‘NYT’: Apple has been working on a tablet since 2003

Posted by Dennis Sellers Oct 5, 2009 at 4:10pm

The New York Times says that, despite the lack of success so far for tablet computers, several companies are still working on such devices and the rumored iPad/iTablet “rumored tablet is the most highly anticipated of the lot.” In fact, the article says Apple has been working on such a device for six years.

Analysts expect Apple to introduce it early next year for around US$700. Last week, Apple rehired the original chief marketer of its old Newton, Michael Tchao. His former Apple colleagues believe he will help market this new device.

Still, Apple’s tablet will most likely have little in common with the Newton. The Times says “the new crop of tablets is being viewed as more flexible—gadgets that combine elements of the iPhone, e-book readers like the Kindle and laptops.”

Apple has been working the device since at least 2003, several former employees told The Times. One prototype, developed in 2003, used PowerPC microchips made by I.B.M., which were so power-hungry that they quickly drained the battery, the article says.

“It couldn’t be built. The battery life wasn’t long enough, the graphics performance was not enough to do anything and the components themselves cost more than $500,” Joshua A. Strickland, a former Apple engineer whose name is on several of the company’s patents for multitouch technology, told The Times.

Another former Apple executive who was there at the time said the tablets kept getting shelved at Apple because Jobs, “whose incisive critiques are often memorable, asked, in essence, what they were good for besides surfing the web in the bathroom,” the article adds. But the success of the iPhone and iPod touch may have helped answer that question. (The graphic above—a mock-up, not a real photo, is courtesy of PC World.)

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