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Speculating on Apple's Touch Strategy

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This is mere speculation on my part, based on some rumours.

I’m quite sure that Apple will come up with a video-enabled iPod touch on September 9, along with iTunes 9 (which should have a few new “social networking” features). This part is pretty clear from most rumour sites.

AppleInsider | Sources: Apple to unveil new iPod lineup on September 9.

Progressively, Apple will be adopting a new approach to marketing its touch devices. Away from the “poorperson’s iPhone” and into the “tiny but capable computer” domain. Because the 9/9 event is supposed to be about music, one might guess that there will be a cool new feature or two relating to music. Maybe lyrics display, karaoke mode, or whatever else. Something which will simultaneously be added to the iPhone but would remind people that the iPod touch is part of the iPod family. Apple has already been marketing the iPod touch as a gaming platform, so it’s not a radical shift. But I’d say the strategy is to make Apple’s touch devices increasingly more attractive, without cannibalizing sales in the MacBook family.

Now, I really don’t expect Apple to even announce the so-called “Tablet Mac” in September. I’m not even that convinced that the other devices Apple is preparing for expansion of its touch devices lineup will be that close to the “tablet” idea. But it seems rather clear, to me, that Apple should eventually come up with other devices in this category. Many rumours point to the same basic notion, that Apple is getting something together which will have a bigger touchscreen than the iPhone or iPod touch. But it’s hard to tell how this device will fit, in the grand scheme of things.

It’s rather obvious that it won’t be a rebirth of the eMate the same way that the iPod touch wasn’t a rebirth of the MessagePad. But it would make some sense for Apple to target some educational/learning markets, again, with an easy-to-use device. And I’m not just saying this because the rumoured “Tablet Mac” makes me think about the XOXO. Besides, the iPod touch is already being marketed to educational markets through the yearly “Back to school” program which (surprise!) ends on the day before the September press conference.

I’ve been using an iPod touch (1st Generation) for more than a year, now, and I’ve been loving almost every minute of it. Most of the time, I don’t feel the need for a laptop, though I occasionally wish I could buy a cheap one, just for some longer writing sessions in cafés. In fact, a friend recently posted information about some Dell Latitude D600 laptops going for a very low price. That’d be enough for me at this point. Really, my iPod touch suffices for a lot of things.

Sadly, my iPod touch seems to have died, recently, after catching some moisture. If I can’t revive it and if the 2nd Generation iPod touch I bought through Kijiji never materializes, I might end up buying a 3rd Generation iPod touch on September 9, right before I start teaching again. If I can get my hands on a working iPod touch at a good price before that, I may save the money in preparation for an early 2010 release of a new touch device from Apple.

Not that I’m not looking at alternatives. But I’d rather use a device which shares enough with the iPod touch that I could migrate easily, synchronize with iTunes, and keep what I got from the App Store.

There’s a number of things I’d like to get from a new touch device. First among them is a better text entry/input method. Some of the others could be third-party apps and services. For instance, a full-featured sharing app. Or true podcast synchronization with media annotation support (à la Revver or Soundcloud). Or an elaborate, fully-integrated logbook with timestamps, Twitter support, and outlining. Or even a high-quality reference/bibliography manager (think RefWorks/Zotero/Endnote). But getting text into such a device without a hardware keyboard is the main challenge. I keep thinking about all sorts of methods, including MessagEase and Dasher as well as continuous speech recognition (dictation). Apple’s surely thinking about those issues. After all, they have some handwriting recognition systems that they aren’t really putting to any significant use.

Something else which would be quite useful is support for videoconferencing. Before the iPhone came out, I thought Apple may be coming out with iChat Mobile. Though a friend announced the iPhone to me by making reference to this, the position of the camera at the back of the device and the fact that the original iPhone’s camera only supported still pictures (with the official firmware) made this dream die out, for me. But a “Tablet Mac” with an iSight-like camera and some form of iChat would make a lot of sense, as a communication device. Especially since iChat already supports such things as screen-sharing and slides. Besides, if Apple does indeed move in the direction of some social networking features, a touch device with an expanded Address Book could take a whole new dimension through just a few small tweaks.

This last part I’m not so optimistic about. Apple may know that social networking is important, at this point in the game, but it seems to approach it with about the same heart as it approached online services with eWorld, .Mac, and MobileMe. Of course, they have the tools needed to make online services work in a “social networking” context. But it’s possible that their vision is clouded by their corporate culture and some remnants of the NIH problem.

Ah, well…

innovation, OLPC, One Laptop Per Child, ramblings, shameless plug, wishful thinking, wishlists

Nailed It! Keyboard-Less OLPC XO (Update)

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It’s a strange feeling that I get fairly frequently. I dream up some tech “thing” (hardward device, software tool, service) and it’s unveiled shortly thereafter. At the risk of sounding boastful, it feels as if I have my pulse on the “industry.”

Of course, there are other explanations. One is that I dream up so many things that some of them are bound to come through at some point. Another is that I may have internalized some information about those products ready to be unveiled from some source and that I forget that I got this information. Or maybe what I’m dreaming up is so obvious that just everybody predicted it.

Still, it’s a strange feeling. I feel prescient.

Latest case in point, the OLPC’s XOXO (XO-2), will be keyboard-less, just as I dreamt about on another blog and just as I described here, yesterday. As could be expected, some people are already expressing negative opinions about the keyboard-less design. Maybe they’re just surprised. But I can’t help but think that designing the device without a hardware keyboard is an important step toward radically creative thinking. Several aspects of the XO-1 were very innovative and could be described as “creative solutions to important problems.” But the shift to a keyboard-free device is closer to “creating a new device category.” Of course I’m biased but I do think this new device category can have game-changing implications. The fact that the device is much smaller and more specifically designed as an eBook also goes with this “new device category” idea. At the risk of belabouring the point, the XOXO is almost exactly what I had in mind last night as “handheld for the rest of us.”

I’m also glad that this radical shift in design explicitly relates to cultural awareness. What I mean is, the OLPC team is actually saying that the double-screen will be used for diverse (on-screen) “keyboards.” If I hadn’t thought of the same thing myself, I would call it “genius!” 🙂

Now, to go back to the notion of feeling eerily prescient. I can wash the feeling away by myself. I’ve written a number of things about possible features for the OLPC or other devices and the lack of keyboard seems to be the only one which stuck. In fact, although I did think about a Nintendo-like dual-screen system at several points, I didn’t write it down as a prediction or even a part of my wishlist.

Keyboard-less devices are rather common, these days. Apart from the Nintendo DS and DS Lite that people are using as a point of comparison for the XOXO, there are several (multi-)touch based devices out there which may have served as inspiration for both the OLPC redesign and my own dream. In fact, some rumours seem to indicate that Apple might release a dual-screen portable at some point, maybe with double-sided panels. I, for one, would say that such a design would make the long-rumoured Apple tablet much more practical. In other words: I wasn’t prescient, in the OLPC case, I just dreamt up what was the most logical next step.

Also, it’s possible that I read or heard something which made me think specifically of a keyboard-less OLPC. I kind of doubt it and I don’t really want to look for such an occurrence, but now that I know that it was already planned, I admit that I may have seen some mention of the keyboard-less design.

[Edit, May 21, 1:20 a.m.: Apparently, the International Herald Tribune had already published a preview of the device by Friday, May 16. I’m pretty sure I had seen nothing of that IHT preview and I really don’t think I was able to see any description of a dual-screen XO by the time I posted my blog entry and other comments about a keyboard-less XO. But the fact that it was, somehow, in the open makes me more suspicious of my own intuitions.]

Sheesh!