Everyone is trying to guess what the features are of the tablet that Apple may announce on Wednesday 27. What’s its name? What’s the OS? How big? Tell us what you think and win an Apple tablet.
Rules
Apart from the usual Gawker legalese, here’s it how it works:
• You fill out the survey linked below before the Apple event, and whoever gets closest to having all the answers right is eligible to win a free Apple tablet—whatever it ends up being called—courtesy of us.
• If the final feature is not exactly like one of the answers we provided, we will pick the closest answer. If the feature is not in the answers, that question will be void, but the rest of the questions will still be valid towards winning.
• There is a reasonable chance that many people will get the correct answers. In the event that there are, all of those who made the cut will go into a drawing, from which we’ll pick a winner at random.
Your name and email will only be used to contact you in case you win the tablet.
Here are my guesses:
Name
I think they will call it iBook, just because it’s a good brand, a short name that sounds great, and ties in with the whole tablet format.
OS
The tablet will run a variant of iPhone OS, with additional software classes to address its special features. Fundamentally, it will be like the iPhone OS—it should be able to run apps straight away (although developers will tailor them to the new screen size, selling them in the app store as fatter apps that support both the iPhone OS and the Tablet OS).
Screen
The screen won’t be OLED, but I would like to think that—given Apple’s push towards LED backlighting, with its energy savings and better image quality—they will use a 10.1-inch LCD-LED display.
Connectivity
The connectivity is a tricky one. Since I believe the Apple Tablet is a complete new paradigm in computing, one goes away from desktop metaphors, and is always connected—it makes sense that it supports 3G. But would Apple tie this thing to a carrier, like some rumors say? And if they do, and it’s AT&T, would I be able to have two SIMs under the same AT&T number?
Camera
Another tricky one. Some people say no webcam at all, other say no cameras at all, others say both. I want to believe that this thing will, at last, support videoconferencing.
Storage
The top model will have 64GB.
Material
I like the idea of the back being chrome, so I can touch up my makeup.
Keyboard
Another tricky one. I want to believe that Apple is including a stylus and that their handwriting technology—already present in Mac OS X, coming from Newton OS—is good enough. However, this will require multiple-language support, something that doesn’t seem to be implemented right now. So I want handwriting, but I’m leaning to a screen-based keyboard.
User interface
The iPhone has been a huge hit because it’s simple. No complicated desktop metaphors, no confusing windows, just a modal device that morphs into different devices. Normal people, regular consumers who hate normal computers—the majority—get it. It will be like the iPhone, modal, hopefully with aggressive multitasking, and a clever way to navigate through running applications.
Extras
Another wild guess. USB 3.0 support would be nice, or even Lightpeak, but I really want this thing to support a stylus.
Battery life
This could have 10 hours of battery life. If its guts are not much different than an iPhone, there will be a lot of empty space in there, enough to fit some extra battery cells.
Price
People are guesstimating a wild range. Mine: $600, and they will still make money out of it. My gut feeling is that Steve Jobs and Co. believe this will be their biggest contribution to computing since the original Apple Macintosh. And they will want it to be cheap, so it can spread quick, like wildfire.
Main functions
Like the iPhone was a phone, an iPod, a web browser and a mail machine, this device will also have three or four main functions (apart from the thousands that it can take thanks to the applications). My wild guess is that movies will be a good one, as will web, ebooks, and videochat/communication.
Main role
While many computer fans will see this device as a secondary device or a peripheral, I believe Apple will position it as a full computer. Like I said before, most people don’t need a computer. Most people don’t spend hours writing emails or documents outside of the office. Most people don’t spend hours doing spreadsheets or painting photos outside of work mode. Most people just browse, send the occasional image, do some chat, access Facebook, tweet a bit, read, browse, watch movies, listen to music… that’s why the iPhone has become such a driving force in the industry, with many regular consumers adopting it as their main computing device. My guess is that this computer will be the main computer of most of the people who buy it. Not for the office, but their personal computer.
Now it is your turn to give us your guesses, and get a chance to win an Apple tablet.
Your name and email will only be used to contact you in case you win the tablet.
As we march toward the inevitability of a post-iPad world, so marches the development of iPhone SDK 3.2 — and this time, we’re on to beta 3. There’s no word yet on what’s changed, but unless you’re a registered (and paid) member of Apple’s iPhone Developer Program, it doesn’t much matter to you seeing how you can’t get in on the download. Keep us abreast of the trials, tribulations, highs, and lows of your downloads and installs, won’t you?
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