Status indicators, one that looks like a signal strength in status bar at top
- Cover Flow
- Sliding Animations
- 3G Indicator, cellular phone reception indicator
Customizing an IKEA Kitchen:
Browsing sort of a Guiness World Records Tablet Edition:
In any case you can see how many people are drawing web traffic to their sites claiming to have all the information. One such site is get-islate.com. But I found one interesting news there. Supposedly Apple has had a glitch on their front page revealing that there is an iSlate product. (Or that hackers got into the frontpage code and conjoured an iSlate in there)
But the greatest geekery I believe to be when somebody makes up “leaked spec sheets”. 10.7 “Clouded Leopard”?! LOL. Built-in projector? Yeah right.
Two more unlikely things. Apple would not include an Ethernet port. With the MacBook Air they have already shown that they don’t believe in wires for the very mobile devices. And the 7.1 inches contradict the more recent rumors of about 10 inches. 7 inch is only four times as large as the iPhone and not enough to show a full page. Steve Jobs told us when he launched the MacBook Air that their benchmark was a piece of paper. You probably still remember him pulling out an Air out of a vanilla envelope.
So we don’t really care about the shape, form or even price of the iSlate. As long as Apple releases it eventually before the market is being swamped by PC- or Android-based tablets. I am dreaming of it, that’s for sure, and the great new opportunities it will provide to use iPhone developers.
Categories: Apple
