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Gallery: How Apple’s Tablet Will Be a Paradigm Shift

By Leander Kahney (11:59 pm, Aug 25 2009)

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Here’s how Apple’s tablet will work and why it’ll be a paradigm shift. Using your fingers as an input device is extremely intuitive, and it’ll make the mouse and keyboard seem as antiquated as punch cards.

On the following pages is a gallery of concept designs created by Jon Doe, an anonymous grad student from Georgia who has done a LOT of thinking about how Apple’s tablet will work.

Doe has done a remarkable job of figuring it out. Over the course of a year, Doe has imagined how the device might work, what gestures it might support, and how Apple could adapt its popular iLife software to work in a multitouch environment. He’s created a blog to showcase his ideas and a series of YouTube videos. There’s so much to see, I’m publishing several posts over the next few days.

“The problem is that the current PC interface (PC as in Macs, Windows, and Linux boxes) is outdated,” says Doe. “We’re reaching the limit of what we can do with a mouse and keyboard.”

Check out the video and gallery after the jump to see why Apple’s tablet will be such an exciting device.

Here’s a mockup TV ad that gives a taste of how Apple’s tablet might work. The experience is one part Minority Report, one part Jeff Han. It’s clear a device like this will be a lot of fun to play with.

Why is Doe anonymous? “I’m not too comfortable having my name and face on the good ol’ interweb,” he says. “I avoid social networking and, until I wanted to share my Slate idea, I’ve avoided personal blogging.” He’d also like to work for Apple some day. “Apple’s very persnickety about rumors and its logo, so I figured I’d have a better chance at getting this dream job if my name wasn’t attached to my internet life,” he says.

31 comments »

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About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, News, Opinions, Rumors |

  • cmcb

    I have a close family member that works for Mac in the big office and i think that you guys are just a little off whats really going :)

  • Hari Seldon

    These images all assume that the tablet will be some sort of Mac, with a dock and other Ui elements best used with a mouse. I strongly disagree, the tablet will extend the iPhone interface with more gestures, THATS why it will be a paradigm shift, who needs another Mac?

  • http://myspace.com/jAcOb2o09 Jacob Smith

    I need this so my brother will stop looking at my stuff and I could remember a password instead of a number code

  • http://www.zeusboxstudio.com Ncus

    To be honest, I don’t find his concept is intriguing. It seems that he is control freak, he wants to control every little detail of the OS right there with his finger. Well, Apple engineering isn’t think like that. Apple’s user interaction always created a device that has little as control as possible and yet very functional. His approach is not simple yet very clutter on many ways.

  • http://www.technovia.co.uk Ian Betteridge

    An awful lot of that looks like Microsoft Surface, on a smaller scale.

  • Paul

    An awful lot of the Microsoft’s Surface resembles the iPhone on a bigger scale.

  • Gordon Morris

    Leander, you should quit whatever it is you’re smoking. And so should John Doe.

    The tablet’s much less portable than an iPhone, and probably not operator network capable. Therefore it will be a nice gadget to have in San Francisco cafes where wi-fi lives, but in the rest of the real world the additional accessibility the iPhone offers makes this a rather pointless mobile proposition.

    As for keyboards and mice reaching the limits of their capabilities, what a load of hogwash! Setting the tablet on an angle on your work desk forces you to bend over to look at it properly. And setting it somewhere you can type properly means you’ll be bent over looking at your fingers all day long. Within a week (or day) you’ll start getting RSI in your neck. Remote monitors are used in desks at work because the ergonomics are far more comfortable.

    As for swiping around the screen, I’d have to use my entire arm. With a mouse I can do the same barely moving my fingers. And I have 4 buttons to hand (not to mention a trackball) with my iMouse. Does Apple really think we can achieve the same with 2 finger touch? Or 3 finger touch? 4 fingers? Maybe my password entry could be a Free Mason-like secret handshake.

    A paradigm shift would be the front facing camera detecting the direction of eyesight and placing the cursor where you’re looking. A few buttons on the edge and hey presto, you have something that really trumps a mouse.

    The tablet may look nice, be fun to have, but it’s just a toy. Doesn’t have the practicality of a MacBook (let alone a PowerBook), nor the portability of an iPhone. Why would I even bother thinking about one?

  • http://thefreeiphone3gs.co.uk iPhone

    The frenzy surrounding Apple at the moment means that it doesn’t really matter if it is actually going to be practical and worth buying. People will buy it anyway even to just show off to their friends.

    People have been getting the new iPhone 3GS and signing up for plans they just cant afford to pay. Why? because Apple are amazing at creating a demand for their products.

  • Pete

    It’s still too close to a retrofitted OS X environment. And I have no idea why people think the ‘messy desktop’ is a good design idea. I hope this series gets better because there is nothing about this concept that excites me at this point & I’m seriously hyped about my idea of what the mythical tablet could be.

  • AkiraTeam

    Gordon, apple won’t make a tablet with the problems you point. This is why windows tablets are unusable. Apple’s tablet (if they ever sell one) will be a change of paradigm, precisely because it will avoid those problems in a new and creative way.

    …but I can be wrong.

  • ged

    A paradigm shift would be a computer you can easily and effectively talk to.

    Before the iphone came there was website devoted to mock ups. They collected over 250.

    Not one predicted a phone without buttons.

    Why does anyone seriously think Apple will do what the hoi polloi think? It’s daft. Batty. Self-indulgent.

  • Mark M.

    this will be like switching from a crt to lcd, at first it doesnt make sense to everyone because “my gear works perfectly fine” but in the end you cant even buy a crt nowadays

  • Don Pope

    I agree completely with Gordon. This will not be a paradigm shift. There are plenty of tablets out there already and they haven’t made an dent on the laptop market.

    Tablets are only good with applications that lend themselves to manipulation with the fingers and require little keyboard input. Safari, iPhoto, iMovie and Garage Band could be rewritten to work very well on a tablet, but word processing, spreadsheets and anything that requires typing more than a few lines requires a keyboard.

    Typing on a virtual keyboard is OK for the iPhone because people only use it for short messages, but people who type a lot on their phones gravitate towards the BlackBerry.

  • Matt

    Unless you have personally used and know the exact specs of the tablet, how can you make a statement like “Here’s how Apple’s tablet will work and why it’ll be a paradigm shift.”?

    I agree that the guy’s work is extremely impressive but it’s yet another in a long line of assumptions, rumours and guesswork.

  • OlsonBW

    Most of you have no imagination.

    I’m guessing that the touch Mac would have bluetooth in it and therefore your bluetooth mouse and keyboard would work with this.

    I’m also guessing that this device would have a picture stand (like on the back of picture frames) that would allow this to “sit up” or “stand” on a desk/table/etc so you don’t have to peer down at it laying flat on a table if you don’t want to.

    Also, I doubt it will be very heavy so you could, if you like like, attach velcro to the back of it and attach it to anywhere that has the other side of velcro or … you could attach one of those stick things with the hole in it used to attach to pictures but in this case to the back of the touch mac that would allow you to hang it from a wall, fridge, let your own imagination run wild.

    Need more help with imagination? Reply to this and if I feel like it I’ll come back and help you with more ideas of what you can do.

  • robinson

    I find this series of ideas absolutely intriguing. John Doe is creative, clever, and thoughtful. He has developed a coherent, integrated approach to the tablet and its control. One item, albeit a minor one, jumped out at me and had the definite ring of truth– the fattening up of window borders and controls to be finger friendly.

    I also think he’s on target vis-a-vis software control of keyboards and input– and a new paradigm relative to menus, which was, unfortunately, introduced with the i-devices! Coming from a Palm PDA, the menu/stylus system offers much better control, more options in a more accessible format, etc. But the touch interface truly connects one with the device, it’s real interaction–and I believe addicting. It’s one reason why the i-devices grab people so deeply.

    Let’s hope Sept. 9 is a big surprise– both Tablet and Beatles, both iPod Touch II with camera and new MacBook netbook line.

  • carneil

    OlsonBW, if you think you cornered the market on imagination, it’s the market on lame imagination. A picture stand? Velcro on a tech gadget? Stick things with the hole in it to hang from a wall? Your imagination matches my grandma’s. Please.

    In general, I think Doe’s ideas are fun to read but they’re not resonating. I think it’s awkward to type on a software keyboard for anything other than a short email message, and using fat fingertips for precision software like iMovie doesn’t seem realistic. I agree with many commenters here that any Apple tablet will likely be more like an iPhone OS interface than an OS X interface.

  • Gazoobee

    I dunno, I disagree with almost all of his basic premises here, although you can see he’s thought things out given those premises.

    I don’t agree that this thing should use a desktop metaphor, or why it looks so similar to “desktop” OS-X.

    I don’t agree that it should have a zillion hardware ports and buttons.

    I don’t agree that it’s primary utility is “placed on a desktop or on one’s lap.”

    All of those things have been tried before, many times. There are even products on the market at this moment that have these features and they don’t sell very well.

    At the very least, a tablet you have to lay on a table before it’s useful, has a major utility problem “baked into the design.”

  • Constable Odo

    It only has to work so-so and be fairly robust. I’d buy it because I’d like to have multimedia delivered to me on the go and I’d like to use it to watch videos and play games around the house.

    The tablet should be in vogue in Manhattan and it’ll be cool to be one of those that have one. I can’t say it will succeed or fail since I haven’t seen or used one yet, so i’m not sure about being a paradigm shift. Too early to talk about that stuff. There are a lot of people that want to see this tablet become a failure just because it’s an Apple product, but if Apple can just reach the people that are willing to spend money, they’d stand a pretty good chance of selling it to enough influential people who’ll keep sales high.

    Most of the people that are in love with tech and specs, don’t know crap about selling products or customer appeal. All the tech-heads that thought the Palm Pre was going to revolutionize the cellphone industry and somehow outsell the iPhone were, of course, totally wrong. If non-tech people pick up the tablet and find it useful, it will sell. It’s as simple as that. Tech people are totally jaded and think non-tech users feel the same way as they do.

    If you ever want to know whether a product will succeed or fail, never, ever ask a tech-head. They over-think everything. It would probably be better to ask an average ten-year old child if they like using the device. At least ask people whom the device is going to be targeted for.

  • LexM

    You can only smile and shake your head at the vitriol in some of the comments here.

    Like everyone else’s mock-ups and predictions, John Doe’s is a _guess_ about where Apple intends to go with a rumored device and its interface. If that device comes, will it turn out to be exactly as he envisions? Almost certainly not. Will it turn out to have one or more of the peculiar features he imagines? Is any of us so confident in his own guess to say no?

    Whatever the case, Doe has thought through some of the problems that an Apple tablet will present in a way that few of the rumored device’s other prognosticators have done. For his efforts, he is derided here as a “control freak” and a dope smoker. This, for no greater infraction than conceiving the UI and general thrust of a rumored device differently than some of the commenters imagine them or hope them to be. Oscar Wilde, Claire Booth Luce, or whoever first said it was right: No good deed goes unpunished.

    For his part, Mr Kahney oversells Doe’s effort (here’s how the Apple tablet will work; paradigm shift). But can it really be shocking in 2009 that a _web journalist_ would do that? It’s part of the job description. Calmer heads expect and look past it.

    Perhaps we would do better to drop the tone of perpetual offense and indignation – instead enjoying our anticipation of the rumored device and the delicious possibilities we contemplate.

  • http://signalblog.ca Darcy Fitzpatrick

    Yeah, but how will you hold it while you’re doing all this swiping and typing? The table or your lap just isn’t going to cut it – both would be uncomfortable and limit the times when you can use it.

    The iPhone fits comfortably in one hand and can be poked at with the other, or rests nicely between two hands with two thumbs typing.

    A 10″ diagonal device won’t fit between two hands the same way, and in one hand it’s likely to fall from your grip as you prod at it with the other hand.

    Still waiting for someone to show something substantial on that front, and not more of this “look how awesome it will be to touch everything in OS X” stuff that we’ve seen a million times.

  • Church of Apple

    Good point Darcy. If it’s going to held it’s going to need to have a simple control interface using two hands holding the sides. Maybe touch sensitive pads on the back or something.

  • Die Fledermaus

    While I will give a thumbs up to this project as a good design exercise I am not fully sold on what I see. FIrst much of the gestures and actions on the screen are replication of the Microsoft surface. To that end the use of two handed gestures are somewhat illogical on a small device which is speculated to have a 10″ screen. You need one hand to hold the device and one for the interaction 70 to 80 percent of the time.
    The interface while in keeping with what Apple is already doing seems plausible.The inclusion of coverflow may muddy the usability especially the fully 3D concept shoving stuff into the distance sort of like a lazy susan. The idea of putting Widgets on the desktop while already possible (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050422172929402)
    It starts to clutter an already busy desktop. Yes you could enable spaces, but then are you not back to the similar function of dashboard? If an interface idea is hopefully going to carry over from the Mac OS it should be spaces. Spaces is built for small screen users and the use of gesturing to move between is already built into the iPhone OS.
    Lets talk hardware. The 13.3 inch screen is most likely not going to show up in the first go round but it could be the next big thing for this device. The first out of the shoots device will be most likely completely solid state i.e. no hard drive. I wouldn’t discount an SSD option but I think the device will be ram maybe starting at 64 GB
    Let me insert my own thoughts on Tablet technologies. First let me say I have been using tablets before tablets were cool by Microsoft standards. With just an os and a stylus the tablet is a niche market. They were / are heavy for long term use especially with the hand supine. The application most often run on them were specific to the business to which they were used in. The battery life can suck especially with a hard drive installed.
    The only way this will extend from that is if it can be brought into the main stream an really become usable in the everyday life of the user. The battery life will have to last the full day, it will have to be light, it will have to be peppy. It will have to do the best of both the iPhone and the Mac OS worlds while adding value that neither has.

  • KurtO

    I agree with Gordon. Why would all of the hand gestures be two handed? Last I checked, I don’t have a third hand to hold the damn thing while I’m manipulating it with the other two. What is the use of a tablet if you’ve got to put it on a desk to work with it? My suggestion is to move any dedicated control surfaces to the sides of the tablet, so most manipulation can be done with your thumbs, while the rest of your fingers hold the thing (remember the good old click-wheel iPods? — One handed control, by using your thumb to operate the click-wheel).

    This will be a Newton sized disaster if its anything close to what Steve J. is harping over at the moment. Sorry Mr. Doe.

  • Lucas

    forget the tablet. I finally just saw Quantum of Solace. I want that computer.

  • windstorm

    People are making all this hoopla about the world needing a tablet computer, but personally I think it’s a lot o f rubbish and such a thing would flop – and I certainly would never buy one. Using your hands and fingers is ok on a very small screens (like an iPod or iPhone) and for short periods of time, but doing the same thing on a larger screen and for longer time periods just wouldn’t work and would become problematic. For example, repetitive strain injuries involving the hands and arms would skyrocket if people attempted to use a tablet computer for extended periods of time. Rather than keeping your arm steady and just moving your fingers and a mouse slightly to move the cursor across the screen, on a table computer you’d have to move your “whole arm” each time and constantly. Imagine doing that all day! Repetitive strain injuries would then skyrocket from people whose arm had started hurting from doing that. As a result, no matter how nicely the tablet was designed, the whole idea would flop. Manufacturers should be designing devices that require less arm and hand movement than currently – not more.

  • Robert

    Ahhh man the whining about a device that hasn’t come out is soooo annoying. This is the damn reason why no one else in the industry strives to put out original ideas because morons like most of the people commenting on this site kill a potential product before it’s even released. RELAX PEOPLE. At the very least hold all your negative/dumb comments until you have actually had the opportunity to use the device.

  • Jon

    Jokers, why get so pumped up over a mock up? Have too much time in hand to call people names?

    You people lost it..

  • 6 Colors

    I believe that Jon Doe is on the right track about the tablet. I think that it will certainly be a paradigm changer in many ways. I am sure that it will have many of the UI features mentioned in this article and It will do all of the usual things that we expect from Apple–music, movies, photos, etc.

    However, I believe that the real paradigm shift and “killer app” for the tablet will be as a newsreader/magazine reader. You will download the newspaper/magazine into the tablet and then will read it onscreen. Cover flow will allow the reader to flip through various issues of the newspaper/magazine, tap on one to select it, and then further use cover flow to flip through the pages/sections of the newspaper/magazine. Find an article you want to read, double tap it, and it pops up so that you can read it. Then back to cover flow to continue scanning through the publication.

    Because the electronic version of the newspapers/magazines will be formatted the same way as the print versions, the newspapers/magazines will not have to change their workflow and will continue to make money through advertising. Apple will profit from the arrangement by pocketing the money from subscriptions placed through iTunes Store, sales of iSlates, and possibly from fees for hosting the newspapers/magazines at their new data farm in North Carolina.

    It will be the second time that Apple has revolutionized the publishing industry.

  • Nameless

    It’s certainly an intriguing approach to making OS X suitable for a tablet, and he didn’t forget about note-taking with a pen, either, thank goodness. (I’m waiting for Apple to give the Tablet PC + Microsoft Office OneNote some good competition.)

    However, it should be clear that I NEED A DETACHABLE, YET WELL-INTEGRATED PHYSICAL KEYBOARD. (Go look at the old HP TC1100 to see what I mean.) As someone who can hit 90+ WPM when in the zone on a nice keyboard like the old IBM Model Ms, I need the tactile feedback of a physical keyboard. Mashing my keys against a flat screen repeatedly would suck, especially since I’d have to hunch over to look at what I’m typing.

    Also, a Wacom pen is an EXPECTATION. Macs appeal to artists, right? Then give those Photoshop/Illustrator/Corel Painter/SketchBook Pro/etc. users some tablet love already! The Axiotron ModBook isn’t enough.

    Anyway, this all boils down to why Tablet PCs never really took off-you can’t just throw a pen into a keyboard-and-mouse interface and call it a proper tablet computer. The old Apple Newton MessagePad 2000/2100 is, so far, the only tablet computer to truly get pen computing right. Why can’t they follow up on that?

    (Oh, and for me, touch is a nice extra, but I have to have the pen. Ever tried to write a math equation/formula or a diagram with just a keyboard and mouse? NOT FUN.)

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