New Apple Lust Objects

the rumors have been substantial since I started following apple rumours

is the tablet going to be the size of a dvd case? or smaller like an archos 605? or bigger like 11"?

joe, i think his point is that the kindle is ugly to read, he has no problem with ebooks

i imagine it is the size of a macbook display--just the top half

appleinsider say 10", but they have been a waterfall of bullshit for the past few years. they were OK around 2000-2005.

if it's just a LITTLE bigger than an iphone/touch then what's the point

I hope it is the size of a 40" LCD television!

que im not sure if yr just fucking around here but there were less than 2m new records sold in the us last year - compare w/360m cds and 65m digital downloads - its a niche product

Don't think there's a gap for a product between iPhone and Laptop that wouldn't be worse than either

Could imagine my parents using one of these - while the laptop upstairs in the 'computer room' gathers dust. can't see them squinting at an iphone,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoboer/3226244527/sizes/o/

yeah, more cd's are sold every year versus than records (duh), but what i'm saying is, vinyl sales increased last year by like 80 percent over the previous year, versus cd sales which are way way down compared to downloads

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/oct/05/entertainment/chi-vinyl-cover-1005oct05

tht mockup seems to be running full os x on something as small as an iphone

While CD sales continue a double-digit decline, sales of vinyl albums have doubled in the last year to 6 million and turntable sales increased 80 percent last year. The resurgence is being led not just by Baby Boomers nostalgic for gatefold album sleeves and the pops and scratches of favorite records, but by college-age consumers discovering the elaborate artwork of vinyl-album packaging for the first time, and entranced by the grittier, less-artificial sound quality.

just cause a few people still buy records doesnt mean that cds didnt destroy their market share

apple clearly needs to get into the vinyl record business

still loling at 7 incher up against the head from upthread though, iDick

therell still be printed books for a long time im sure - just not printed textbooks

oh shit they already did!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Records

well i guess the other half of my argument is, people were predicting records were dead back when i worked in a record store 1995-1999. people couldn't believe you could still buy records! now you can buy vinyl records at borders. and you're kind of doing the same thing with your textbook prediction--that's all.

what is the cd equivalent of books if OG books are vinyl

and also, que, serious question - do you prefer tapes or cds?

maybe someday far in the future textbooks will be replaced by ereaders but its not going to happen tomorrow and its definitely not going to happen because apple produces a tablet for no reason

Aren't vinyl records (like fiction books) - something that people enjoy and like the tangability of, as something fun. Whereas a textbook is a little more...functional?

i think its a lot more likely that textbooks will be replaced by printouts of PDFs distributed by professors or libraries & maybe a handful of kids will read on their laptops and bring their laptops to class and shit. i mean this was basically the case when i was at school last year.

and also, que, serious question - do you prefer tapes or cds?

hahaha cd's i guess! i like records, too, but i also love having all my music digitized on my ipod.

How many schools do you think will be willing to foot the bill for etextbooks in this economy? Because the students won't, not without drastic loans given the already astronomical costs of tuition and room & board.

It is much more likely (and already well underway) that all course materials will be downloadable than it is that all students will be running around with etablets in the next 5 years.

I think a large potential market for something like this isn't the college students so much, but silver foxes

text books have particular qualities that will lead to their quick digification - theyre expensive to print and distribute theyre heavy they would benefit from frequent updating and prob most importantly no one has any romantic attachment to them - the form as it stands now is pretty reviled

they'd be better releasing a headless macbook than a fkn tablet
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/54/171964882_2741164be5.jpg

lol Amiga 600

textbooks will prob be gone in 10-15 years but theyre not going to get replaced by ereaders--theyll be put online in some format and most kids will continue to print that shit out and read it on paper

maybe someday far in the future textbooks will be replaced by ereaders but its not going to happen tomorrow and its definitely not going to happen because apple produces a tablet for no reason

― max, Tuesday, July 28, 2009 10:56 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

youve got it backwards - the ebook market is one of the reasons why apple is going into the tablet business

maybe i'm being a fogie, but as a daily textbook user and scientific paper reader i cannot see me using them on screen with present UI (even kindle)

textbooks will prob be gone in 10-15 years but theyre not going to get replaced by ereaders--theyll be put online in some format and most kids will continue to print that shit out and read it on paper

― max, Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11:00 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this ipod thing will never work - sure maybe napster will dominate but kids will still download and burn to cd

xp obv the ui has to improve... enter apple

eh but whatever ive got to get back to work turning a printed book into an ebook

youve got it backwards - the ebook market is one of the reasons why apple is going into the tablet business

ebooks, yes, textbooks. . . i dunno. let me put my librarian hat on for second. i work for lots of users young and old. people who are on facebook and old folks who can barely send an email. we have a lot of treatises online. And we have the same books on the shelf in old fashioned physical form.

when they need to do research on a new topic, almost everyone across the board, prefers a hardcover book over electronic access. it's harder to read on a screen, it's easier to use the index on a physical book. now for treatises/areas of the law they know, sometimes people are more comforatble with a print out of a section, it just depends. but i think for serious reading and learning, there isn't an electronic device that can match a book. yet.

i think the main market for this imaginary hardware apple is not developing is games/web/video rather than e-books

Online searching is easier than physical searching IMO, just because it can point you towards sections that may not stand out in an index. HOWEVER, reading/annotating is much easier in physical format.

yeah i use online searching to look through treatises and then i go to the shelf and flip around and use the index

there are like a million problems w/ the idea that colleges/college kids are going to adopt ereaders en masse starting w/ cost but also w/ the fact that most of us grow up reading on paper and in particular learning how to read for school and take notes on paper and 90% of college kids i know who right now have access to the same basic ereader functions--ie texts on laptop & ability to take notes there--still print out.

Let alone the glacial pace at which academic institutions move and the wholesale paradigm shift that would have to happen in order for the infrastructure to be in place to distribute all course materials electronically in ebook format.

everyone is welcome to print out whenever they like - but the ui will improve and people will get used to it - ebooks on a reader will not at all be the same experience as pdfs on a laptop - and the cost + other motives i mentioned upthread will drive the switch - and textbooks are the gateway drug for ebooks as a whole - for better or for worse \(O_O)/

eh $$$ is a good motivator xp

The coordination of the publishers with academic institutions will take upwards of 3-5 years in and of itself; you combine that with the amount of time it will take to iterate an ereader that also lets you annotate, take notes, perform calculations, generate graphs and reports, and write papers that will be affordable by the students/universities and I don't think you have any widescale early adopters until 2015.

plus touchscreens will become as sensitive as wacom tablets...they'll be as "usable" as paper.

and nerds are weak, can't carry many books, etc.

If all my textbooks in college came with ctrl + f I'd have been so happy

given the stories my gf (librarian at a college where the students are talented but not shall we say mostly academically savvy) tells me about how stunningly tech-nonfunctional incoming students are, i think this has a lot of hurdles to overcome. just because you are comfortable w/teh facepages doesn't mean you've got kids that are ready to move all their studying over to a digital format.

(oh btw sorry about my iphone freakout up there, worst timing leads to NERD RAGE)

although tbf I owned like a total of 2 textbooks in college...lol humanities major

hope your dad is ok jj