Brighthand talks about speculation of a new Apple handheld possibly to be announced at next week's Macworld Expo.

Now naturally I would wish that the rumor is true and this turns out to be the long-awaited iPad, but I'd be happy enough if it turns out to be mini iPods, based on Hitachi's 1-inch, 2- and 4-gigabyte drives. Toshiba's new 0.85" microdrive might be used in later models, but probably won't be ready in time for this quarter, or possibly even this year.

While I'd love for Apple to come out with an iPad, it'd be harder for me to justify buying one right now than it would be for me to get a smaller (cheaper?) 4-gig iPod for Reaver.

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There's been a lot of speculation about Mac OS X 10.3, 'Panther' that Steve jobs will be demoing on Monday at the WWDC keynote speech. even though the update isn't due to come out until September, it's being unveiled to get developers on the bandwagon to support 10.3 features on launch day.

One of the features with the biggest potential for impact is 'multiple GUI logins' which basically means that more than one user can be logged in at once. The conventional wisdom has been that this would let Bob stay logged in while Jane logs in to work on her paper as Bob is temporarily away, so each user doesn't have to shut down everything they're doing just so someone else can access their files and use the computer. I think this could be a lot bigger, though.

Ever since the iMac came out with two headphone jacks on the front of the computer, it's been clear that Apple realized that educational computers are shared computers. The ability to log in to a computer has been tremendously important in educational environments, because students can take their workspaces with them.

but what I haven't seen mentioned is the possibility for simultaneously shared computers. Pop in a second video card, plug in another keyboard and a second mouse, and suddenly you have the usefulness of two computers where before you had one. And when you only need one, you have one computer with two screens!

True, there's the obvious argument that this could cost Apple sales, but I really wonder how many two-mac homes there are right now. It seems to me that the ability to buy one computer that the kids and parents could use at the same time would be a strong reason to buy Mac over PC, and when you only have a 3% market share, coming out with a feature that could lure a fraction of the remaining 97% is worth losing a fraction of the 3%.

Now that assignments are required to be typewritten at earlier and earlier ages, two or more kids having to share one computer at home is turning into a big problem. Wouldn't it be nice if the mantras on the value of sharing weren't halted by the digital divide?

And wouldn't it be nice if Apple came out with a 2lb thin client wireless tablet so you could use your computer anywhere around the house, even as your wife does the same?

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The recent launch of Apple's Music Store is clear evidence of their continuing focus on media acquisition and management. The iApps (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD) and iPod all focus on integrating media into Apple owners' daily lifestyle. Could Apple do for TV portability what it's done for music portability?

Business 2.0 thinks maybe. I feel the same way.

Apple and TiVo have been working together heavily on streaming media over the last six months, TiVo's Home Media Option is the first 'entertainment appliance' to take advantage of Rendezvous, Apple's implementation of a simplified network discovery and sharing protocol. TiVo 'gets it' as far as Apple technology goes. To use media sharing of music and photos from a Windows box to a TiVo requires a 16 megabyte application specifically for organizing music into playlists and photos into albums that can be shared over the network to the TiVo. The Mac download is a 288k control panel that just creates a bridge from the TiVo to the user's iTunes and iPhoto library, whether iTunes or iPhoto are running or not.

The Apple/TiVo relationship has brought Apple content onto the TiVo, and an Apple acquisition of TiVo could push data the other way as well. A couple weeks ago Apple unveiled new iPods in 10, 15, and 30 gigabytes. 30 gigabytes is enough storage for 20 days of uninterrupted, unrepeated music. Perhaps a bit excessive. On the other hand, 30 gigs is enough to store 120 hours of high-quality video compressed for an iPod-sized screen (320x240) using a realtime compressing codec (it could be smaller in MPEG-4, but it wouldn't be able to compress video on-the-fly). An iPod with an on-board MPEG2 decoder could synch small-screen versions of TiVo shows on to your iPod for watching anywhere. Perhaps full-screen files could also be saved for display on a regular TV via an S-Video port (after all, the line-out sound port is already there).

Would it make sense for TiVo to be bought by Apple? It probably makes more sense than the Apple/Universal Music rumors, since technology is what Apple's all about, not the creation of content or the managing of artists, and TiVo follows that line completely. Personally, I don't know whether the buyout would happen, and what that could mean for TiVo's existing partners, Sony, Phillips, and Toshiba, but the current ties between the companies give me hope for a Video iPod.

It makes a certain sense: Video is the next logical step in the iPod's evolution, and nobody has nailed the scheduling, acquisition, and presentation of video broadcasts like TiVo has. A strategic partnership here could really go a long way.

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Anyone who says it's a pipedream for Apple to make a tablet PC for under $1000 should take a look at the $599 ProGear. Granted, they're selling off excess inventory, but given the specs (10.2" LCD screen, 6gig 2.5" hard disk, etc) I think a company with sufficient volume could still make and sell these for under $1000.

The real trick is to make it useful enough to justify the cost, but not so useful as to cannibalize other CPU sales.

The quest for the perfect second computer continues...

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For those who really want that 7-hour advance notice, here's what's going down tomorrow:

• iPod for Windows: Certain
• OS X 10.2: Certain release date, probably early August. $19.95 upgrade price.
• 17" LCD iMac: Most likely an announcement and a late Aug/Early Sept. release
• 20gig iPod: Same release date as the 17" iMac, but possibly not announced at MWNY.
• iPad: Patience... Wait for MWSF.
• Also... 'Switch' kudos, 3rd-party kudos (Halo?), QT 6 overview, small tweaks, LCD price drops...

Here's hoping for surprises!

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Here's my semi-annual prediction list for Macworld Expo. Have at you!

• Two-button mouse - Apple designed two-button optical mouse standard on new macs. Possibly a new design that makes the left button larger than the right, so that 'center clickers' still get their expected behavior.

  why? Apple itself has been pushing contextual menus for several years. Now most applications for Mac OS X support control-click functionality and most users use it every day. Since most Mac users use Windows or Unix computers at least occasionally, they are familiar with two-button mice. As stubborn as Apple has been on this issue, there is less and less reason to shun a two-button mouse simply because it came from the Wintel side. Probability: could be

• Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard - Using the recently developed and tested Bluetooth drivers for OS X, and a possible motherboard-level bluetooth chip and antenna, bluetooth keyboard and mouse could be a new standard to go along with Apple's move towards incremental mobility enhancements like the current space-efficient keyboard and LCD displays.

  why? Apple has taken steps on their site to position Bluetooth as an embraced technology. While unsuitable for high-speed applications like iPods, video editing, or displays, bluetooth would help apple's mission of the wireless computer. With an LCD monitor. the only cable might now be the thick AVI cable from the G4 tower to the display. Batteries could be an issue, and a small powered docking tray for mouse and keyboard might be a solution. Probability: Someone? Yes. Apple? Maybe... Bluetooth solutions at Expo are virtually certain. With Apple's pushing of the thumb-sized USB Bluetooth Nubbin, other vendors are likely to reveal solutions even if Apple isn't ready to yet. Think Wacom...

• 20 gig iPod - iPods will now come in three sizes: 5, 10, and 20 gig. Prices for the 5 and 10 gig iPods will drop by $50 to $349 and $449 respectively, while the 20 gig will sell for $549.

  why? Toshiba, the only supplier of the 1.8" hard drives Apple uses for the iPods, came out with a 20 gig drive last January. While it has identical power consumption as the 10 gig, it has an extra platter, making it 8mm high instead of the 5 and 10 gig's 5mm. Along with price point marketing issues, this is why the 20 gig didn't come out earlier. The 10 gig was basically a part replacement, with some possible software mods. The technical requirements for the 10 gig are virtually the same as the 5 gig. The 20 gig will either need a case that is 1-3mm thicker, or Apple will need to rearrange the iPod's interior. Initially, the iPod was created with stock parts from several vendors, with no custom ASICs, lowering startup costs and time to market. Now that the iPod is established, the engineering and testing effort for an ASIC may be justified, and such a chip would clear us space inside the iPod; more than enough for the 20 gig drive. Probability: It will happen at some point. call it 50/50 for an announcement or release next week.

• iPod for Windows - At one point envisioned as a separate hardware product, an iPod for the Windows market would now have identical hardware as a Mac iPod, and would probably be sold in the same box, with a multi-platform install CD and manual. No iTunes for Windows, but a slick utility solely to create playlists and import music onto the iPod, without any playing ability on the Windows side.

  why? As often as Apple has failed in the consumer electronics arena (AppleCD, Newton, Pippin, QuickTake, etc.), they have a huge hit with the iPod, despite the product's mac-only limitation. Without this limitation, the iPod is the best of breed for the portable MP3 market. Balanced between having a product which has brought more people to the Mac platform, and one with a respectable market penetration and profit center of its own, the logical compromise is to provide enough Windows functionality to open up the potential iPod audience to those with any computer, while still providing a premium experience to those with Macs. If done correctly, Apple could create a Windows experience which would inform them of the added capability available to Mac users, helping with Apple's current job 1: Switch. Probability: Virtually certain.

• 17" LCD iMac - In addition to the successful 15" iMac, a 17" 1280x1024 screen would bring in a lot of people currently being driven to large, noisy G4 towers with empty slots, just to get a decent-sized screen.

  why? Good question. Though the iMac enclosure is smaller and less expensive than the G4 tower, such a machine could easily cannibalize the G4 tower market. Prices for the 17" iMac would have to be high enough to retain the profit margin of the G4. Personally, such a machine would be my ideal, as it would be for a lot of people. I'd love to see this happen, but I'd worry about it sharing the same fate as the G4 Cube: A very appealing machine, but with a cannibalization tariff so high as to make a machine perceived as overpriced, however cool it may be. Probability: 60%. I'd have said 40%, if not for all the buzzing over at apple, yanking press credentials of the rumor sites.

• OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) - not a release, but a full walkthrough and a release date around August 10th.

  why? Beta testing went really well, and Apple would love to get some all-important Operating System buzz in the media in time to have an impact on the educational buying season, Apple's second largest after the holiday season. Probability: Certain.

• Switch Hoopla - Look for at least one, and possibly all, of the stars of the Switch commercials to be presented on stage, along with a couple new ones.

  why? Jobs loves to show off his media campaigns, and he hasn't had a chance to talk about this one in front of a big audience. It's a gimmie. Probability: 80%.

• Superdrives Everywhere - Look for Superdrives to be standard on all G4 tower machines and G4 Powerbooks. Also expect Superdrives on all but the entry-level LCD iMac and iBook, which will keep their CD-RW and CD-ROM respectively. The eMac and CRT iMac will remain the same.

  why? Superdrives are coming down in price, and it's a point of difference between Apple and the Windows world. It positions Apple to take better advantage of the shift from VCRs to DVD and, considering Apple's refusal to let users upgrade just their optical drive to an iDVD-compatible superdrive, it's a carefully planned solution to promote people to buy new machines, while handing their old machines down to people aching for iPods, etc. ;-) This idea is further supported by Sony's recent release of a DVD-RAM/CD-RW equipped notebook computer (Sony is Apple's primary optical drive supplier), and the fact that last week's Apple Employee Promo featured eight current Mac models, only one of which contained a Superdrive. It looks like they're clearing inventory. Probability: 70%

• Price drop on 22" and 23" Cinema Displays - Look for the 22" to drop to $1799 and the 23" to $2599.

  why? If a 17" iMac is released, the step up to the G4 tower can't be as steep. Customers looking for more than an iMac will feel that they need a bigger screen, and $2500 for a display is a huge obstacle. At $1799, it starts becoming a realistic, though extravagant, option. Current promos give a $500 rebate when you buy a G4 tower and a 22" display, so a price drop from a current $1999 to a perpetual $1799 isn't unrealistic. Of course the 23" would have to come down too, though the $2599 figure is a little more arbitrary, and would fluctuate based on Apple market research that I don't have access to. Probability: 80%.

• iPad - the super-cool pen and tablet-based Mac.

  why? Inkwell, along with the fact that several other hardware and OS manufacturers are heading down this path, makes this a clear stop on the Apple path. Probability: Zero at this Expo. January's another story though...

Well there you go! That's my story and I'm sticking to it. We'll see what happens on Wednesday the 17th!

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So Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference got underway this morning, and Steve outlined the forthcoming OS 10.2 called 'Jaguar.' This pisses me off incredibly, and makes me euphoric with joy.

First, the shit (the bad kind): Apple's including iChat, an Instant Message client that will work with AOL Instant Messenger's network. This pisses me off because as the interaction designer for Yahoo's Messenger for Mac, I think that picking one chat network and 'blessing' it with an Apple client is as bad a move as binding Internet Explorer into the Windows OS. I'm also pissed off because they didn't choose Yahoo to do it with. Fuck'em. We'll show them.

Second, the shit (the good kind): One technology being introduced in Jaguar is Inkwell, OS X's implementation of handwriting recognition. They've taken the Rosetta handwriting engine from Newton 2.0 and ported it to OS X, likely improving it along the way.

They mention that you'll need a digitizing tablet to use Inkwell, and there is flat out no way that they went through the engineering effort of porting Rosetta just to support text entry for people with Wacom tablets.

As far as I'm concerned (and I'm not usually so vehement about rumored products) I am absolutely certain that this means the iPad (all) is on its way, possibly in October, but more probably in January.

By releasing Inkwell into the OS months earlier, Apple is softening the ground and testing the waters for user acceptance of this handwriting recognition engine, and handwriting recognition in general. Once Inkwell has positive (or at least non-negative) buzz, the time is right to launch iPad, the killer hardware.

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So hey, how about those Apple announcements yesterday?

Of course I feel a little let down. I mean sure, the iMac design is really cool and yes, if I didn't have a desktop I was really happy with I'd buy one, but frankly it didn't live up to the hype.

"To boldly go where no PC has gone before" - Where? The nightstand?

"Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond." - The only thing the rumor sites agreed on over the last few months was that there would definitely be a flat-panel iMac, with a radical industrial design.

Okay, that said, the new iMac is very cool. I didn't expect them to move to the G4, and I certainly didn't expect them to include a Superdrive in the top model. Actually, no matter which feature was decided first, it likely drove the other one, since a G4 is required to do the MPEG-2 encoding in iDVD, and what good is a Superdrive without iDVD? Similarly, it seems silly to include a G4 processor and not offer as an option the only hardware option that requires one.

I wonder about the hinge arm. I'd have to see one, but I know that every desk lamp I've ever had with a spring-arm like that has broken or grown feeble. Of course, I have to tell myself it just looks like a desk lamp. One thing is clear though, this is a consumer and business computer, not a computer for the educational market. Apple is clearly using the iBook as their educational vehicle now. There's no way a school would buy this computer. I mean, you think *I'm* hard on my spring-arm lamps...

I'm also fine with the prices. Actually, the timing is perfect. My uncle got an iPod for Christmas and my dad and I spent several hours encoding a bunch of his CDs and uploading them because my uncle doesn't have a Mac. He's been anti-Apple for the last 18 years, ever since he bought 10 Apple Lisas for his office at $10,000 a pop, then Apple came out with the Mac for a quarter the price and abandoned the Lisa. He loves his iPod though. He loves his iPod so much that he's buying a Mac to use with it! I told him to hold off until after the keynote, and now he's going to get the model with the Superdrive. I might just win him back into the Apple camp yet.

Other thoughts on the Apple presentation:

• The 14.1" iBook - Barely a blip in Steve's presentation, this is clearly a concession to market needs, as opposed to Steve's vision. I get the impression Steve doesn't like this machine, even if it's what people want. Anyhow, they didn't mention that the extra 2 inches of screen space come at the cost of a significantly larger iBook (over an inch wider and nearly an inch deeper; only the thickness stays the same), and an extra pound of weight.
• The switch to OS X as default - It had to happen sooner or later. Just because most people I know are waiting for Photoshop to make the switch before they do is no reason to assume that new Mac buyers feel the same way. The OS is really stable, there's a lot of software for it, including the 'digital hub' suite, and considering the learning curve going from OS 9 to OS X, it makes a lot more sense than teaching new users OS 9, then telling them to toss that out the window and move ti OS X six months from now. When you think about it, those users who would want to use OS 9 are those who already know it. Presumably these are the same people with the savvy to know how to switch the default OS in the Startup Disk control panel anyhow. And then, of course, there's the fact that iPhoto is an OS X only application...
• iPhoto - Second to an iPad, this is the thing I've been waiting for from Apple more than anything else. It's great. I take pictures almost every day. I keep my Powershot s100 with me pretty much all the time. This is just the tool I need to keep these pictures organized. I'm writing a review of iPhoto at the moment, either for Fury or possibly one of the Mac publications. I should have it done on the train ride home tonight. Suffice to say that I've imported over 2800 of my archived photos (2.1 gigabytes worth) so I feel like I'm putting it through its paces. The software's not perfect, it can crash, but the power and flexability it offers are really great, with a few glaring exceptions.

Okay, so where's the iPad? Listening to Steve speak, I got the impression that Apple thinks it's fulfilled its Digital Hub vision; this coming the day before Microsoft announces forthcoming pads to integrate with TVs, PCs, and even X-boxen. So what's Apple's next big thing? We can probably expect a G4 tower speed bump around March, and G5 processors for 'the fastest Mac ever' at Macworld New York. Frankly I'm more excited about a July Photoshop X announcement. And of course iPhoto 2, which will include brightness/contrast and color adjustment functionality. Think the equalizer on iTunes. You'll be able to set default contrast and color adjustments for different types of photos, outdoor, night, sunny, flash, etc. with the ability to override and customize settings on any given photo.

Anyhow, I think the new iMac is cool. It's gone from 'Yum' to 'Mmm' and I can't wait until I start seeing them on receptionists desks everywhere. I bet the design will also make it on to a lot of professional desktops as well, especially for people who use a computer as as a secondary tool and want to reclaim both their desk space and their swankiness. How many days before someone starts selling clip-on additions to the screen, to cover the lucite border (they call it the 'halo') with velvet leopardprint?

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(note: I wrote this before I saw the iMac leak on Time Canada. [mirror]. I still think Apple's got something besides the iMac and iPhoto up its sleeve, but we'll just have to see. Also, check out the latest (and probably last) mock splash-page.)

Okay, so we've had months of speculation, and one final harried week of exposes, debunkings, guesses, taunts, and teasers. Tomorrow we find out what's in Steve's magic bag.

Rather than write another long document of educated guesses, rationales, and scenarios, I'll just put my bid in before the buzzer:

As you might guess, I think Steve is finally unveiling the iPad, but as to what the iPad is, I think the iWalk hoax videos got people thinking along the wrong lines.

I don't believe that the iPad will be a PDA. (It's amazing how everyone's forgotten that Scully coined the term 'Personal Digital Assistant' or PDA, back in early 1993... It's been quite a while.) While a PDA is a device you take with you everywhere, to take notes, to lookup and input PIM info like contacts and appointments, the iPad will be closer to a PADD.

A PADD is essentially a portable interface, as opposed to a portable computer or a portable digital assistant. Mark Noble wrote an excellent write-up of the differences between a PDA and a PADD, and I encourage you to read it.

So, if not a PDA, what is the iPad? Let's start with a set of possible specs:

Likely:

• 12.1" active-matrix touchscreen
• One Firewire port
• One USB port
• One Audio-out/headphone jack
• Airport installed
• OS X Thin Client lets you use the iPad as a remote terminal for a machine running OS X.

Possible:

• 5gig Toshiba mini HD (like the iPod's)
• Infra-red transciever
• Light version of OS X that can drive the iPad away from a 'server' computer.

Well, that's it for me. I'm going to bed and see what's up when I get to work in the morning.

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Or, as Apple puts it, 'one more sleepless night'. Though I wonder if they're referring to the thousands waiting for tomorrow's keynote, or the dozens of engineers who are frantically working to make beta hardware perform without a glitch on stage...

Anyhow, new tagline up.

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I just uploaded today's Apple countdown page. For those who didn't see the first one, here's the page for 3 days to go.

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Working tonight on another couple Apple pieces to go up tonight and tomorrow morning, so be sure to check back. :-)

And you thought Christmas was over. Looks like Santa Jobs has other plans...

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Today's (real) Apple message is "To go where no PC has gone before."

While my first instinct was "what, an iMac for the shower, replete with little suction cups so you can check stocks while you rub-a-dub?" I'm betting this is further iPad evidence.

I bet it's the sofa. You know that's what I want an iPad for, so I can compute and watch TV, so I can instant message and read a book in comfort, so I can take the full internet with me everywhere I go in the house, and use it with one hand.

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Okay, so I may have taken it down from the front page by the time you read this, so if so, check out my take on Apple's '3 days till' message.

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Well, the cat's out of Jobs's bag. Next week's incredible unveiling? Well, it's one of the ones that some people have been waiting for longest. I'd call it a Newton II except it's come so much further.

In a nutshell, it's a PDA, significantly bigger than a Palm or small WinCE device, with a great color screen, a 'lite' version of OS X, multimedia and handwriting recognition support, Firewire, audio in and out, quite likely an Airport card.

On the software side, it looks like NewtonOS, where NewtOS would be if it had been evolving for the past 5 years instead of canned (which it may very well have been, though most of the Newton engineers I knew have gone to Palm or Handspring).

There's the notepad, of course, but there's also a full web browser, an OS rebuilt around multimedia, and quite possibly one of those snazzy 5gig Toshiba drives in there, although maybe not.

I'd post the pictures, but that would just elicit me a call from Apple legal later tonight or tomorrow morning and I'd just as soon not. If the pictures are still up at SpyMac when you read this, that's great. If not, well, as Apple keeps reminding us on their home page, Monday's just around the corner.

Damn I wonder if it still uses NewtonScript on the back end, or if it's BSD-based. If it's the former, then I'm probably the only person at Yahoo who's a readymade NewtonScript developer with four years experience. If it's the latter, well, that's just so cool I wouldn't care about it not using NewtonScript.

Though I'm not putting up a mirror for the aforementioned reasons, you can find one for now at Interface Studio.

Of course, it might not be real at all anyhow. Some folks over at MacSlash are raising red flags, mostly about small vibrations in the video in the closeup movie and the use of 'Apple iWalk' on the startup screen when all other apple products are refered to without the Apple moniker. Then there's the fact that Apple doesn't have a trademark on iWalk... but Microsoft does.

Okay, so there's still a little uncertainty. It'll make the world go around for another few days. Maybe the cat's still in the bag after all. :-) I'll say this: Apple's hype machine has actually made me not want to find the secret before Monday. Oh sure I'm looking, and if it's out, I wana know, but I'm kind of hoping Apple can keep it under wraps until the moment of the unveiling. Like the iMac. I didn't know, even though I worked in the office that was doing all the print work. There was just this room that was always off limits. I want a key to that room...

For the truly anal (and those who can get movie 3 to play) try going frame-by-frame. when the person touches the disk, rotating the apple logo, watch carefully. The logo is straight down, the finger touches, starts seeming to move the wheel, but the logo stays still, until after 5 frames it instantly jumps to where it should have been, but there's no blurring, and no corresponding finger movement. Looks like a glitch in teh CGI, though why someone would want to go through that much trouble... Also, it seems doubtful that the site would post for three days saying 'we have this confidential video. We're just making sure it's real before we post it...' acting as a beacon for Apple to step in if they really had something.

If it's a fake, it's the best I've ever seen. If it's not, there's some darn strange stuff going on. Also, the trim around the edge of the monitor often obscures the edge of the screen, including menus and other interface elements. doesn't seem like something Apple would do...

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With all the blind speculation, I've got to wonder: Could the 'flat-panel iMac' and the 'iPad' be the same thing?

There's little doubt that the flat-panel iMac is coming on Monday, but there's also little doubt that Apple's hype engine was called forth for bigger news than that.

I'm starting to feel like it's July of 1991, when Apple introduced the Powerbook 100, 140, and 170, completely revolutionary with their trackballs, palmrests, and portability.

Breath: Baited.

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Please live up to the hype.

You've gotta be curious. I really hope it's not a letdown...

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I got an anonymous email today from someone purporting to know the stats of a forthcoming iPad.

While the stats describe a machine marginally different than the full-size 'thin-client' tablet I had envisioned, they (not the spelling errors in the spec sheet) have an air of credibility. It makes sense.

I'll do a more complete write-up later, but in short, the iPad, as described, would be a handheld (3" by 4.5" by 0.8") half-pound device with a high-density 256x512 pixel 16-color touchscreen, a thin version of Mac OSX, and a firewire port.

The only real miss in the product seems to be a lack of wireless, depending on a firewire adapter. That seems pretty silly to me, but then it seems to be intended as more of an unfettered device than the 'around-the-house' iPad I envisioned. This is much more a star-trek 'padd' device.

Base price: $550

Release date: Unknown

Rumor validity: 5 on a scale of 10

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I've been thinking about the interesting mix of functionality credits and deficits of the iPod, and I knew there was something off regarding the use models people follow and this device meant to facilitate them. I think I just figured out what the problem is:

The iPod lets you store 1,000 songs. That's 4,000 minutes, 66 hours, or 2.7 solid days of uninterrupted, unrepeated music. The battery lasts for 10 hours. As sold, the iPod can only be recharged by connecting the firewire cable to your computer, and incidentally, your music collection. An AC adapter, presumably for travel yet unusable on an airplane, costs $50 and takes up approximately as much space as the iPod itself. (Can you say 'road trip'? The iPod can't, but that's beside the point.) [My bad. the iPod does come with an AC adapter. Extra adapters are $50. -KF]

So, in the ordinary use case, a person synchronizes all 4.6 gigs of their music to the iPod, but can only listen to around 10% of it before having to plug the device back in to the computer to recharge, at the same time giving it access to the computer's master music collection again.

Essentially there are only three rationale for the extra 90% of the storage space. First, if you want to listen to specific songs or albums in the ten hours, but you don't know what they are when you're at the computer. Second, if you're using the iPod as a portable storage device in order to copy data to other computers, and the ability to play the extra music files is superfluous. Third, you use the adapter 9 times for every one time you plug your iPod into your Mac.

While it's an attractive idea to have all of your songs in your pocket/hand/bag/jacket, for that moment when you have the inspiration to listen to that one specific song, I have to speak up as a member of the crowd that's big on genre playlists and random shuffle within them.

To me (and your mileage may vary) the more valuable iPod would be the one with 512 megs in RAM, not flash rom, but good ol' lose power and lose the data RAM. This, incidentally, would cost about $20 from the OEM as opposed to several hundred for the flash memory. (This is not the problem that it might seem, because you're talking about a device with a high-capacity fixed battery carrying redundant data. If the battery goes flat and dumps the songs, it doesn't matter because charging the battery by firewire-ing to your Mac takes an hour, while restoring all the songs will take only a fraction of that time over the same connection, and it'll happen simultaneously.)

512 megs would be enough RAM for over 8 hours of music (15 times more than my Rio). At the end of the day, when you plug your iPod into your Mac's firewire port, the computer can take a look at the music you listened to since the last sync, chuck those songs from the iPod, and randomly select more titles from the computer's iTunes library (toss 8 electronica songs, load up 8 fresh tracks, etc.).

Of course, if there's a song you listened to during the day that you'd like to keep on the player, you can always mark it with a button, to 'save until I delete' and it'll stick around. Further, you could, via the iTunes interface, choose specific songs or albums to be saved temporarily or indefinitely on the iPod. Basically, songs would be ephemeral unless specifically marked as eternal.

Think Different: Think TiVo. You get new stuff, you view (listen to) it. The next time: you have new stuff.

What's the advantage? Size and price. Truth be told, without having to power a winchester drive, you'll also get a lot more than 10 hours out of the thing, likely twice as much (with 100% skip protection). So make it a gig of RAM, or a device that can 'sleep' for a week without fear of losing the songs. I love the idea of a device half the size of the already petite iPod, with a little white breathing 'sleep' LED for good measure. Of course, without the 5 gig, 1.8" state of the art profit-margin drive, the price for the device could drop to $225. Heck, call it $299 for the early adopters, and drop it down after Christmas. Call it an Expo Special.

I don't like thinking about music half as much as I like listening to it, and it's my bet that you don't either. Have you ever had the experience of deciding what to watch, looking through your tapes and/or DVDs, shrugging, turning on the TV, finding something on TV that you own, but deciding to watch it on TV, even though you passed over it in your own library? There is an appeal to non-premeditated media. It's why random shuffle exists. It's why having a random tenth of my music collection in my hand is just as good as all of it. Better if it means twice the battery life, half the weight, and a third off the cost.

Heck, though I dislike digital rights protections as much as the next hacker, I'd be happy with a netflicks model: You get an iPod-full of music, downloaded straight to the device in a format you can't offload, and every time you're done with some music, it gets tossed and new music comes in, and all you pay is a monthly fee for the service, no matter how much music you get. Think of it as subsidized, commercial-free radio, only you can skip, repeat, and tailor your station to the precise genres and/or artists you like.

Lastly, to think really different, firewire should be rethought. Yes, an album transferred in 10 seconds is gee-whiz wow, especially when compared to the nearly two minutes it would take to transfer over USB, but isn't Apple trying to show us a world without wires? What could be cooler than an airport-equipped iPod? (Don't answer that. It's rhetorical.) With an 802.11b Airport card in the iPod, it could sync an album in 45 seconds, and all it would have to do is come within 100 yards of your mac. Most of the time you wouldn't even know it's doing it. Just bring the device home, and while you're watching TV, doing homework, sleeping, whatever, it's refreshing your music, even if it never leaves the pocket of your jacket on the coat rack. To fully swap a gig of music would take 15 minutes.

Okay, so that would suck power, so you'd need a charging stand, at which point it's just as easy to plug it in to the computer, so maybe Airport has to be better thought out for this particular device, but the rest still stands. Time to completely swap a fresh gig of music via Firewire? 2.5 minutes in the background.

Even this new Fury-iPod would not be a 'groundbreaking device,' but it would be a little more innovative, ditching the metaphor of an MP3 player as a storage device plus playback, and giving it a more organic existence; indeterminate, but welcomed. I don't expect everyone to feel the same passion about what I'm saying, but I bet those with TiVos are nodding their heads...

This piece is still rough. I'd love to read your comments, and continue a dialog. What do you think?

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Apple's up to something.

They've announced that they have a 'breakthrough product' that is 'not a mac' but apparently involves collaboration between the Quicktime and iTunes teams, along with other unspecified teams.

It has been hinted that this is a hardware product, not a software product, and Apple's scheduled a special event for this coming Tuesday, the 23rd (the same day that Windows XP will officially launch) to unveil it.

A lot of the speculation (based on the teams mentioned) is that it will be a music product, somehow tied to MP3s, but not anything like an ordinary MP3 player.

So what is it? I have two ideas, and I'd be happy if either is right, though I'm also excited at the prospect of something new and unexpected (and I'm beyond hoping that it's a newton-based device).

Possibility #1: A wireless, connected MP3 player. Consider an MP3 player that had an airport card that, along with a revised version of iTunes on your home Mac, could reach out to your machine, either through a local Airport network, or through the internet (from work, vacation, etc.) to constantly refresh the music in the device with music from your larger connection. Now imagine that the product is half the size of a deck of cards, and had the capability, through audio navigation, to select specific songs in your hoe collection for download and storage?

Possibility #2: A thin-client iPad. Not technically a mac, this device wouldn't have a hard drive, any media bays, or even a true operating system. Instead it would be a 'remote display' for an existing Mac. Running through Airport, it would mirror the computer's display anywhere within Airport's range, streaming audio both to and from the device, allowing iTunes playback anywhere, and with a touchscreen, also allowing web browsing or email reading and composition from the living room couch. I've written about the possibilities an iPad holds before. Tuesday's surprise might simply be the thinnest, simplest, and cheapest incarnation of those mentioned in the article.

Time will tell, but it's quite a novel surprise to have a largely mysterious product announcement on the way. It's sort of a rush.

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Great news today. Apparently Palm is buying Be for $11 million in Palm stock.

This is exactly what Palm needs. The problem with PDAs, from the Newton to the Psion, to the Palm and, to a slightly lesser degree, WinCE, is that while they're great at manipulating snippets of information, they have lacked real multimedia capability. Playing MP3s on a handheld or any sort of video requires a really specialized application, and they're nowhere near as adept at handling multimedia data streams as even a cellular phone is. The OS just isn't built that way.

Enter BeOS. After showing such promise as a multimedia OS at the expense of all else, it couldn't find a market and has been foundering for the last three years. It's already been demonstrated that other OSes can be emulated in the Be environment, and PalmOS has already been ported successfully to other desktop platforms. All that's left is for Palm to pull an Apple and graft the existing PalmOS onto the slick media-centric BeOS and put it all into a tight m700-style case with a G3 cell connection.

This would be the machine that lives up to the hype. IT would be the knowledge navigator that fits in your pocket and can handle realtime video as easily as the current PalmOS can handle appointments. Bandwidth will be the sole remaining bottleneck to the full solution, and G3 systems should take care of that. Storage space will be irrelevant as the Palm will be (literally) a thin client, grabbing music, video, and videocommunications through the network.

Okay, so I'm waxing a little Dick Tracy here and we've heard it all before, but speaking as a former Newton programmer, I just want to say how vital a step it is to create a handheld OS with deep multimedia underpinnings, and I can actually say that I'm glad that Be ended up going to Palm instead of Apple (though sadly at one tenth the $125 million Amelio offered for Be just a few years ago).

And the future chugs along...

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I find it amusing that a month ago an Alpha Top executive goes on the record as saying that they're manufacturing 'large-screen iBooks' for Apple, then everyone says it's misdirection, or a misunderstanding. Apple says flatly that they're not releasing a larger screen iBook, the rumor sites (and Register) say 'It must be the new flat-panel iMac' (plausible), then later 'it's a new powerbook between the iBook and the Titanium Powerbook!' (wildly improbable), and today the main purveyor of this opinion, Go2Mac wildly speculates, "[Son of pismo] may, in fact, be an updated iBook rather that a PowerBook as originally thought." Wow. You mean the exective might have been right all along?

Funny how if you change your story often enough, even the old can seem new again. Sheesh...

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On another quick note, judging by a couple posts on the net (can't find links at the moment) and by a second look at the 'iMac graphic' posted last week, it seems likely that while a similar device in principle is likely, it won't necessarily look anything like the drawing.

The sketch is exactly of the nature Apple includes in its patent applications, and it's almost certain that that drawing was created to support a patent for a tablet-able iMac. Whether such a device is in July's wings is uncertain, though the lack of another wireless technology to support such a high-bandwidth demand makes it unlikely.

So Jobs will be happy to read that it's still a big mystery. I feel confident that there will be some form of hybrid product coming out in July, but as to what.. Well, therein lies the fun of speculation.

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The Register had a compelling article today, allegedly giving details of the iMac to be announced at Macworld New York next month.

The twist on their article is that the iMac will have a detachable LCD display, that could be used as a webpad (iPad) via an unspecified wireless technology (though it's unlikely that it's Airport, unless the pad is actually a thin client with an on-board windowing system).

The article claims, and I concur, that this could make sense of Alpha Top's comments regarding a 'bigger-screened iBook', as the unit is functionally very similar to the new iBook, and is roughly the same size. It also rings true with the marketing analysis I published last month, and may be the hardware that proves the webpad market, which could result in similar most-in-one tablets later on. It actually makes more sense than an iPad, in the near term. If Apple has found a reasonable wireless technology to connect the pad to a base unit, then the entire unit could be substantially less expensive to produce (as they don't have to cram the hardware into a light, thin box), and could have a lot more hardware (firewire, DVD, etc.) for the same reasons.

While the sketch is clearly not production quality, it's a design which, pending Apple's styling, makes a lot of sense. As for how well the functionality of the detached monitor (which would presumably be touch-sensitive), we'll just have to wait and see. A new iMac is a virtual certainty though, considering the new initiatives Apple's introduced to eliminate existing iMacs from the channel (free MP3 players and 6-month interest-free financing).

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There has been a lot of speculation going around sparked by a comment made by a representative at Alpha Top, Apple's Taiwanese iBook fabrication contractor. According to the comment, Apple plans on releasing a 'larger-screened iBook' and will offer iBooks in different colors in July.

After a carefully worded denial by Apple (in itself a rarity), some Mac rumor sites have spun the comments and the wording of Apple's denial into the possibility of a third powerbook, priced around $2000, falling between the iBook and the G4 Powerbook.

This idea is highly suspect.

First, the speculation comes only hours after the Alpha Top and Apple comments, and seems to based on nothing more than spinning them into a reasonable rationalization. Second, and more importantly, such a product just doesn't fit from a marketing perspective. There is a vanishingly small number of people who would buy such a machine that wouldn't otherwise buy an iBook or TiPB.

Adding a product to the line costs a great deal of money, and in the 'new Apple' this is only undertaken when it will improve sales, not merely redirect them. This was the lesson learned by the Cube: People want expandability/functionality or they want value. A product wedged between the two didn't sell because people either weren't willing to sacrifice the expantability or higher clock speeds of the G4 PowerMac, or they weren't willing to pay so much more than an iMac, for a little more speed. The Cube is Apple's biggest failure in the past two years, and Apple isn't about to make the same mistake in the portable arena.

So why did Alpha Top say anything? One possibility is that, like any manufacturing contractor that OEMs to other companies, it uses PR not to build anticipation for new hardware, but to prove to the investment community that the company is prospering, and is worthy of its stock valuation. If Alpha Top is ramping up production for Apple, they need to be able to tell the world about it, so the world knows how well Alpha Top is doing as a company. It may have been misguided to elaborate on exactly what they're building, and knowing Apple's wrath if they were to reveal an upcoming product, they may have blurred the actual product to protect themselves, while still releasing the fact that they're doing more work for Apple on a new product.

There's little doubt that someone at Alpha Top messed up somewhere, but we'll just have to wait and see exactly how.

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At least five times in the past 10 years engineers at Apple have worked on initiatives to bring a full-sized tablet-based computer to market. Though the previous four attempts never saw the light of day, Apple has saved the best for last.

This July: Meet iPad.

The Apple iPad:

• Tablet: 11.5" x 9" x 0.7"
• 12" 1024x768 LCD touch- and stylus-sensitive screen
• No keyboard or mouse (optional attachment via USB)
• USB port
• Dual speakers and headphone jack
• Internal HD
• 5-hour battery life and charging cradle
• Airport wireless connectivity
• 2-3 lbs
• $999

The following is a work of speculation. It does not consist of any leaked information, nor does it purport to be a rumor. Instead it is a predictive analysis based on past Apple research, Apple's current market strategies, and recent product and technology positioning. This is an inferential assessment a likely direction for the Macintosh platform. After writing this article, I checked around on the web to collect rumor references and artist's conceptions. If the legality of any of the referenced information is questioned by Apple, it should be made clear that this article is not a derivative work from that information, and is not affected by any restrictions on that information.

I. Introduction

Since Steve Jobs retook the helm at Apple, the products, technologies, and media campaigns that have emerged have presented a much more holistic marketing front. Like a general coordinating the actions of several fronts for maximum effect, Jobs has taken care to position new products and initiatives to pave the way for the next. In short, Jobs thinks several steps ahead, and executes accordingly. Events, both over the last year, and going back as far as 1987, are coming to a head, which will likely result in the release of the iPad at Macworld Expo New York this July.

II. The 'original' Newton

In 1987 Apple (specifically, Bill Atkinson and John Sculley) made a speculative video about the 'knowledge navigator,' a portable device with full motion color video, voice recognition, and wireless data connectivity. Though the technology was not available to realize this vision, Atkinson instead wrote HyperCard, realizing several of the software goals he envisioned for the navigator. Four years later Michael Tchao, an Apple marketing specialist, approached then CEO John Scully and pitched what would eventually become the Newton MessagePad. At the time, Apple was already investigating the prospect of pen-based interfaces; in fact the "Newton" as originally envisioned and being worked on at the time by an advance technologies group led by Larry Tesler, was for a wireless pad with handwriting recognition -- that would cost a projected $8000. (From "Defying Graviity (sic)", 1993)

III. The 'public' Newton

Fast-forward two years to the Newton MessagePad's release in the summer of 1993. Apple launched a marketing campaign bigger than any in its history to that point. The Newton was going to revolutionize the way people worked. Scully claimed that 'personal digital assistants,' or PDAs, terms coined by the Newton marketing team, would eventually have a $3.5 trillion market. In the end, the Newton was a technological marvel and a media disaster.

The core problem was marketing and sales. In 1993 there were three ways to inform the public about your product: Point-of-purchase information, advertising, and media attention. Moreover, you had to be good at at least two of them for your product to be successful. Apple poured money into advertising and point-of-purchase kiosks. They seeded Netwons to journalists, artists, and other celebrities, thinking that anyone who touched one would love it. (This worked very well with the original Mac 128K.) Unfortunately the expectations of engineers and devotees differed greatly from those of the average user, and the MessagePad's lackluster ParaGraph handwriting recognition became the focus of media attention.

A revised and greatly improved recognizer, dubbed 'Rosetta,' came too late to save the Messagepad. The Dante Newton OS 2.0 release was a huge leap forward, but it came at a time when Apple wasn't certain whether to market the device as a vertical or horizontal solution, and wasn't as committed to making a PR disaster work as it was two years earlier. Despite long-time rumblings from within Newton and in the developer community about the creation of a Newton Slate, it was never to be. Two months after being spun off as its own company by Gil Amelio, Newton was brought back into the fold and killed by Jobs shortly after assuming the i-CEO role.

IV. Hancock: The Mac tablet that never was.

An even greater victim of the media's response to Apple's handwriting recognition engine was Hancock. For several years prior to the Messagepad's release, Apple engineers were working on a MacOS (System 7) based tablet computer. Using the PowerBooks Duo's architecture as a base, Hancock was to be a 3-4 lb tablet computer with handwriting recognition incorporated into the operating system (MacWEEK, circa December 1993). In early 1994 the project had gone far enough that Apple was soliciting developers to be development hardware seed sites, but the project was scrapped shortly thereafter because the negative media attention surrounding the Newton made the acceptance of a tablet-based Mac seem unlikely.

Fast-forwarding several years, several market and conditions have changed drastically. Wireless connectivity is now a standard option on the entire Apple line. Later-generation PDAs have acclimated people to either tolerating handwriting recognition, using specialized entry methods such as graffiti, or typing on on-screen soft-keyboards. Most importantly, fabrication techniques have driven costs and sizes much lower. The time is right for the iPad.

V. The Road to iPad

From a marketing strategy standpoint, Apple's actions of the past 18 months seem to be paving the way for the iPad. Prior to the 2000 MWNY, the public expressed a lack of options with the four-product grid (iMac, iBook, Power Mac, PowerBook), and so the Cube was unveiled, widening the grid to 5 (or, as many say, 6 with a midrange portable member in absentia). This led to a rash of 'CubeBook' rumors circling in the months and weeks before MWSF in January 2001. The idea was that Apple was going to release a subnotebook, smaller and lighter than the existing G3 PowerBook, to fill the broad gulf between the iBook and the G3 PowerBook (Pismo). Instead Apple delivered the G4 Titanium PowerBook to replace Pismo on the high end, and we would have to wait another four months before getting the iBook dual-usb, a machine that, despite the iBook moniker, resembled the CubeBook rumors (down to the clear-on-pearl finish) more than it did the iBook that it displaced.

For those who live and die by Apple's product grid for predicting hardware moves, this led to confusion, as there was no room between the new iBook and the PBTi for another machine. Indeed, it seems that Apple intentionally closed the gap between the two. Unlike the original iBook, its replacement wouldn't seem out of place in the office or the briefcase. Effectively, aside from the name and targeting the educational market, Apple moved the iBook over one spot, from the low- to mid-range portable product spot, like a tile puzzle with one tile missing, only that void was now in the low-end mobile square.

Unlike the Newton's rollout in 1993, Apple has over the last four years honed its marketing machine to the point where it has a much greater control over transmission of the message. The web is now a primary information source for potential buyers, and Apple has spared no expense in spreading its message clearly and effectively, both through the Apple site and QuickTime streaming of Apple events and keynote speeches. Just as important, Apple has made huge expenditures to control the point-of-sale as well. After failed attempts to control the sale environment at department stores like Sears and Best Buy, Apple took it a step further with the CompUSA store-within-a-store initiative, the Apple Online Store, and most recently with the Apple Retail Stores. Apple's goal is to ensure that anyone who wants to find out more about Apple products can do so in an informed environment, without relying on salespeople who may be ignorant of the product line, concerned with commissions, or who hold windows-centric views. It's not unreasonable to speculate that if Apple had these marketing vehicles in place when the Newton was first released, it could hold the spot as the front-running PDA (though there were other problems involving Apple's lack of willingness to scale the Newton down to smaller sizes, that really fall outside this article).

VI. The Marketing Rationale

This leaves the biggest question: Who would buy an iPad? The iPad's target market would be different than any of its failed predecessors. It would be targeted as the perfect addition to an already computer-enabled home, office, or school. With Airport connectivity it would be ready to network with other modern Mac (or even PC) environments with 802.11 networks. Existing Mac users without Airport would only need to buy a $99 card for their existing Mac, or a base module for their home or office. The iPad would be your computer away from your computer. While most computers require you to work around them, sitting at a desk or table, typing and mousing with both hands, the iPad is the thing you could have on your lap when you're watching TV and responding to email, carrying on an instant-message conversation, or making dinner with recipes from the web. The more we use computers for information acquisition, the less we type, and the more appropriate pen- and touch-based systems are.

Unlike the Audrey, the iPaq terminal, or other forays into inexpensive information appliances, the iPad wouldn't be dumbed down. It will not be positioned as the computer for people who don't think they're ready for a computer, but instead as the appliance for people who are looking for a second computer.

This is an important distinction: Since Apple has been touting both the PowerBook and iBook as all-in-one solutions, there is less and less incentive to purchase both a desktop and a mobile Macintosh. Palm computing recently announced that their quarterly sales would fall 50% below previous estimates, and this is largely because existing Palm owners don't feel that there is enough incentive to buy a new one. $300-$450 is a lot to spend to get a better screen, a thinner palm, or an expansion slot. Similarly, computer sales are slowing industry-wide because the cost of replacement isn't justified by the added functionality. The iPad would be a boost to Apple's sales because an iPad sale wouldn't come at the expense of the sale of another Apple CPU.

VII: Meet the iPad

So what would go into this technological marvel? First off, it will run Mac OS X. Rather than forcing the user to learn something new (we mock what we do not understand, hence the demise of MagicLink, Audrey, AT&T's EO, et cetera) or use a platform which still standardizes on smaller screen sizes (Palm, WinCE), it will be a Mac through and through. To save on size, and to firm its position as a secondary device, it won't have a CD-ROM drive bay, relying on a networked computer or external USB device for software installation. This isn't the first time Apple's done this (Duo, Comet, PowerBook 100), so it's not wading into uncharted territory. It is likely that the device would have facility for a net-boot option, to recover if something happened to the internal boot volume. Though downplayed, USB devices could still be used to make this a regular computer. Plug in the USB keyboard and mouse, place the iPad on its charging stand, and you would have a respectable desktop machine. Unplug USB and lift it out of the charging cradle and you have a tablet Mac.

Firewire is doubtful, not just to cut down on expense, but to increase the difference between an iPad and iBook or iMac. USB can satisfy most of the iPad needs. An internal modem would be probable, though on-board Ethernet is unlikely. The general motif here would be to include minimal functionality for networking, dialup, peripherals, etc, but without the higher-end or redundant functionality reserved for higher-end machines. The PC-card slot could go either way. The iBook doesn't have one, causing problems for Ricochet or CDPD-based wireless users. It's certainly possible that the iPad would have a PC-card slot, but I would doubt it, again citing Apple's desire to not cannibalize other Mac sales.

While you would use your PowerBook to write a paper in the library, you would use your iPad to sketch notes in class. Where you could print out reference material like recipes and maps from a desktop Mac, you could bring the iPad with you to the kitchen or the car (with a passenger doing the navigating, hopefully). As portable as the iBook and other notebooks are, there are so many times when it's too much trouble to open it, balance and type at anything but a table. With an iPad you'd leave the computer desk behind completely.

VIII: The Time is Now

As for the timing, Apple finally has its ducks in a row. Apple again has positive momentum as an innovator in the press. The market is ready for the device, and Microsoft has recently announced a team working on producing exactly such a device, anticipated in mid-2002, with a price tag of between $2-3000, legitimizing the market, especially at a $1000 price-point (interesting side note: Microsoft made a similar announcement last year, but anticipated that the device would run WinCE, not XP). Where Apple's industrial engineering was, for many years, better at exterior design than interior efficiency, the current PowerBooks and the Cube prove that Apple is technically capable of building a device with the dimensions stated above. Without a keyboard, trackpad, or extra layer of exterior skin needed for a hinged PowerBook, the Titanium would be a third of an inch thinner. Without these items, a CD-ROM drive, a hinged architecture, external video, hardwired ethernet, second USB port, or firewire port, an iPad could sell for $300 less than an iBook, dropping to $800 within 12 months.

There is one more reason why the iPad will be launched in July: It will be Apple's killer OS X app. One OS X feature that has gone relatively unheralded in recent weeks is the ability to run OS X as either a terminal server or a thin client. Practically, this means that any OS X computer could act as a thin client for any other OS X computer on the web, merely acting as a screen and input device. Used in this fashion, an iPad would be a 'portable monitor and touchpad' for a dominant Mac. An iPad user wouldn't have to worry about mounting Appleshare volumes, syncing files, or installing software in multiple locations. This functionality, though possible before using tools such as Timbuktu or PCanywhere, is streamlined in OS X's Unix environment. It blurs the line between a computer and an appliance, and it shows the power of OS X at a very attractive price point. By introducing a new line of hardware that takes such unique advantage of OS X's new capabilities, Apple is proving the value of the new platform, while at the same time requiring users to upgrade their existiing dominant machine to OS X to take advantage of it, fulfilling Apple's essential goal of moving the platform to the new OS which, as any WWDC attendee can tell you, is imperative to convince Mac developers to release OS X native applications as soon as possible.

This is an evolving story, and as such this is a living document. In coming weeks more data will undoutably come out. When it does, check http://fury.com/ipad for the latest news and rumors. If you have more info, email me at hello@fury.com

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