Apple Projected to Release 10-inch Touchscreen Tablet, September 2009

27 July 2009 :: J.E. Robertson

TheHotSpring.com :: The Financial Times is the latest publication to weigh in on mounting expectations that Apple will release a touchscreen tablet computer this fall. There are rumors the computer maker is hoping to counter the rise of cheap netbooks with something lower-cost than their standard Macs and with a larger screen based on the model of the iPod Touch and the iPhone. The news could mean a breakthrough in personal computing standards and even portability of the workplace.

For now, the focus seems to be on content delivery and entertainment: namely music and reading. There are rumors of new deals with record labels, booksellers and possibly one or more wireless carriers. The Boy Genius Report says “Apple is allegedly going to team up with Verizon to release an Internet tablet that will be subsidized by the carrier”. The idea would be that the Apple tablet would work like a big iPhone, with wireless download via Verizon.

What is not clear is whether signing up for an account would be a requirement of purchasing the device, or just an option. Requiring that buyers sign up for a Verizon account could hurt product sales, as the device will be bulkier than an iPhone and might be seen by consumers more as a web-surfing device, a computer for other purposes, than as a giant iPod.

According to today’s Financial Times:

The device is expected to be launched alongside new content deals, including some aimed at stimulating sales of CD-length music, according to people briefed on the project. The touch-sensitive computer will have a screen that may be up to 10 inches diagonally.

It will connect to the internet like the iPod Touch – probably without phone capability but with access to the web, and to Apple’s online stores for software and entertainment.

It looks like the device could be set up to compete in nearly all media: it will play music and is said to have a new focus on large-format album artwork, possibly a way to make the music listening experience more interactive and tempt consumers to buy whole albums again. The Financial Times reports that “Recording industry executives” relayed the information that Apple has such a strategy in place for an upcoming release.

A parallel FT story cites “four people familiar with the situation” as indicating that Apple is working on a special project designed to achieve this goal, carrying the development codename “Cocktail”. The project also aims to enhance the variable interactivity of the interface, allowing users to access songs from the album artwork booklets themselves, without having to mechanically access and search through iTunes.

The booklets would include not only images and text, but also the album itself, the music, and videoclips, possibly some accessible only this format. But the device would also cross over into web surfing, video playback, word-processing and e-books. With high resolution and intense contrast, the device could pose a serious threat to Amazon’s Kindle devices, which have grayish e-paper screens.

There is admittedly a different purpose to building a backlit high-resolution tablet computer and an e-paper device designed to show text on a blank background. Amazon’s chief Jeff Bezos says he wants the Kindle to “disappear” when readers get immersed in text, as happens with a book, something backlit monitors are ill-equipped to do, because the light emitted strains the eyes.

But a touchscreen Apple tablet with a 10-inch visual interface would mark a potential revolutionary moment in e-reading, film and TV, music marketing and web surfing. If lightweight or easily propped up, and with a standard qwerty keyboard, it could also make email and business communications more portable, as the format would be far more suited to formal writing than a small phone or Blackberry device.

The device may also revolutionize the way the publishing industry and the software industry work. As Wired reports:

Apple is already prepared to blow Amazon and other e-book makers out of the water with one key weapon: iTunes. Having served more than 6 billion songs to date, the iTunes Store has flipped the music industry on its head. It also turned mobile software into a lucrative industry, as proven by the booming success of the iPhone’s App Store, which recently surpassed 1.5 billion downloads. Apple has yet to enter the e-book market, and making books as easy to download as music and iPhone apps is the logical next step.

A one-stop instant download multimedia library, with music, video, books, software, and other services, could pressure Amazon and other content retailers in unforeseen ways. The iTunes music store changed the way music, and music videos, were sold. It is breaking into film and TV, and the App Store is already into the billions. Making books available in the same easy way, competing directly with Amazon’s Kindle Store wireless download standard, could be a landmark moment in the evolution of content distribution.

Again, according to Wired:

For textbooks or anthologies, Apple can give iTunes users the ability to download individual chapters, priced between a few cents to a few bucks each. It would be similar to how you can currently download individual song tracks from an album. It might even have the same earthshaking potential to transform an entire industry by refocusing it on the content people actually want instead of the bundles that publishers want them to buy.

This may put publishers in the business of wireless distribution far more quickly and on a wider scale than Amazon has been able to do. Because iTunes operates across millions of devices already, potentially billions, and means the right royalty agreement could make Apple into a leading bookseller, altering the entire calculus of the marketplace.

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