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iPad Wish List. What’s Yours?


ipodplus1 Back in Dec 2008 I laid out the specifications for an iPod Plus. It was where I thought Apple would go next. I got the device size completely wrong; 5 inch is nothing like 9.7 inch but at least I predicted correctly that they wouldn’t be silly enough to bring out a netbook.

Apart from the from the sizing error though, I got most of the rest of it spot-on including the entry-level pricing, the ebook capability, the data-only 3G, the storage and most of the software elements. I also predicted that Apple could divert 5-10% of netbook sales and sell 1 million devices per year. We’ll see about that next year!

Unfortunately, Apple left out a few of the things I was expecting.

Hardware (can not be fixed until next model is released)

  • Web cam
  • Digital video out
  • FM transmitter and receiver

Personally I can live without all of those but I’m still surprised they weren’t included.

ipad2-press Software

  • Turn-by-turn navigation included.
  • Multitasking
  • Live widgets on home page
  • Video/Voice over IP s/w.

Multitasking is the big personal disappointment.

I think Apple could still push out a 5-7 inch version of the iPad (iPad Mini) and include the missing elements (just like the 2nd-gen iPhone did) and of course, most of those missing software elements can be enabled through software updates.

That’s enough of me though, how about you? What were you expecting and what are you wishing for on the iPad?

Our First Apple Tablet News.


Today, on the last day of 2009, it’s time to talk about something that’s been a hot-topic in 2009 but something I’ve never talked about on Carrypad before.

It’s the Apple ‘Pad’ , ‘Slate’ , ‘Tablet’ or whatever you’d like to call it and the reason I want to talk about it is that is that many rumors and news items are converging on an Apple Event that has been ‘confirmed’ for the 26th of Jan in San Francisco. Everything points to a mobility event and commentators (that mostly means over-excited keyword-stuffing analysts, journalists and bloggers) appear to be feeling confident that it’s going to be a new device that is larger than the iPhone. Possibly a tablet.

Based on the progress of mobile platforms at the moment, I’d put the chances of a large-format tablet at about 1:5 purely because bigger needs to be better in most peoples eyes and there isn’t a mobile computing platform out there that can really deliver what’s needed for Apple at over 7 inch right now. ARM Cortex A8 will be too slow for full web activities and everything else is either not ready or to big, hot and heavy.

ipodplus1

What I do think is possible is an iPod-Plus, something we wrote about last year on our sister publication, UMPCPortal. Expectations of speed, power and productivity will be less on a a 5 inch-7 inch device and it’s here where an ARM Cortex A8-powered platform fits the bill nicely. Apple doesn’t need to break completely new and dangerous ground with a tablet or mini-netbook but a large-format iPod Plus really fits the bill nicely. A low risk device that enables a new category of HD video and Ebook sales through iTunes.

Of course, even if someone does spill the beans on the real story, the amount of ‘noise’ being broadcast around this rumor is so great that it will be hard to spot it but we’ll keep focused here at Carrypad and bring you an update the next time we think we’ve spotted the real news.

Apple Event news via FOXnews

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