Oh, who am I kidding. I’m downright giddy about Apple’s announcement tomorrow.
Yes, it’s possible that we’ll just see a new iPhone operating system or an upgrade to the Apple TV but with all of the buzz this time around that would be rather surprising. This time around it really truly looks as if we’ll be seeing a tablet and that’s why every single website and news media outlet can’t get enough of the rumors and opinion pieces. I really didn’t want to add some more of it just markets closer and more possibilities leak out I just can’t help myself.
Yes, I know that ultimately we really don’t know what tomorrow will bring but my gut tells me that it’s bigger than what many of us have thus far heard. I can’t imagine Apple simply releasing a large-size iPhone or iPod touch. No, if there is a new device announced tomorrow it will be an entirely new category that does things we don’t expect in ways we can’t imagine.
In of itself that’s pretty exciting. There is, however, an additional reason that I am particularly excited that we might finally see a tablet from Steve Jobs and company. It will finally give me the device promised back in 2006 when a new category was established — the UMPC. Here is what the vision promised…
The reality was not close!
UMPC Redux
It seems like a lifetime ago but was only a few short years back that the promise of a truly mobile computing platform was put forward.
The year was 2006 and a new term, the UMPC- the ultra-mobile PC — was coined for devices that would have a 7 inch screen and run the Windows tablet edition or Windows XP. It was also known as Origami and the initial products came from Samsung, ASUS and TabletKiosk. It was an exciting new category and the promotional videos looked fantastic. The promise of the device was that it would seamlessly move from home to car to any other aspect of your life. Along the way it would digitally integrate everything that you did into one seamless electronic life. You could be e-mailing from the couch then grab the device and jump in the car and quickly get GPS navigation. When you got to your destination you might grab a picture of something and then add comments and email it to someone else. It looked fantastic. The future has arrived. Or so I thought…
I ordered one of the first units to ship. It came from the company TabletKiosk and was powered by a Via processor.
I believe I had one of the first units to arrive in the US. As a result, I was among the first to discover that the device was problematic at best. The processor was underpowered. It ran relatively hot. The battery life was poor. And it was a far clunkier implementation of a small portion of what the platform initially promised. Ultimately I didn’t keep the device.
Shortly thereafter Samsung came out with their version of the product — the Q1. It was a huge step forward. It has an Intel processor, ran a bit cooler, and had a nice form factor. The 7 inch touchscreen and Windows XP tablet were not an ideal combination however since XP was not designed for a touchscreen. Moreover, the resolution of the screen added to the complexity since there were often times when necessary buttons and settings were hard to access because they were hidden away. One of the ways that Samsung tried to compensate for this was by selling a case/keyboard combination. It actually worked rather well but by that point you had invested this amount of money in the product and were now carrying something that actually weighed a fair amount you might as well have been carrying a small laptop. In addition, to keep the heat down and the battery life as high as possible Samsung initially used a relatively underpowered Celeron processor.
Oh, and at this point I should also mention that the devices were expensive. At the time they all started significantly over $1000.
A short time later Samsung came out with an updated version of the Q1- the Q1P. It added a Pentium processor to the device and it actually worked rather well. Still, the 7 inch touchscreen wasn’t great in combination with windows XP tablet and the product remained quite expensive. It did, however, works fairly well with Dragon NaturallySpeaking and I use my Q1P for a while before selling it. I was once again disappointed in the performance and just how far from the initial vision the device remained.
A short time later I bought a refurbished Sony UX.
This machine was even smaller than the Q1 but it had a more powerful processor. It also had a built-in keyboard. It was small enough to go ANYWHERE AND it had a built in keyboard. The keyboard was all but unusable.
Strike three. (Or would that be four.? By this time I had lost count.)
Samsung then ventured into a new design for the Q1- The Q1 Ultra. It had a split keyboard that was intended to compensate for some of the functionality challenges prior generation had encountered. It was fine for putting in a password here or there but was otherwise unusable.Ultimately, the high price, low screen resolution and relatively poor performance meant that the category was doomed from the start.
Still, when I go back and watch the initial promotional videos for this category of device I see what is possible with the right hardware and software combination. And I HAVE been using a device that comes close to that vision. It is called the iPhone!
The iPhone actually gets closer to the initial vision of the Origami Project than any other product on the market. It allows for ubiquitous connectivity, it has an exceptionally long run time (for a handheld computer although not for smartphone) and allows you to do a tremendous amount of computing no matter where you are. Unfortunately it’s relatively small screen makes text input a challenge and reading for any extended period becomes a bit of a strain. Still, if I look at that original promotional video for the Origami Project I can see the prototype device they are using replace by my iPhone rather easily.
Now imagine an iPhone with a 10 inch screen.
Because of its design and the current state of electronics components the new device has a tremendous is amount of memory (and it is solid state!!), it’s as fast as you need it to be, it runs cool and it has decent battery life. (It certainly gets more than two or three hours we were used to getting with UMPCs.) As the iPhone has already proven, the touchscreen works flawlessly and the OS is DESIGNED for it. You can use it at home to be reading the newspaper and then throw it in a small bag and bring it with you when you’re out and about. No matter where you are you can check e-mail, read magazines, browse the web, and access all of your photos, whether they are resident on the device or somewhere stored on the Internet.
If the iPhone comes closer to the initial Origami Project vision than any device, this new device from Apple surpasses that vision by providing something that is faster, sleeker and even more functional than what is dreamed of in that unicorn of a video. It surpasses that vision because the functionality that I just mentioned is just the basic functionality that everyone is assuming will be on the tablet. Knowing Apple, along with the fact that Steve Jobs and his cohorts seem to be down right exuberant about the device, one can only imagine how much more the actual device that is about to be unveiled must be able to do.
In 2006 I thought I would finally get a small, touchscreen device that could be my entire electronic life in the palm of my hand. In 2010, in just a few short hours, all indications are that that vision will finally become a reality.
So will we actually see this mythical device tomorrow? Your guess is as good as mine but despite all of my efforts to the contrary I’ve once again gotten wrapped up in “Apple tablet fever”.
And as this IM chat from earlier today testifies, I’m not the only one –
Judie: what are you going to do if there is no tablet.
me: there is
me: there is
me: there is
me: there is
Judie: other than join me in crying
me: there is
Judie: i know
me: there is!!!!
Judie: hehehe
