johnny won

The Apple Netpod

This is purely speculation so think with me as Businessweek points to Verizon+Apple negotiations that go beyond the iPhone. I’m not convinced Verizon will get the iPhone as much as they want it, I think Apple wants their juicy EVDO network for a new device.

I’m calling it an Apple Netpod but call it what you will, it’s a cloud driven device that relies on the network to make it work. Apple’s looking to create a category here with something bigger than the most robust iPod and certainly less powerful than a stripped out MacBook. The Kindle and slew of netbooks have opened up a small category for $249-$500 devices that basically let you do mundane things like reading books/webpages or viewing crappy YouTube videos. They’re basically dumb little machines forced to use a big boy operating system that sucks on a deformed <100% keyboard.

For Apple, it’s well documented that a mini-Macbook is not in their interest (not even going to cite this since it’s obvious). Fixing the deficiencies of the iPod Touch however is something of Apple’s interest. The iPod Touch’s greatest deficiency isn’t it’s size, it’s the lack of the constant network connection. So you could slap on an Amazon Whispernet service to do data only iPod Touch but it’s still a bloody small device. Now we’re talking about big screen size at 8, 9, 10 inches and we’re talking about something that in theory works pretty similarly to the Kindle.

While the Kindle is reading what Amazon convinces publishers to join, Apple hasn’t even needed to court publishers to the App Store with NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, USA Today, Chicago Tribune (ect) going bananas. If you use the NYT, WSJ or Bloomberg apps you also realize you pretty much never have to type anything in the reading apps, ever. Sometimes you can email a great NYT article to your mom but it hardly seems to justify a physical keyboard so you could bet we’ll never see a keyboard on a sub MacBook device. You simply wouldn’t need it, a virtual (and likely, awkward) keyboard would be more than enough.

The best part of the NetPod would be the opportunity for publishers to go nuts in a new App Store. New users would be drawn to the basic features for viewing media (Photos for NetPod! View Videos for Netpod! YouTube for Netpod!) while users would begin to get apps from fancy publishers desperately looking to re-monetize their digital users. Current App Store developers would also gleefully create games and get Microsoft Surface-y in using full hand multi-touch.

Ultimately, the Netpod would be Apple’s little device that took blogs and web reading into the recliner. I’m willing to bet typing simply sucks and it would never substitute as a device for taking notes or even recognizing handwriting because it wouldn’t have to. People are happily paying $399 for a b/w text only on a 6” reading device in addition to book purchases, a $400-$500 to watch videos, read the Safari Netpod blunted-web, get some YouTube, view a free ad-supported NYT/WSJ/USA Today app on a 7,8,9” color screen doesn’t seem like a stretch at all.

This fits neatly into Apple’s strict product categories: above the iPod Touch & iPhone but definitely less than a MacBook. An iPhone and iPod Touch would continue to offer portability, size and go-anywhere pocket-ability while the Netpod would be the Internet reader while reclining and lounging. Things like note-taking, e-mail or instant messaging probably wouldn’t even be supported by Apple in a 1.0. And if you ever needed to start taking notes or writing, a MacBook with it’s non-virtual keyboard would do a far better job.

So this is just some guessing: 
Apple Netpod: $500~ 8”~ 720p~, 16-30 ounces, entirely glass touchscreen, absolutely no physical keyboard, cloud connected, and with it’s brand new App Store.

Just sayin

What’s Apple’s problem with buttons?

Marco nails it. I love the unbuttoned Apple track pad on the Macbook, I hate the Mighty Mouse, I love the translucent Menu Bar, I hate the refresh button in Safari 4. Certainly Apple is exploring something with their thinking, which is refreshing, I’m not positive it works entirely for me. 

marco:

With both the new buttonless trackpads and the new iPod Shuffle, it seems that Apple’s going on an all-out war to eliminate as many buttons as possible from their products.

There’s a lot of value in simplifying controls, to a point. But nobody was complaining that either the laptop trackpads or the Shuffles had too many buttons before. In both cases, the devices are now worse off than they were before, but they look a bit cooler.

It’s easy to see signs of a perpetual internal battle at Apple between usability and appearance. Usually, they find a good balance and achieve high quality on both fronts. But sometimes the appearance-driving forces choke usability enough to leak toxic usability flaws into a shipping product. And I think, like 10.5.0’s translucent menu bar and slanty Dock, and Safari 4 Beta’s tab bar, and heavy shiny glass screens on lightweight laptops, and the Mighty Mouse, that this new Shuffle was a victim of the Apple style police defeating any semblance of common-sense usability.