My thoughts on the rumored Apple Tablet [Updated]

30 07 2009

For a while I’m following these rumors and combined them with some of my thoughts. Baseline of all of my thoughts was, that Apple in the past never reached for the bleeding edge technology, but more for the proven, state of the art technology nicely wrapped. Plus all speculation should be tied to the market Apple might be targeting.

The Basics

Baseline to all rumors is, that there will be some kind of Apple Tablet Device. There seems to be an outstanding order for 10 inch touch displays that need to be linked to a device. Price range for this device is estimated around US$ 800-1’000.

AppleInsider Picture

For this price point this would be no Macbook Tablet or anything similar. Apple won’t cannibalize Macbook sales.  So we should expect more of a iPhone / iPod Touch XL or DX kind of device. Comparing the capability of today’s netbooks to the new Apple device it must be capable of web browsing, instant messaging and email processing. The building blocks for this plus the touch interface are already available with the current iPhone / iPod Touch 3.0 OS. So no surprises here. The “Apple tax” could be justified with the touch interface, plus superb build quality and the Apple logo.

3G or 4G network besides WLAN ? 

This is a tough one. Depending on target market for this device my guess differs.

If Apple chose to go the traditional way, they might aim for the additional device (aka as Netbook) market. The potential buyer already has an existing WLAN infrastructure at home and for the mobile use a iPhone with tethering is available. This would indicate to no 3G or 4G built into the device.

More groundbreaking could be a totally different market. Target the device to all those consumers, that currently don’t have any direct device access to the Internet. Like e.g. my grandma. This would then definitely require a 3G or 4G network built into the device as these consumer typically don’t have a network infrastructure besides a phone at home. I suspect that this market would be significantly larger. As Apple would define this market segment from scratch, competitors couldn’t get in fast and Apple will play the “simple and easy to use” card. Competition would be unprepared. Plus, as the OS part would be owned by Apple, it will take time to build something comparable on other platforms.

If the device will have a carrier based network on board, this will be a 3G version. LTE would be too new for Apple and only available in very few locations.

Timing

This device will be clearly a leisure / home / private device. A release for this years Christmas season makes sense. Plus the old display rumors with a delivery in Fall indicate in the same direction. Probably we’ll see a similar staged approach as with the iPhone. First get a device out with no or limited third party app support. Parallel to the release a SDK will be published and an App store will open early next year. If Apple chose to enter the

Audio + Video

Some rumors indicate that there might be some extended multimedia functions for this device ranging from enhanced album features to streaming video.

The audio part makes sense for me. This device could be the audio repository at home, nicely selectable song collection enhanced with some web elements and additional album goodies. Playback either via headset, some add-on speaker unit for portable and outdoor use or through streaming to Apple Airport devices.  

I strongly doubt that there will be any kind of extended video or movie capabilities on top of the capabilities the iPod touch / iPhone has today. Storage requirements for a HD video collection would be too high. Additionally some rumors indicate that the major studios haven’t heard about such a device or plans of an extended service.

One more thing?

What else could Apple bring to the table for its tablet device?

  • E-Book Reader: I doubt it, battery live plus display technology (non ePaper) are against this?
  • Digital Picture Frame: Might be a clever marketing idea. Ingredients are at hand. And it gives the consumer a reason to put the device on display and show it off.
  • Enhanced Mobile Me integration: Clearly yes.
  • AppleTV controller on steroids: Could be, but I don’t see the market. First there needs to be a new version of AppleTV that includes TV recording, full 1080p playback.
  • Games platform: It’s missing too many controls and as the device is too large for easy carry around it would be limited to home use. There other devices are well established plus the tablet input mode doesn’t provide too many interesting ways too interact. It might be, that Apple tries to reinvent the board game. But a 10 inch board game is in many cases too small.This kind of new board game might become interesting with a new target buyer type, that previously didn’t have a computer (again my grandma).

Final Vote

My final vote goes currently to a new consumer device in the category of Web-Tablets. The device will open a new large market segment for Apple without too much competition. For all gadget freaks I fear that this device won’t be overly exciting. But we’ll see….

Just my 2ct….. PTL


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Categories : Apple, Mobile, Rumor, iPhone

Remote IT support for friends and family – Teamviewer

29 07 2009

For a long time my parents stayed away from PCs. My dad had to work with a PC during his last working years. After retirement I configured a three year old PC (without Internet connection) for the standard word processing tasks. But this system remained mostly untouched. Some 3 years ago the moment came and he called me, that he wanted to get Internet. He didn’t know what it meant, but somehow he wanted to get “it”. As we live some 100 km apart it became clear to me that some “remote support” solution was needed. The phone as medium just wasn’t enough.

In the past I had mostly relied on some kind of VPN connection to remote support. And as up- and downstream speeds got better, this also seemed to be the solution for my dad.

The latest thing that in 2006 came to my attention was a virtual VPN service called Hamachi.

Hamachi Homepage

Basically I prepared another PC for my dad, this time with Microsoft Windows  XP, Office, a Antivirus product and a Hamachi Client plus UltraVNC. I tried to lock down my dads account as much as possible. The VNC daemon was started through a service operation on a admin account. Intentionally dad didn’t get admin privileges.

This solution worked perfectly well for a couple of month and stopped at some point. Sometimes dads system was not online via Hamachi, in other instances I could see that the system was online, but couldn’t log on to VNC. What was originally intended as a solution to support, became more and more a problem in itself. One day it took nearly two hours to get the remote access solution going, while the original problem was solved in two minutes.

So I started to look into other solutions.  Some of my requirements where:

  • Cost effective
  • Transparent  to the network configuration
  • No installation required on the remote systems
  • Simple to initiate on the remote site

I finally came up with Teamviewer which met all the above listed requirements plus its multi-platform, runs on Windows and MacOS. So after my big shift to OSX I can support dad on his Windows systems (He bought a netbook last Dec!) while sitting in front of my Mac.

Teamviever Homepage

Teamviewer is for me currently the remote support solution. So far it had no issues with the underlying network. Even connections via HSDPA worked pretty well. Plus it doesn’t require any installation on the remote side. I just send out the link to the client and my dad or my friends just download the latest version of the app, start it and tell me the necessary codes to log in. I hope that they’ll provide an iPhone admin console soon, so that I can help even while on the road.

-PTL-


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Categories : General, Remote Support

When to expect Twitter clients that sync “read status” between multiple systems?

25 07 2009

I’m really wondering when we’ll see Twitter clients that can sync the read status between multiple systems and platforms.

I for myself often switch between my iPhone and my desktop reader.

On the iPhone I prefer Tweetdeck and Twitterfon. While on my desktop(s) I prefer (again) Tweetdeck and Seesmic. Originally I thought that Tweetdeck was implementing this desired functionality. But currently they only support sync for search queries.

Is this so complicated or am I missing something?

-PTL-


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iPhone in my car with Griffin Tuneflex Aux

24 07 2009

The Mercedes Way

My Mercedes is equipped with a built-in audio- and navigation system. Mercedes offers as add on a iPhone interface. Pricing for this part is ridiculous, compared to the functionality. I received a quote about SFr 1’100 including the required labor. The interface only enables the “normal” iPod menu tree to the dashboard display and allows to select in this menu via keys built into the steering wheel plus audio is forwarded to the audio system. It’s limited to 1000 songs for the menu and allows no telephony integration. For me too many disadvantages to pursue.

My interim solution

As the car has a built in AUX input (3.5mm jack in the glove compartment) I had a cable at hand that connected my iPhone (or previously my iPod nano) using this cable. Worked fine, only the sound level was sometimes a little bit low and the device was lying around and often dropped to the floor while driving. For long distance drives this helped to listen to a audio book, only the battery life of the device was sometimes the problem.

The Griffin TuneFlex Aux

Some weeks ago I again had a long drive in front of me and I finally wanted to complete one audio book on this drive. In my favorite stores I had seen different car sets for the iPhone, but none could convince me. Some had FM transmitters built in, which I didn’t need. Others where equipped with hands-free telephony support. But then I found the Griffin device and bought it. Link to Griffin TuneFlex Aux

It includes a complete set of adaptors for a large variety of iPods and iPhones also a 1m cable for the AUX connection is included. I installed the device in my car and I really like it since then.

Griffin TuneFlex in my car

Griffin TuneFlex in my car

Whenever I drive, even to the supermarket, my iPhone has a place where to stay. Plus I listen more often to content stored on the device. As it is so easy to use, during a 10 minute drive I listen to a podcast. I had never thought that such a simple device could change my media consumption in the car so significantly.

- PTL -


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MiFi 2352 or Tired of data roaming charges

20 07 2009

Data roaming charges in Europe are sometimes crazy, two digit Swiss Franc figures per mega byte (MB) are common, if a cellphone is operating in a foreign network1 . A work around needed.

What happened?

Looking at my normal internet usage profile, these fees can sum up pretty quick to a serious amount of money.
The last time I observed my internet network traffic for simple email processing, RSS browsing, news reading and some instant messaging for about 2 hours I had used roughly 200 MB.
On my last trip I had to check email while en-route. So my iPhone was set to manual pull mode for the email Activesync connection to my hosted exchange and I sometimes requested a sync. Over a couple of hours this added up to 2 MB, for which my service provider charged SFr 16.
Normally I refrain from using the roaming data service, but sometimes I need to use it and honestly I want to use the internet and tools I’m used too.

Carrier Options

Since I live in Switzerland and often travel for a couple of days to other European destinations I have optimised my Swiss phone contract to the lowest possible per MB fee while roaming, the next step would be to purchase a monthly MB contingent, e.g. 200 MB for SFr. 200 which is in many ways ridiculous.
So it seems that there is a need to obtain local pre-paid SIM cards for each country with reasonable pricing. Interestingly I stumbled over a site that maintains hints on local pre-paid arrangements for data usage. Prepaid Wireless Internet Access
This was a good starting point. So the carrier side was covered.

Required Hardware

Last year I had experimented with a software solution using an old Windows Mobile handset. The software basically transformed the handset into a wireless access point for a GSM network. The solution worked, but the mobile handsets battery emptied rapidly. Great idea, but not usable.
Using a USB data stick to connect my notebook to the internet would only solve half the problem, as could use my iPhone only with my notebook.

Novatel Wireless MiFi 2352

Earlier this year I found a first post about a to be released device made by Novatel Wireless called MiFi, which would serve as a mobile wireless access point connecting to a mobile phone network. A version is sold in the US as EVDO version since early 2009. Some weeks back a GSM version was released. The only option to buy this device is currently through mobilx webshop in Hungary. So I ordered one and was astonished to receive it within 2 days for a decent delivery charge. Great service.

MiFi 2352 usage

The device is nicely built and really lightweight. Set-up was simple, with reading the the manual carefully upfront, it can be completed in three minutes. You basically need to configure the device through it’s web page (http://192.168.1.1 when connected to the WLan). I first tried to do the config via the USB connection, but after some minutes consulted the guide :-)

When running the device has only two LEDs which indicate the WLan and GSM connection state.

Mif 2352 WAN LED states

So far my first test results are great. UMTS reception in my office is sometimes challenging, but the device picked up a full signal.
Charging of the device is only possible with the included power adapter. If you connect the device with the included USB/Micro-USB cable it goes into data connection mode and doesn’t charge. One friendly chap on the net posted a work-around for this. You just need to cut two cables. jkkmobile: How-to: USB charger hack for Novatel MiFi

So now I’m looking forward to my next trip with full internet coverage throughout my trip for reasonable money.
-PTL-

  1. SFr 11 roughly equal to US$ 10↩

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