Stephen Withers
Friday, 29 August 2008 08:58
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
It also coincides neatly with AppleInsider's
report of an earlier Apple patent filing that shows how the user interface for a touch-screen Mac might work, including various gestures, a multi-touch virtual keyboard (allowing typing with several fingers, including conventional shift keys and other modifiers), and virtual scroll wheels.
If you want to know what this might look like, Gizmodo has published some
mock-ups that look pretty frackin' gorgeous to me.
The main image is obviously cobbled up from an iMac, but the idea of a desk mount as well as automatic landscape/portrait adjustment when you rotate the device (a la the iPhone and iPod touch) makes a lot of sense. The idea of enlarging GarageBand's soft keyboard so it's large enough to play with your fingers on the screen is another idea that's obvious in retrospect.
As always, we're left wondering whether the tip is based in fact, or if it's the result of someone's warped sense of humour. Assuming it is true, how expensive will it be?
The iPod touch costs more than an iPod classic, and the MacBook Air is almost as expensive as a MacBook Pro. So what I'd hope is that a minimum configuration (without options such as the Bluetooth keyboard and mouse) would be no more than $US1599/$A2299.
OK, I'd
hope they turn out to be less expensive than that, but I'm trying to be realistic. Apple might go with reduced margins, but I can't see the company going for negative margins, and unlike the iPhone 3G there's no partners to provide a subsidy. I'm also assuming the device provides horsepower at least comparable with current MacBooks.
Page three: Why a MacBook touch needn't be that much more expensive than a regular notebook from Apple.
