Apple made a long anticipated product launch on 9/9/09. What was missing was more interesting than what was announced.
What was announced was interesting. An iPod touch with 64 Gig of memory, but no camera, and a Nano iPod with not just a camera, but a video camera and a FM radio. The Nano’s camera is VGA quality, not HD. The FM radio is a nice touch, but Microsoft is releasing a Zune with a HD FM radio soon.
The 64 Gig iPod touch is interesting, it takes a lot of video to fill up that much RAM. The strictly internal memory in the Apple devices is a solid money maker for Apple. What they charging for additional RAM is no where near what a SD card of the same size would cost. It would also provide a conduit for data in and out of their devices, which isn’t going to happen as long as Steve Jobs has anything to say about it.
What was missing was the Beatles catalog on iTunes and a tablet sized iTouch. The ‘iTablet’ would have made a big splash, and killed the Kindle. The resolution wouldn’t have matched the E-Ink display that the Kindle uses, but the increased functionality would have been the deciding factor. Apps would have to be rewritten to take advantage of the larger screen size, but I think the development community would step up to the challenge. I’m sure that Amazon would update their e-reader app for that platform, even if they understood that it would result in much reduced Kindle sales. Amazon would do so they wouldn’t lose a big chunk of the e-book market that they currently dominate.
Filed under: Apple, Gadget, tech rumors | Tagged: Apple, iPhone |
Urbin Technology 
Of these “Might have Beens” the iTablet’s the most compelling to me. Of course, without an SD card it gets a lot less interesting.
Oh, the iTablet would have sold like hotcakes to fanboys and non-fanboys alike. Much bigger screen to watch streaming video and stored movies on. I’m betting that screen quality was probably the blocking factor.
Plus having all the folks who bought video content formatted for an iTouch/iPhone screen complaining about the lower quality on a larger screen and being miffed that they have to buy their content again.
If they don’t get one out and capture market share, I wouldn’t be surprised if a android/chrome based tablet, with the SD slot that Apple will never put in their device, comes out.
Of course, the tablet’s always been the form factor that never took off… it’ll be interesting to see if the rumors about the new Microsoft tablet/book work out.
Have you guys seen the “Crunchpad” touch tablet yet? Supposedly it will retail at 400 bucks or less, and hit the market in November.
I took a quick look at the crunchpad. As I recall, it’s pretty much just a web browser. Now you can do a lot with a browser these days, but it would be way cooler if it was running Android and was capable of running apps.
I think the B&N nook is Android based, which should lead to some interesting hacking.