Aug 09
An Apple Tablet Won't Happen
Why won’t Apple make a tablet that is just like a bigger iPod Touch? Ask Steve Ballmer. The experience for developing for the iPhone is so awesome compared to other phones because there is only one screen size and resolution. Removing that part of the equation will place the iPhone on par with its Android and Blackberry competitors. One screen size across every device isn’t the only competitive advantage the iPhone and iPod Touch have, but is it worth it to find out exactly how important it is?
At JavaOne this year, a new design tool (similar to Expression Blend) for JavaFX was demoed and the developer showed off how easily you could change the view to match several different cell phone or desktop resolutions. I could feel the groaning as other developers in the room began to imagine themselves trying to develop like this. It looked like one of the most painful experiences possible (yes, even worse than making your site look perfect in IE6). I’m sure Apple could come up with some fantastic design tool that would be the best multi-resolution design tool in the market. It might even make life easier, or should I say “less difficult,” but it won’t fix the underlying problem.
Don’t expect to see the rumored tablet unless it runs normal OS X. Apple has made enough poor decisions already (with the App Store at least), that it doesn’t need to make any more and ruin a great development experience.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:53 pm
The apple tablet is definitely going to happen. I think you can be pretty sure about that. However, the OS is still very up in the air. I agree with you that there is a big hurdle to clear with regards to screen size. It’s definitely one of the bigger roadblocks that would hinder the iPhone OS running on a larger 10″ tablet. I’m not sure this would necessarily be a dealbreaker though…
There are also a lot of pros to running iPhone OS on a 10″ tablet device. Think of the gaming experience…
I guess we’ll find out in a a few months? Next month? Who knows!
August 24th, 2009 at 12:07 am
The title is a little misleading, but “An Apple Tablet Like An Over-sized iPod Touch Won’t Happen” doesn’t fit on one line ;).
I expect something to come out quite soon. A (very drunk) Apple Support employee told me he is getting trained on a new product to be released in a couple months, and anyone who really like the iPod/iPhone will really like this.
As far as the gaming experience goes, Apple has never really been in to gaming, so I wouldn’t buy that as a reason for them to make the tablet.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:13 am
A very interesting conjecture. I’m relatively disinterested in the hype, but I’ll be watching for this particular detail come release time. ;)
February 20th, 2010 at 1:44 am
Lololol. Jason 1 – Erik 0. :)
February 20th, 2010 at 2:47 am
I’d say Jason 0.9 – Erik 0.1.
It’s a different OS that runs iPhone apps in their native resolution, so it preserves that development experience.
I was wrong about everything else though.