Should we reserve a spot for Apple's Tablet in our devices list?

[dioib]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I bow my head to Steve Jobs, the grandmaster of hype. Unbelievable, this thing hasn't even been announced, nobody knows how it will look, how much it will cost (actually we do, an arm and a leg), and what functionality it will have and his zealous fans want to add it to a reader forum already! Oh great marketing genius, we worship you.

And we bow, out of inevitability, to HansTWN, the man who rendered us zealots by his divine insight..

[Hellmark]

Diobe, it is a bit silly to create a forum for a device that Apple has repeatedly denied existed for YEARS. MR goes back to what, 2002? Rumors of an Apple tablet has gone on since before then. Some company says Apple orded a bunch of 9" displays, or some other part, and people got in a furvor. Yet, has anything come to fruition?

Plus, MR has put in forums for devices expected to be released, and closed them, because the devices never came out. If it was announced, or anything to say it is officially being worked on, then I'd say yeah, let's do it (although MR has made forums for officially announced devices that never came out).

Just be patient, and don't make any moves till something is real.

[BWhite]

A lot of the discussions on this forum (yes, I have lurked quite a bit) remind me a bit of my Father - he used to purchase products like non-sweetened Soy Milk at a local store. Well just because HE liked it did not mean the product would still be around for purchase in three years. Locally it is gone now, maybe he was the only one buying it?

I am old enough I was around for the original monochrome laptops - don't believe anyone is still selling those, except for ruggedized applications (war zones, warehouses). This pundit says the bullet is in the chamber for the black and white e-ink reader
http://gizmodo.com/5444232/notion-in...en-is-obsolete

So I do not expect the Apple Device to look much like an e-ink e-reader at all. For some on these boards you not only do not need to reserve a space in your budget for Apple's product you will even now be able to ignore what Apple Marketing has to say for the next two weeks.

Having read the "The Old Man" above I think he has the criteria just about correct for an 'e-reader' for me. Some consumers do not need the 8 hours (I could live with 5 if the device had a dock) and the definition of 'portable' lies with each of us (case in point are the endless arguments on the web regarding Playstation Portable versus Nintendo DS, DSi, LL).

Now Apple Marketing has (unless it was a mis-send) apparently sent an invitation to Kotaku
http://kotaku.com/5451042/apple-invi...t-think-islate
which is approximately a 90% Web Blog for Gamers.

Conclusions:

o if the invitation to Kotaku is accurate the Apple Device will play games
o in 2010 no one is going to produce a B&W gaming device
o so the Apple Device will have color and will have to refresh the screen fairly quickly to enable the playing of games

o For many on these boards that makes the yet-to-be-announced Apple Device not an e-reader.

For me I will go with "The Old Man's" general criteria: "an e-reader should have certain criteria such as quick on and off, easy to read, portable, 8 hours + battery life" and yes, I want it to be light (a device with a laptop's weight should not apply).

So I am still holding out hope for an Apple Device which allows for extended reading of electronic books and will be large enough to retain some formatting capabilities. Hoping for ePub and maybe Wi-Fi for periodicals. So I suppose I have somewhat reserved a slot as all gadget purchases are on hold waiting for Apple's announcement.

Oh, and pretty sure this unannounced device will play games of some sort.

Basically the idea of a "Devices List" is going to get messy as convergence continues, unless it is a Purists' List of Devices. Then even further down the road it may become an interesting historical list of devices, which by the way are no longer manufactured.

[LDBoblo]

Hey I'd love to talk about the feasibility and importance of an Apple device, and I'll certainly be happy to talk about it once it exists. Before then, it's nothing more than a useless exercise to benefit the marketing strategies Apple uses that I don't approve of.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by BWhite

...

So I am still holding out hope for an Apple Device which allows for extended reading of electronic books and will be large enough to retain some formatting capabilities. Hoping for ePub and maybe Wi-Fi for periodicals. So I suppose I have somewhat reserved a slot as all gadget purchases are on hold waiting for Apple's announcement. ....

Agree, mostly.

Except for the unsweetened soy milk. Whole Foods sells a ton of it, so does Trader Joes, and so does Costco.... Hold the corn syrup.

[BWhite]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Hey I'd love to talk about the feasibility and importance of an Apple device, and I'll certainly be happy to talk about it once it exists. Before then, it's nothing more than a useless exercise to benefit the marketing strategies Apple uses that I don't approve of.

Well, forget that the device has the word "Apple" on it. Instead consider the, to me, more interesting discussion of a device that has 20 hours of battery life, no e-ink, has a color screen, has half the weight of a laptop, plays games and sends e-mail (because it has handwriting recognition), handles ePub and multiple DRM, and which 50,000 people are reading e-books from Amazon and Barnes & Noble on it.

Does such a device win a slot on the Forum: E-Book Devices?

Because in 2011 such a device may well exist. It may even show up in 2010.

All this device would be is what used to be, and still is, called a 'slate'. It is just that in 2010 and 2011 the technologies are showing up to where a 'slate pc' will now match the look, feel, weight, speed, endurance of a 2009 dedicated e-reader.

So don't give the Apple device a slot on the Forums - that is a nit, either way it is decided. But the bigger question remains unresolved, which devices in 2010 earn a spot?

Is it by popular vote? Is it by battery life? Is it by the fact that all Mobileread registered members can tolerate the screen?

[MikeRo]

Originally Posted by BWhite

... But the bigger question remains unresolved, which devices in 2010 earn a spot?...

I would assume it is by demand - people start discussing a new product in Other Devices or News and Commentary and soon it becomes apparent there is enough traffic to warrant a new forum. Until then I would think it silly to create a new forum based on rumours.

Speaking of rumours - let's start one around Microsoft's response to the Apple mystery product. How about the new Microsoft Zook - I hear it will have everything the Apple product will have plus it will make coffee and do the dishes too.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by MikeRo

Speaking of rumours - let's start one around Microsoft's response to the Apple mystery product. How about the new Microsoft Zook - I hear it will have everything the Apple product will have plus it will make coffee and do the dishes too.

They already have a rumor for that..the Microsoft Courier.

[The Old Man]

...love this forum!

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by The Old Man

"Should we reserve a spot on our devices list?
YES!
Apple's tablet/slate (if that's what the announcement turns out to be) will sell more units in the first year than all the others combined. If it's a large screen iTouch iPod with a longer-lasting user replaceable battery, connectivity with papers/magazines/books and applications like the iPod - I want one!

But whats-his-name, Apple's boss, said nobody read anymore. So, it will not be a device with ereading in mind. Yes, it might be possible to use it for that purpose, but it won't be a major function. It's just a tablet computer.

And it might sell more units than all the others combined, but how many of those units will be used specifically for reading?

[BWhite]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But whats-his-name, Apple's boss, said nobody read anymore. So, it will not be a device with ereading in mind. Yes, it might be possible to use it for that purpose, but it won't be a major function. It's just a tablet computer.

And it might sell more units than all the others combined, but how many of those units will be used specifically for reading?

Steve Jobs, and I think he said no one reads books any more. Also Bill Gates is quoted as once having said "why would anyone ever need more than 640k of memory?"

So I vote we can forget about those two geniuses as being relevant to whether a device gets a Forum. I don't know if your implied rule of thumb (yes, you did not explicitly state a rule, I recognize this) - a device's main purpose should be for reading ebooks - is a good rule for listing a device.

Which leads us to the heart of the matter (in my opinion) - if a device's main criteria for getting a Forum is that its primary function is reading ebooks, then I would wager in two years time only one or two devices would be listed here on MobileRead; and those two devices will be like Montblanc pens, beautiful to own but if you actually looked around you on the bus, or the plane, or the restaurant, or the park, or your doctor's office you would never see anyone using one.

That might not be a bad thing, only two devices being listed. The publishers and retailers (I am going to count Apple as a retailer since they run iTunes and heaven knows what is coming down the pike this year) have seriously messed up the author-to-consumer process for ebooks, so there will be plenty to discuss for formats, geographical restrictions, software and DRM for years to come.

Come 2011 I would not be surprised if a decent percentage of MobileRead visitors would list in a survey that their primary ebook device is this new Apple Tablet/Slate. All bets are off if it is not an actual Tablet/Slate - like a lot of folks I vote for just waiting since the rumors have really piled up.

It's only two weeks after all.

So I am going to vote for the guideline that was previously described: MobileRead citizens want to talk about a certain device, which has the capability to function as an ebook reader, and so that device gets listed.

[astrodad]

It makes no sense to reserve a "spot" on the boards for this device because no one knows what will happen on 1/27. That's just plain silly.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by BWhite

Steve Jobs, and I think he said no one reads books any more. Also Bill Gates is quoted as once having said "why would anyone ever need more than 640k of memory?"

Thanks, just couldn't dredge up his name from my memory (I had Steve Balmer in top, but I know he's from Microsoft...)

Originally Posted by BWhite

So I am going to vote for the guideline that was previously described: MobileRead citizens want to talk about a certain device, which has the capability to function as an ebook reader, and so that device gets listed.

But Apple already has its own forum here... Why not just put it there?

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by BWhite

Bill Gates is quoted as once having said "why would anyone ever need more than 640k of memory?"

No, actually, he never said that. It's an urban legend.

At any rate, although I expect the next two weeks to be rife with ridiculous speculations, it makes no sense to set up a subforum for a device that does not exist.

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Agree, mostly.

Except for the unsweetened soy milk. Whole Foods sells a ton of it, so does Trader Joes, and so does Costco.... Hold the corn syrup.

As someone who has not choice but to use soy "juice" (face it that what it really is but we'll call it "milk" ) I would point out that all of the major brands are organic which, by law would use cane sugar not what it appears you are really saying which is HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) which is an artifical GMO product. Cane sugar is a completely different animal and HFCS is not even a distant relative of what you know as corn syrup on the shelf in the grocery store. Now tying to find a non-GMO corn syrup on the major chain grocery stores other than somewhere like Whole Foods is a different story for sure...

The association of HFCS with actual corn syrup is a common misconception because the FDA sucks hind teat...and exists only to allow the major food manufacturers to use as little honest & real food in our food as possible.

And I also prefer the unflavored unsweetened stuff and use Stevia (not the blend but just stevia) as a sweetner when I need to sweeten whatever I am using the soy milk to make.