‘Book Mystique - What’s Coming For Mac Portables In 2010?
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
by Charles W. Moore
Last week I reviewed the closing year in the Mac notebook orbit, and in this, the last ‘Book Mystique column of 2009 we’ll take a look ahead at what might be coming for Mac portable aficionados in 2010.
First, unless a humongous amount of speculation, punditry, and “insider” leaked information is woefully mistaken, 2010 is shaping up to be the year of the Apple tablet, which the latest scuttlebutt suggests has a pretty strong likelihood of being dubbed “iSlate,” -- which is a not bad name at all.
Of course, the prognosticators have been wrong before. Back in the mid-’90s, the buzz was about a Power PC 604e based PowerBook, which was speculated on for months but never materialized. I’d be surprised if there were no 604e laptop prototypes built, but G3 technology came along and that was the end of that.
Similarly, the rumor mills clanked busily about a G5 PowerBook in the early/mid ‘00s, and Apple executives have affirmed in passing that working prototypes of that unit did exist, but the intractable problem with shoehorning a G5 CPU into a laptop form factor was heat -- way too much of it -- a problem that was never resolved and was eventually mooted by Apple switch to Intel processors, the first generations of which also were prodigious heat-generators.
Throughout late 2008 and the first half of 1999, the buzz was about a “P1” subcompact consumer-oriented PowerBook that was anticipated to be something similar to the raft of small and thin PC notebooks on the market then, such as Sony’s VAIO. However, when the consumer-level iBook was rolled out in July, ‘99, it was anything but thin or subcompact, actually being larger and heavier than the contemporaneous full-sized professional PowerBook G3 “Lombard.”
Speculation then shifted to a G4 PowerBook believed to be code-named “Pismo” that many confidently predicted would be rolled out at Macworld Expo 2000. But MacWorld came and went with no PowerBook announcements, and when the Pismo did finally make its debut at Macworld Tokyo a couple of months later it still had a G3 processor and was a virtual dead-ringer in looks for the superseded Lombard, although with a completely re-engineered internal architecture. A G4 PowerBook finally did arrive at Macworld 2001, using a lot of internal engineering carried over from the Pismo, which itself proved delightfully amenable to being upgraded to G4 processor power. I digress.
The point is, getting back to the growing tsunami of iTablet/iSlate/ speculation, it’s a bit of a mug’s game trying to predict Apple’s product moves with any precision. However, if we don’t see some sort of tablet-style Apple device introduced in 2010, it will be a major surprise and bummer.
theatlanticwire.com's Benjamin F. Carlson declares that the day of the Apple tablet unveiling is nigh, and that the company will have to cope with massive disappointment if the overflowing excitement among geeks isn't met.
I’m agnostic about when the Apple tablet might make its entrance or what its specification will be, but like everyone else it seems, I’m keenly interested in what it will turn out to be like. Piecing together some of the rumors, a picture of sorts begins to emerge, with particular focus on whether it will be a full-fledged Mac that can run OS X, and whether it will support, or even include, real input device support rather than relying solely on a touchscreen virtual keyboard.
The Christian Science Monitor's Matthew Shaer cites IDC chief analyst Frank Gens declaring that an Apple Tablet is a 'no-brainer - definitely going to arrive sometime next year.
<MacNN reports that Apple has filed for a patent on a touch-surface keyboard with tactile feedback according to US Patent and Trademark Office documents, and speculates that the technology could conceivably be used in Apple's upcoming tablet, "which a former Apple worker has suggested will surprise people in how they can interact with it."
The patent application, entitled “Keystroke Tactility Arrangement On A Smooth Touch Surface,” notes in the introductory abstract that:
”Disclosed are four arrangements for providing tactility on a touch surface keyboard. One approach is to provide tactile feedback mechanisms, such as dots, bars, or other shapes on all or many keys. In another embodiment, an articulating frame may be provided that extends when the surface is being used in a typing mode and retracts when the surface is used in some other mode, e.g., a pointing mode. The articulating frame may provide key edge ridges that define the boundaries of the key regions or may provide tactile feedback mechanisms within the key regions. The articulating frame may also be configured to cause concave depressions similar to mechanical key caps in the surface. In another embodiment, a rigid, non-articulating frame may be provided beneath the surface. A user will then feel higher resistance when pressing away from the key centers, but will feel a softer resistance at the key center.”
You can find United States Patent Application 20090315830 here:
http://tinyurl.com/ybrlydx
My personal preference would be for some sort of slide-out analog keyboard of the sort used by various smartphone designs, but at minimum for the device to incorporate BlueTooth and/or USB RF input device support.
Suggesting that the iSlate Trademark Hints At Full OS X support, ebooktest analyzes Apple's patent application, noting that in the Goods and Services section of the trademark filing, there are some "very, very interesting claims," noting that mentioned are "software for creating spreadsheets, tables, graphs and charts, software for organizing and analyzing data, software for word processing, software for creation and display of presentations including text and graphics, software used for image editing, image processing, image acquisition, image file management, image viewing, image sharing, and the creation of documents incorporating images, software for use in developing websites, software to help users create, edit, organize, search, transfer, publish and subscribe to weblogs, blogs, podcasts, web broadcasts and news and information feeds on global and/or local computer and telecommunications networks." which sounds a lot to them like iWork -- possibly as scaled-down version of iWork for iPhone OS.
But also obliquely hinted at is the possibility of full OS X support since DVD authoring is mentioned, a capability not supported by the iPhone OS.
"Will Apple's iSlate tablet have a tactile keyboard?," muses TechRadar's Patrick Goss, noting that potential details of Apple's new tablet, what it will be called, and the way in which we will interact with it may have come to the public domain, with a patent application hinting at tactile feedback for a flat device's virtual keyboard, while the iSlate name comes from Apple briefly being outed as the owners of the domain.
According to one of the most comprehensive roundups of iTablet rumors anyone has yet compiled, Gizmodo notes that only did Apple register the domain iSlate.com through an intermediary to keep it a secret (discovered by Mark Gurman), they’ve trademarked it through a shell company called Slate Computing and registered domains and trademarks in Europe through their usual IP law firm, utilizing standard secret trademark practices
Gizmodo also cites The Financial Times reporting that Apple is expected “make a major product announcement on Tuesday, January 26th” at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where Apple’s rented a stage for “several days.” .... and The Wall Street Journal’s prediction that the tablet will ship in March, while another analyst says it’s coming in March or April. OEM industry watcher Digitimes said Foxconn is supposed to have almost half a million Apple tablets shipped by April, while Apple analyst Gene Munster says first half of 2010
As for price, one of AppleInsider’s insiders thinks the Apple tablet will “cost $700 to $900, Taiwan Economic Times says between $800 and $1000, China Times says $800, and Steve Jobs’s October 2008 comment: “we don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk,” would incline us to deduce that even $600 is probably too low to hope for although I’m inclined to think the Apple is going to encounter price resistance at this end of the market and with this sort of device at $700 and above, especially in competition with the rapidly advancing netbook sector.
Screen size is likely to be dependent on the size of touchscreen panels produced by display OEMs with 7”, 9.6”, 9.7”, and 10.6” being possibilities. The sort of wireless support is a question mark, with be versions with 3G and without one possible way to go.
Moving on to processors, some suggest that Apple will use Intel’s netbook-ubiquitous Atom chip, while others imagine that the Apple tablet will be the first device using chips designed by Apple’s April 2008-acquired in-house chip development subsidiary PA Semi, and possibly ARM-based.
EETimes’ Rick Merritt cites Envisioneering’s Rick Doherty predicting a seven-inch HDTV player that receives content from the iTunes store and fits into a big jacket pocket or purse and could double as an electronic reader Doherty expects the rumored Apple system will initially support 720-progressive resolution, use Wi-Fi instead of 3G and run on an ARM processor not an x86-based chip -- possibly a custom quad-core mobile ARM processor being designed by the P.A. Semi team Apple acquired in April 2008.
Pen-based or stylus data input, especially with Apple’s rehiring recently one of the engineers who worked on handwriting recognition for the Newton PDA back in the ‘90s. Another intriguing possibility would be greater reliance on voice input. If the iTablet/iSlate turns out to be a full-fledged Mac, it should support MacSpeech’s Dictate, but with Apple one should never rule out some sort of proprietary solution.
Whatever, we’ll have to wait for the official announcement for all these fragments to snap into focus, and the anticipation is part of the fun.
In other news, conventional Apple notebooks had a pretty big year in 2009, with the aluminum unibody notebooks hitting their stride early in the year after an October, 208 introduction, release of a 17” unibody at Macworld Expo, two last major refreshes of the original MacBook, a major revision of the unibody family in June that saw the erstwhile 13” aluminum MacBook promoted to full MacBook Pro status and get its FireWire support back, followed by a complete redesign of the entry-level polycarbonate-bodied MacBook with some unibody engineering applied, but sadly the loss of its FireWire port.
However, I'm not expecting Apple to stand pat with the MacBook Pros too far into 2010. After all, it's been nearly six months since that June makeover, so some speed bumps and other tweaks are likely by at most April or May. One operative question is whether Apple will take a pass on Intel's next-generation Core i5 and Core i7 Mobile CPUs The Register's Rik Myslewski and Gizmodo have both reported recently that while Intel's Arrandale mobile CPU remains on schedule for release early next month, there's a strong possibility that Apple be obliged to give it a pass, at least in the short term.
Citing a report from Bright Side of News, Myslewski related that “sources close to the heart of the matter” say Apple isn’t interested in either the 45nm integrated graphics processor or the 32nm variant codenamed Arrandale, to be branded and marketed as mobile Core i5 and Core i7, Snow Leopard’s OpenCL technology makes heavy demands on graphics by leveraging the graphics card or integrated chipset for extra processing power and NVIDIA’s 9400M remains superior to anything Intel has developed in the department, and there’s a question as to whether Macs would realize any significant performance gains by reverting to Intel graphics with the Mobile i5 and i7 over Core 2 Duo performance with NVIDIA chipsets. Unfortunately, Arrandale Mobile feature integrated memory controllers, but the integrated graphics chipset built into the CPU die, too. A resolution of this dilemma is pending the outcome of ongoing litigation between NVIDIA and Intel. Currently, Nvidia is not licensed to make chipsets for Core i7 and i5 processors.
While Arrandale seems a likely prospect for Apple’s portables and the Mac mini, Myslewski suggests, if the rumor is true, those Macs won’t be using Intel’s integrated graphics, but Bright Side News also speculated that Apple is requesting that Intel build a special Arrandale equivalent for them sans the integrated GPU.
There is precedent for Apple-specific (at least at rollout) versions of Intel CPUs, notably the downsized Merom processor used in the original MacBook Air, although litigious bad blood between Intel and NVIDIA would probably make Intel less than enthusiastic about making this accommodation.
Apple did use Intel integrated graphics technology -- a couple of versions of the Intel GMA X chipsets, in the first several revisions of the original MacBook, but last January switched even the MacBook to to NVIDIA’s GeForce 9400M integrated graphics chipset now used in virtually all Macs save for the Pro towers. Apple claims that the 9400M is up to five times faster than the Intel GMA technology it displaced.
As noted, complicating matters is that NVIDIA and Intel are currently embroiled in litigation over whether NVIDIA has the right to produce platform chipsets for the forthcoming Intel processors, so it’s unclear as to whether NVIDIA will be able to secure licensing authorization to graft their integrated GPU chipsets on to future Intel CPUs.
One potential solution would be for Apple to include discrete graphics processor units as well as (in this instance) Intel’s tightly integrated Arrandale chipsets in all MacBooks and MacBook Pros, as they do now with NVIDIA GeForce 9600M discrete GPUs and the 9400M integrated chipsets in the two higher-end versions of the 15” unibody and the 17-incher, but that would add to cost, diminish battery life, and there might not be room in the 13” models. It’s been suggested that another workaround would be to switch to ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics (which it’s using in the i5 iMac) for notebooks as well.
Speaking of the MacBook Air, as I was a moment ago, it’s woefully overdue for a major refresh. One might argue that Apple got it right on the first attempt, but even so, it’s now closing on its second birthday in essentially the same package it debuted with, albeit having had internal processor and graphics chipset upgrades and other lesser tweaks over the 24 months. However, with Apple’s engineers presumed to be concentrating on the iTablet or iSlate or whatever it gets called, there’s probably not strong likelihood of a MacBook Air major revamp in the near term. Perhaps something in time for the late summer back-to-school ramp-up.
The MacBook, having just been completely overhauled, isn’t likely to see any major changes in 2010, but if the Pro models go to some version of the Arrandale CPUs and newer chipsets if the graphics dilemma can be somehow resolved, look for the MacBook to get the same.
This will as usual all be fascinating to watch unfold. It’s never dull in the Apple portable orbit. Happy New Year and see you in 2010!
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