Scoble hints at Media Center or Tablet PC announcement coming from Apple

Robert Scoble has departed the halls of Microsoft but that hasn’t stopped him from stirring the FUD pot and his latest comments on his blog are interesting to say the least.  He has mentioned that Apple is going to announce a lot of cool things really soon and this comment is particularly intriguing:

I believe Vista DOES make our computing lives easier. The desktop search features are a huge advance. The multimedia capabilities are WORLDS ahead of anything else I’ve used. And the Tablet PC, Speech Recognition, and Media Center stuff that’s in there is WORLDS ahead of Apple. Although watch Apple in a week. Hint hint.

Some folks are interpreting that to mean an iTablet announcement from Apple and while I think that would be awesome my opinion is he’s probably indicating some sort of Media Center product from Cupertino.  He’s not shedding any further light on the topic, probably afraid of all those big bad lawyers at Apple.  It will be interesting to see what Apple does.

-jk

Comments

[palmsolo]

If it is a Tablet or UMPC form factor Apple then you can bet I'll probably be one of the first in line at the Apple Store in Seattle next week :)

[Mickey Segal]

The name iTablet is already taken: http://www.itablet.com/. There is no Web site at http://www.islate.com/ but such a name would subject Apple to endless ridicule about their tardiness in entering the market.

[Nikoooo]

People have been waiting for an iTablet since 5 years and my personnal guess is that they're going to wait somewhat more. Too bad, I agree... but Vista is coming sooner or later no?

[Scotty]

Based on all the patents that have been flying around an iTablet would require significant UI enhancements, on the order of a 10.5 release. Since Apple won't be shipping 10.5 next week I predict it highly unlikely Apple will announce an iTablet (since they only pre-announce OSes not hardware.)

I think he's referring to a Media Center one-upper myself as well.

[palmsolo]

I would think a Portable Media Center type device would be out prior to a Tablet PC type device, but then again I saw another quote in one of Robert's blog postings yesterday (http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=70) that indicated his son wanted another portable to replace his iBook and that he wanted to be at the Apple Store to get one after Jobs' keynote. Granted, this could just mean a Core 2 Duo MacBook variant, but it sure would be cool to see a Tablet PC/UMPC device from Apple.

[Jamie Wright]

I believe that this comment is talking about the speech recognition part. There has been rumors for months now that Apple is going to add speech recognition in their iPods. They want to do this for safety concerns. Just like the stupid volume throttle.

[zahadum]

it's called an iPad - d'uh

[James Katt]

A Mac Tablet would be named "Mac Tablet". This will keep "Mac" front and center.
"iTablet" would be a detraction from the "Mac" brand.

In any case, I want one. It would make a great eBook reader.

[Mike Cane]

A few words if this comes to pass:

Goodbye Q1!

Hello Apple!

[Tim Ednie]

Well, I was about to break down in the next week and purchase a Q1. (Not sure where to order to have delivered to Canada, still a beef of mine) But if this happens, I'll be going down to my local Apple Store and picking one up. (provided it uses a full version of Mac OSX and not a subset of features)

[Mike Cane]

I'd say we should hang Scoble for getting me -- er, US! -- all worked up. But hanging's too good for him. Let's just make him hand over his new HDTV!!