iLap day

Today Apple will reveal it’s long awaited and discussed tablet. I hope the product will live up to the incredible hype. I have no idea what will come, but let me ponder it a bit.

The first thought is situational. At what times and places do we need another product? The first place was behind a desk with the desktop. For that you had to sit down on a chair behind a table. Very useful if you needed also other stuff around you (papers, mouses, screens, etc.).

When moving around and being on the road we got the laptop, or better portable (desktop). The idea was that you put it on your lap to use the product. However I guess that most people still used in combination with a chair and table. Using it on our lap was a good possibility on an airport, in a train, etc, but it was not really optimal.

For walking about and accessing information we got the smart phones. These are also great for using while sitting in trains and busses. No longer a need for laptops in those environments. The smart phone, or handtop, is really for using while standing up.

But couldn’t we do better? Are we really happy with what we use when sitting on our couches and rocking chairs? We can use a portable here or use a handtop. But is still remains awkward. Here, on the couch, is where I see a new possibility for Apple. A real laptop. This should be very similar to a newspaper, magazine or book.

Such a product should have a very simple interface that can only be used by the hand, or maybe two hands from time to time. For me it is clear that this can not be MacOSX, but should be a variant of the iPhoneOS. It should have very view buttons (on/off, sound). A camera is not a real requirement, but a useful add on for videophone. A size of 10 inch is nice to have on your lap, but it might be larger as well. But not smaller as it would be closer to an iPod Touch/iPhone. Wireless and 3G is required in order to use it on your lap when not at home.

Software would be similar to the iPhone, but with special applications for magazines, newspapers, LP’s, etc. Games would be an interesting category as well. Those can be the same as on the iPhone, but should really use the screen estate. One can image many classic board games on such a system. And naturally there is the iLapAppStore to feed all this.

So no MS Word, no Excel, no office whatever app, no terminal, etc. That is just not the purpose of the iLap. Now hoping that the pricing is reasonable.

 

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