What to expect from the Apple MacPad: predicting the release of the long-rumored Mac Tablet

Brief update: Welcome Slashdot and MacSurfer readers. Coincidentally, Gizmodo is reporting today that Apple plans to release an $800 tablet or netbook in October - based on a translated story out of China. My post below outlines what this product might actually do, what innovations it will have and what some of its challenges are...

Recently, I spent some time reviewing real and rumored technologies to lay out my predictions about a possible Apple Mac Tablet or MacPad. My predictions are mostly just for fun and I am making no bets as to their accuracy.

Product Design and Marketing Challenge

Apple's greatest challenge with the MacPad is to create a device that is compelling to existing iPhone owners. With the price of an iPhone 3G now at $99 with a 2 year service agreement (likely to be free within a year), nearly all of Apple's target MacPad customers are or soon will be iPhone owners. 

Convincing iPhone owners that they also need a MacPad will be critical to the product's success. In general, Steve Jobs doesn't like to sell niche or hobby products. He won't release the MacPad unless it can be a mass market success like the iPod or the iPhone.

Portability, elegance, ergonomics and battery life are also critical design challenges for the Apple MacPad team.

What will you do with a MacPad?

The MacPad will roughly have a 10" diagonal, full color multi-touch display (see Apple orders 10-inch touchscreens for mystery product) and be elegantly thin, like the iPod Touch (more on the hardware specifications below). It will likely be sold initially with a 2 year Verizon wireless data plan (see Apple rumored in talks for Verizon budget phone, media tablet) providing reliable Internet access everywhere.

As such, the MacPad will be a fantastic web browsing, news and e-book reading and note taking device. It will be an ideal pairing to Apple's Mobile Me data cloud service. It will also do the things that the iPhone and iPod Touch do well such as calendaring, reading email, playing music and running mobile apps.

Primarily, the MacPad will provide its biggest innovations in three areas:

1. Great mobile web browsing via Safari

With its larger screen, Safari browser and Verizon Internet, the MacPad will be a fantastic device for browsing the Web. 

Since typing in URLs on mobile devices such as the iPhone is still difficult, the MacPad will work best when you synchronize your bookmarks via MobileMe, so your favorite sites are always easily available. Safari's new top sites design will help with this as well.

With its stylus, you'll be able to annotate web pages with handwritten notes and sync them to your desktop via MobileMe. 

 

2. News, blog and e-book reading

The MacPad will be a fantastic mobile e-reader. With the MacPad, you'll be able to browse and read your favorite news sites via Safari in real time (say goodbye to the Kindle's limited daily news delivery, or as The Daily Show calls it, "aged news"). 

Apple will update Safari's RSS news reader to make finding and browsing blogs easy and free (say goodbye to Kindle's attempts to charge for blog subscriptions - though you will likely pay Verizon for your data plan in the order of $19.99 - $29.99 monthly).

Apple will also launch an e-bookstore in the iTunes Store (they already sell audiobooks). Given that iTunes surpassed Wal-Mart to become the #1 music store in the U.S. last year, expect an equally ambitious attack on Amazon and the book publishing market.

While the Kindle may stick around awhile due to its easy to read e-ink display, large book catalog and long battery life, I fully expect the MacPad to devastate the appeal of the Kindle in the e-reader market. With the MacPad's elegant display, capable email, web browsing and note taking, the Kindle just won't stand a chance in its current form.

3. Handwriting recognition, note taking and sketching

Apple fans have long wished for a Newton successor - and finally, the MacPad will be it. In 2008, Apple had a job listing for a handwriting recognition engineer. It's likely they've stepped up their investment in OS X's tablet-based recognition system, Inkwell since then.

I expect Apple will launch a new mobile application called (mobile) Pages that makes note taking, sketching and handwriting recognition easier and more straightforward. Recognition won't be necessary to make the MacPad useful, but it will assist with organizing, sharing and editing written documents (goodbye to my paper Moleskin notebooks).

The MacPad will also have other cool features such as:

• AppStore support for specialized applications and games
• Built in iSight video camera and microphone jack for iChat conferencing and Skype calls 
• Internet sharing of its Verizon WiFi to your iPhone
• Screen sharing of desktop Mac's for browsing documents across your home or office network 
• Acting as a large touch screen remote device for Front Row and Apple TV (see recent Remote application update with gestures)
• A slim fold out stand and Bluetooth wireless to connect Apple's slim wireless keyboard so you can comfortable read, edit and type away at documents on your MacPad.

Business Goals

The biggest long term goal for the MacPad is to expand the reach of the iTunes store into e-books. The iTunes store surpassed Wal-Mart as the top music retailer in 2008. Building revenue around selling e-books is a logical step.

Similarly, Apple's AppStore recently announced its 1 billionth download. While not a cash cow yet, expanding the footprint for devices that the AppStore works with also makes sense.

Furthermore, the release of the MacPad will ensure that the Amazon Kindle and its e-bookstore don't have an uncontested runway to expand their installed base and build a domineering market position. 

Predicting Hardware From Existing and Upcoming Product Specifications

The MacPad will be a larger version of a an iPhone and iPod Touch, similar in form factor to a Kindle DX or upcoming CrunchPad - borrowing from the experience Apple's gained building and marketing its slim MacBook Air.

The MacPad will be built on the iPhone OS instead of OS X. This will help to minimize cost, keep the form factor small, maximize battery life and leverage its investments in the iPhone SDK and AppStore.

To predict the specifications of the MacPad, let's first compare the key specs of some common forms of these existing and upcoming devices:

iPod Touch: 32 GB, 3.5" diagonal Display, 480 x 320 resolution display, 36 hours music playback, 4.3" x 2.4" x .33", 4.05 oz., WiFi, $399

iPhone 3GS: 32 GB, 3.5" diagonal Display, 480 x 320 resolution display, up to 5 hours on 3G and 9 hours on WiFi, 300 hours standby time, 4.5" x 2.4" x .48", 4.8 oz., WiFi/GSM/Edge/Bluetooth, GPS, $299

CrunchPad: .62" thick, 12" diagonal screen, $299

Kindle DX: 4 GB, 9.7" diagonal e-ink screen, 1200 x 824 resolution, 16 level gray scale display, 10.4" x 7.2" x 0.38", 18.9 ounces, EVDO, 4 day battery life, $489

MacBook Air: Runs Mac OS X, 2GB RAM, 128 GB RAM Drive, 13.3" diagonal display, 1280 x 800 resolution, 12.8" x 8.98" x .76", 3 lbs.,  Bluetooth,WiFi, 5 hours battery life, $1,799 ($1,499 with 120 GB HD)

Based on this, the likely specifications for the MacPad will be something like:

• Memory: 64 - 128 GB Flash Memory (not RAM, thanks to commenter David for pointing out my error)
• Display: Full color 10" diagonal display - see Apple orders 10-inch touchscreens for mystery product, targeting 1280 x 800 or similar resolution
• Dimensions of 11" x 8" x .33" (thin form factor likely to be key selling point)
• Battery Life: 8 - 12 hours on WiFi
• Weight: 12 - 16 oz. weight
• Cost: $599 (see Apple to answer netbook market with $500-$700 tablet) with 2 year Verizon Wireless data plan (see Apple rumored in talks for Verizon budget phone, media tablet)
• Bluetooth - great for using a slim Apple wireless keyboard 
• Stylus for handwriting and note-taking 
• Fold-out mini-stand for setting up as a display e.g. with keyboard
• iSight Camera and headphone/microphone jack for listening to music, audiobooks and iChat video conferencing

I don't expect the CrunchPad to last very long once the MacPad launches. I also expect the MacPad will relegate the Kindle to niche status.

When will the MacPad arrive?

With the MacPad, Apple has had a number of technical and business challenges, such as:

• Steve Jobs' health challenges and general availability
• Building a relationship with Verizon to manage data networking for the MacPad and its upcoming netbook (smaller version of the Air)
• Building relationships with book publishers for the iTunes store and extending the store to handle e-books
• Upgrading the iPhone OS and SDK to support the MacPad's larger display and its handwriting capabilities 
• Hardware design for a slim, elegant, lightweight form factor that can provide stability and long battery life.
• Building Pages, the note taking application and its handwriting recognition engine
• Improving Safari's RSS news reading capabilities

Given this, I expect to see Apple release the MacPad in tandem with a slimmer, small Air netbook in either September '09 or at MacWorld in January '10 ahead of MacWorld.

Enjoy!

Comments

[Corsac]

What about Always Innovating's touchbook? :)

[Michael W. Perry]

From the perspective of many, perhaps the greatest benefit of this "iPad" will be that Apple will almost certainly have to create a Bluetooth keyboard driver for it. Since it will be using the iPhone OS, that'll give them no excuse not to offer the same feature for iPhones and the iPod touch.

And once that is done, someone (not necessarily Apple) will create a compact Bluetooth keyboard with iPhone holder, completing the transition of the iPhone from a feature-rich phone to an on-the-go computer.

[Kelly Denison]

Great article! You live in the same dreamworld I do! The one where Apple releases a tablet computer, If you are really jonseing and got lots of cash- OWC makes a great apple tablet already and its made from a macbook so the specs are better than anything else out there....

[David Federman]

I don't feel the author has a firm grasp on the difference between RAM and a hard drive (volatile memory vs. non-volatile memory).

"iPod Touch: 32 GB RAM"
"iPhone 3GS: 32 GB RAM"
"MacPad: Memory: 64 GB - 128 GB RAM"

Really? I'm pretty sure that's inaccurate as 32GB of RAM is over $1000, and the architecture to support that amount of volatile RAM is only really available on high-end servers.

If you mean solid state drives, you would also be incorrect as according to http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html, the iPhone (and iPod Touch, I imagine) use Flash drives, not "RAM drives"

[Hamranhansenhansen]

I don't think the name will have Mac in it. Anything but that. Mac is clearly a full-size PC with Mac OS X, starting at $999. The iPod and iPhone are clearly pocket devices that go from $79-$399. In between people are looking for something that is a cross between the two.

I think they will call it iBook. Apple reinvents the book/magazine.

[Hamranhansenhansen]

There is no need for a stylus. You can draw and write with your finger on iPod or iPhone already, with pixel-perfect accuracy. For example, try Sketches on iPhone OS with the pen set to its thinnest setting. It's finer than the finest Sharpie. On a bigger screen, this only gets easier for Apple to implement.

There will also be an onscreen keyboard. Again, this will be easier for Apple to do on a big screen than the one they did for the little touch devices.

If there is handwriting recognition, it will be optional and rarely used. Just like all previous implementations of handwriting recognition. The number of people who want to write on the screen is ridiculously low. I can type faster on my iPhone with 2 thumbs than I can write something out long hand.

The only reason I can see to ever use a stylus today is if you're using a Wacom art tablet where the stylus has many sensors such as 1000 pressure levels and it knows what angle it's being tilted at, and has airbrush controls on it, all in the cause of emulating a real airbrush, of capturing the performance of the artist's hand as he or she paints. If you just need accurate pointing, that has already been solved just with the fingers. Apple can tell which pixel of iPhone you're pointing at.

[Kris Dahl]

Do you think just because they invested in handwriting recognition that it will use a stylus?

The new pad device will not use a stylus, I can guarantee.

[cubsnlinux]

I have a better idea.

What Apple might do is build hardware kind of like a docking station for iPhone 3GS (I believe it would be only 3GS and not 3G because of the speed other requirements).

In effect this hardware might be a monitor+keyboard or just a monitor (kind of like a touch pad with a virtual keyboard). I guess the pad will have multi-touch and handwriting recognition capabilities and the inputs will be processed by the iPhone 3GS. The new hardware connects to the iPhone via the dock connector.

Also the monitor will not simply mimic the iPhone 3GS screen but I believe that there might be new apps targeted for this new hardware (iPad or whatever) or an app can be both iPhone 3GS and iPad compatible (for resolution/display reasons).

This iPad can have a power adapter and an internal battery and when the iPad is connected to external power then it can also charge the iPhone.

With the above design, you don't really need to replicate all the hardware and more importantly Apple can float this new addition as an additional accessory for business users or for people who wish to use their iPhone 3GS as a netbook. It would be awesome if someone releases apps for office suite (word processing,spreadsheets, powerpoint) that install on the iPhone and can open documents/spreadsheets/slide shows on the iPad for better viewing experience.

I can go on and on with the above ideas but would like to hear back from you.

Thoughts?

cubsnlinux

[Michael Brian Bentley]

Regarding the costs of RAM in handheld devices, remember that the sale prices for some devices are subsidized by having the buyer sign up for a two-year service contract. So while the device initially costs a couple hundred, the service provider does get quite a bit more over the following two years. Also, memory for handheld devices often have different characteristics than memory for laptop, desktop or rack-mount sytems, and are priced differently.

[Zimmie]

Strictly, flash memory *is* RAM. You can access it randomly without needing to go over intervening parts.

This is as opposed to a tape drive which is linear access memory. Hard drives are a sort of hybrid. They have linear tracks, but inter-track access does not depend on reading the data on each intervening track.