:: worlds in words ::

The internet’s been abuzz with speculations about the “iSlate”, the rumored Apple Tablet that’s going to be announced on January 26th.  Tips and rumors have trickled in to countless websites, allowing drooling consumers eagerly awaiting its release to form some conception of what they can expect from Apple in 2010.  Not to mention that my face is bright red from facepalming each time someone makes a Moses/tablet joke in connection with this thing, which is just about every blog post.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a pretty good summation of all things leading up to where we are now.  But so far, most of the speculation has been about things that are pretty cut-and-dry.  Yes, it might come in 7- and 10-inch varieties, with the possibility of an OLED screen.  It’ll have high-resolution, full-color e-reader capability; newspapers and magazines will offer subscription services.  It’ll also vacuum your house and wax your car.

The part that I’m focused on is not the hardware – I’m sure that it’ll be drop-dead sexy and smudge like a motherfucker within two seconds of use.  While following Apple on the hardware side can be pretty fun (as I sit here eagerly awaiting the Core i7 Macbook Pro refresh), it will undoubtedly be the software side of the house that will set this tablet apart.  To quote Gruber,

I say they’re swinging big — redefining the experience of personal computing.

Apple’s been known for being “revolutionary” in whatever field they enter.  From bringing us the mouse (and evolving through their own hideous creations until the gorgeous Magic Mouse emerged) to the iPod and more recently the iPhone amongst other things, they have been game-changers in the industry even though their market share is so minute.  And as millions of people have stated, the epiphany comes not from hardware (alone) but from design, usability, and interface.

I do think that Apple puts design before all else.  Their creations put aesthetic and art before functionality in many cases – I only need to look down at my Macbook to prove the point.  The aluminum unibody case is sturdy and sexy, sure, but two USB ports?  And crammed so close together that I can’t have my mouse and a USB stick plugged in at the same time?  What blasphemy is this?

But there are times when the lightning strikes, and simplicity wins.  The iPhone is the clearest indicator of this.  So the question that everyone’s been asking is, where does the iSlate fall in relation to the iPhone and the Macbook – from the mobile fit-in-your-pocket simplicity of design to the portable take-it-anywhere slim profile, between the 3.5″ multitouch screen to the 13″ display.  Will it supplant the Macbook?  Gruber thinks so.

Sitting around a rumored $800 pricetag, it’s actually not much more expensive than an iPhone and not all that much cheaper than a Macbook.  But the software, man, the software!  Talk of it running a souped-up iPhone OS makes me cringe with dread.  And yet to have it run Mac OS X might be asking too much.  Could it be running a newer, somewhere-in-between OS?  The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) seems to think it’s a possibility:

Apple really won’t release something unless it is speedy enough. They don’t even let you run a background app or multitask on the iPhone due to speed issues. If they wanted to make a speedier tablet it would make sense that they would [deliver] a hybrid of the two operating systems, allowing better speed, battery, and more functionality than the iPhone, yet something not as relatively bulky as Snow Leopard.

I think – and hope – that it will run a slimmed-down and specialized version of Snow Leopard.  The biggest point that trips me up is that some developers have been asked to create higher-res versions of their iPhone apps, presumably for a larger screen and therefore to display on the iSlate.  Could the iSlate be part of the App Store world?

If it is, the hopes of it running Mac OS X seem greatly diminished.  After all, if Apple wants to push their iTunes Store – over which they rule with an iron fist – then having full OS capabilities would be counterintuitive, since people could just download their apps from wherever they wanted.  Could it be that the iSlate will function as a display or secondary device?

How awesome would it be if you could link up your tablet to your computer – your Macbook Pro, your iMac – and use it as you would use a Wacom tablet?  Or just as a smaller secondary display, for putting up widgets or side windows like IMs?  And if you could link up your iPhone to it to have a larger, richer display capability when you’re not completely mobile to increase productivity or gaming?  But that’s probably too far-fetched.

I think we need to stop looking at the iSlate as the Apple response to netbooks and e-readers.  It may fulfill those functions, potentially, but that’s not its primary purpose.  When I try to think, “What would Jobs do?“, I think of three things: design, usability, and interface.

Tons of conceptual renders have turned up on the internet, mostly basing their design off the iPhone.  I don’t think they’re too far off, personally.  I think that the design will land somewhere between the iPhone and the Macbook Air, between the mobile and the ultraportable.  As for the design of the OS, I can only pray that they’ve cooked up something that makes full use of multitouch abilities – maybe something in the vein of 10/GUI.  CoverFlow will probably be used extensively as it’s made its way deep into Snow Leopard already.

Usability – the thing that makes Mac what it is, at least, for me.  Why I switched and never looked back when Apple went Intel.  But how could a 7- or 10-inch screen in tablet form possibly be the ultimate killer that Jobs is banking on now?  I have nowhere near the screen real estate I need with this 13″ Macbook.  It’ll be highly portable, yes, but so’s my laptop – it goes with me whenever I travel with no real difficulty.

And whenever I don’t have access to my laptop, I use my iPhone.  I use the little sucker for everything.  Email and IMs on the go so people can get a hold of me no matter where I am – even when I’m traipsing all over the globe with my job.  Problem with my server?  I can SSH in with this tiny thing and do what I need to do.  Online banking.  Read my RSS feed.  The compromise of the small form factor is not so huge for my critical services.

So how’s he going to convince me to buy this thing; how is Apple going to reach into my wallet for my hard-earned cash, in this recession?  It won’t be as powerful as the Macbook and not as mobile as the iPhone.  What’s the game-changer here?

I think that it’ll be in the OS and its capabilities.  And this is where usability merges with interface as well as design.  Will this thing use a pen like most tablets on the market do?  I think not.  According to a tip given to the New York Times, “You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet.”

Snow Leopard has been moving more and more in the direction of a fully multitouch-capable OS, especially with further integration of CoverFlow.  The simplicity of interface with the iPhone with its multitouch screen, as well as the new Magic Mouse, points to a complete move away from the analog for Apple.  The tablet will, once again, redefine computer interactions for us.

But there’s a glaring problem here.  If the tablet uses pure multitouch, it’ll run into the same problem that the iPhone does – when the keyboard comes up, it obscures so much and you lose a huge chunk of the usable screen.  It’s too big, I assume, for you to type with just your thumbs like you can on the iPhone – but if you use it on your lap or on a desk, it completely destroys any sense of ergonomics and you’ll strain your neck.

So how is the tablet supposed to be used?  I agree with Gruber’s statement that a fold-out arm to prop it up is inelegant – and it would be un-Apple in design.  This will probably be another point where we the consumers will be surprised by Apple’s choices in design, and I have no good ideas.

Will it slide out with a dedicated keyboard?  If it does, it would seem to me to be cannibalizing the Macbook line.  But maybe this is the future of the Macbook line – portable computing redefined, transforming before our eyes once again as did the mobile music and cell phone concepts.

The best I can come up with is a sort of dock/stand which will consist of a USB hub, possibly FireWire, and display input/output.  Yes, I’m still holding onto that hope of it having the capability of being used as a display.  Will the iSlate be the first to integrate LightPeak?  That would be too many leaps in one device, I think.  The dock idea kind of lessens the portability aspect, though.

You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet.  I think this is the biggest telling key of all the rumors that are flying about.  To quote that same post from TUAW,

Everybody pre-conceived the iPhone based on the iPod and, to a lesser extent, the Newton. Everybody was wrong. Today, most everybody is pre-conceiving the tablet based on the iPhone. Maybe we’re all wrong again, or maybe the leaks are better this time.

I don’t think that we’re going to continue along the lines that we’re familiar with, the iPhone and the Macbook.  We keep trying to interpolate between those two because that’s what we know – but this will be something new, something unknown, and the interface – which will define the interaction – will be the greatest selling point.  Sleek, sexy, simple.

I think I’ve asked more questions than I’ve answered; but I suppose that’s to be expected.  My state is more curious and speculative than it is anything knowledgeable.  I’m no hardware or software engineer, after all, just a consumer who’s intrigued and hopeful.

New decade, new computing.  Or perhaps the point where Apple takes big risks with the iSlate and LightPeak technology and suffers for it.  We’re all waiting with baited breath to see how it all unfolds.