We’ve got this from three independent sources close to Apple: expect a large screen iPod touch device to be released in the Fall of ‘09, with a 7 or 9 inch screen. Prototypes have been seen and handled by one of our sources, and Apple is talking to OEMs in Asia now about mass production.
Apple has been experimenting internally with large form tablet devices for years, one source says, but there was concern that users wouldn’t like the device. The difference now is the iTunes app store, which has thousands of games and other applications that are perfect for a touch screen device with an accelerometer. Apple says more than 300 million applications have been downloaded since the App Store launched in July 2008. Combine the App Store, iTunes and a browser and you have one heck of a device.
We don’t have any information on pricing. The current iPod touch, with a 3.5 inch screen, starts at $229. The 32 GB model is $399. We expect the price on the larger iPod touch to be significantly higher.
Apple rumors, particularly Apple tablet rumors, tend to come and go. I’m not saying Apple is definitely launching a large form iPod Touch. But sources I trust are saying they are currently planning to, and one source has actually held the device.
I want the TC / FireFox Tablet. Where is it ?
we’ll have more news in a couple of days.
Great stuff, bring it on.
Well that pretty much kills the TC tablet. Now all we need is for someone to blog about the TC tablets inevitable failure just like Arington and other writers here at TC do about other companies.
is the TC/FireFox tablet still in production? i would want to buy one.
This in no way kills the TC Tablet. If TC can achieve their goal of $200-$250, that beats the price of the current 16G Touch, so it will definitely beat the price of the iTouch Tablet. You vastly increase the size of your potential market with a price as low as TC’s goal price.
If apple don’t follow this up i.e. this is not just a piece of clever marketing they are mad! There is a massive gap in the market for people who travel and what something that can be used as an e-book and music system. Especially the E-Book Market. I would personally be prepared to pay more than most e-books out there ie. £200+ as they are pretty bulky. You could would have a much better experince with a larger MAC onscreen keyboard. It would oblitorate the NetBook Market. They could sell e-books in airports from POS systems. Its a win win !
Nice! Looks like my request for an iPod touch HD wasn’t too far-fetched.
Dan, i just read your post and added a link.
indeed!
300 million* applications?
hah! saw that too – that’s what we need, a world full of people migrating to little touch netbooks, putting down stuff like word or excel for ifart and ibeer….
will apple put a camera on this ipod touch, or will they continue to ignore the market request and pretend that only the iphone can make calls?
hooray! a future full of snappy iconoclasts outfitted with more ipod and apple stuff!
…from steve jobs: “let’s all be individuals, now, everybody, repeat after me, let’s all be individuals”
Nice job of stereotyping tens of millions of people.
hmm, I guess that wont be a pocket device then huh?
I believe the iPod Touch would be the pocket version
Since it isn’t a pocket device, he’ll probably pull it out of his pants….Tah Dah!
This sounds very cool, but they would have to have an alternative to the virtual keyboard. You can’t really hold a large tablet the same way you hold an Touch.
Good thing you brought this up… otherwise Apple wouldn’t have thought of how to address this.
no, no, you’ve got it all wrong – you will do *whatever* apple tells you to do…that’s their secret to design and functionality!
At that size, I’d worry if I was a company making any sort of ebook reader (Kindle, etc.)
Really – do think that Apple will take on Amazon the same way they took on the music industry? I doubt it.
But then again, it is Apple we’re talking about.
A couple sites had estimates of Kindle sales of 200,000 to 500,000. Compared to what, 10 million iPhones? Plus iPod touches that likely number in the millions too. It’s more in Amazon’s court to take on Apple for handheld devices.
Are people going to buy an eBook reader + a netbook PC + a music player + a movie player…or one device that covers (and kills) all those categories. And it plays games and the 1000s of other programs in the App Store
If I were Amazon, or any of those companies making any of those individual items, I’d be worried about those products.
Amazon is all for Kindle competitors. The more ebook readers out there, the more ebooks they can sell.
I’d like a 4-foot edition so I can play Tap Tap Dance the way it was meant to be played.
Feels like the next logical step, looking forward to it!
Maybe this is more of an iKindle?
The rumor alone is enough to make me take a pause in getting a Kindle.. wow. I already have an iPhone & iTouch, would love to add this as well.
This will far out do the kindle and is what i’m waiting for in 2009
http://www.enga...e-newspaper-re/
Truth? Or just another story so Arrington can get people to come to his website?
I suggest we all cut Arrington a little slack, I mean what big news stories are you expecting to come through this close to New Year’s! TC may have produced one of it’s more random subject choices but heck I think TC needs to become a rival to Appleinsider.com every so often!
This may be the biggest tech story of the year, broken by TC!
No. No, it’s not.
I suppose you also believe the Techcrunch Web Tablet will become a real product to. Is this site for dimwits or something?
If this thing is real, I can’t wait to get my hands on one. My wired life has been different altogether since I bought my first-gen Touch. I think I’ll just phase out of existence and fall into the Web if I have a tablet-sized Touch.
me too.
Dude… are you high? in the title you say “Large Form iPod Touch To Launch in Fall ‘09″, not may, not might, but TO… then you say “I’m not saying Apple is definitely launching a large form iPod Touch”. Sorry, but that is exactly what the headline says. Don’t be so sensationalist if you’re going to put stupid disclaimer statements at the end… please, try to lay off the drugs and think of the children.
ok, i’ll try to lay off the drugs, and think of the children.
thank you, i can’t ask for more
Or, layoff the children and think of the drugs.
i think ipod will be dead in long term. it seems like a sick iphone to me.
hahahah! thats is so right…
The price point will be too high to make it useful. But fanboys will still buy it… The Kindle could be so useful, only if they dropped the price to something reasonable.
“The price point will be too high to make it useful. But fanboys will still buy it… ‘
But didn’t you know? That’s Apple’s entire business model…
This puts some of their other patents into perspective. This is the first phase of the tablet with a docking station for desktop use.
Now, we have to wait a few more years for the 13 inch version.
Is this Apple’s segway into the netbook/nettop market? Wonder if it would be the iPhone OS or full blown Mac.
Monetarily, the iphone OS would make more sense. Assuming this will be an iTunes device – plug’n'play with existing (rather, “updated”) apps, etc. – apple offers their entry to the netbook arena with a jump-start that is lightyears beyond the evolution of competing vendors.
Additionally, the iphone OS is the general direction of the future: the cloud computing / subscription / app-tap future. If Apple can form-function this device with a competitive price tag vs. alternative PC/Linux netbooks…. they could have a real slice of market share that has always hovered in the sub-5% space.
Considering the current (and well-deserved) netbook phenomenon, coupled with Apple’s dominance in the mobile sector….. they might just have a backdoor approach to dominant personal computing. Hah, that would be interesting….!
Wow, despite some actual content in that post I still feel like I’ve just played Bullshit Bingo… :-/
I’d bet we’d have an iPhone OS at first, but eventually (with more powerful components, battery, higher-capacity solid-state memory, etc.) we’d get the ability to run either the iPhone OS or Mac OS, as desired. I’d also expect apps like Photoshop offering versions specifically designed to run on the tablet.
God I’ve been waiting for Apple to enter this space. If the MacBook Air screen could swivel it would be a perfect alternative.
Whatever the price I’ll buy one just for the ability to read and keep up to date on RSS feeds.
You guys are almost half a year late on this one. Score one for the cranky analyst that couldn’t make it in the south bay:
http://abmw.wor...touch-by-apple/
““Early Q4 2008, Apple will introduce a product based on the iPod touch platform. It will compete with connected devices by Nokia. Rough dims are half page – 8×6. Slots for upcoming Wimax, or an optional 3g modem. May ship with stylus. Advanced Gestures (patents working through). Clever swing cover that protects the front and completely disappears when you flip it.”
And you were off by a year…
I wasn’t off by a year, the source was off by a year. And all of these CE companies are late to the party. Seeing as he is the least senior lawyer on the team, it’s awesome that he got this close.
Picky, picky.
One of the major reasons cite for the iPhone Nano being false is that it wouldn’t be compatible with the App Store because of the different screen size and resolution.
Wouldn’t this device put that issue to rest as well?
Whatever happened to Apple’s work with a version of Mac OS X that didn’t care what resolution the screen was it? (i.e. using vector graphics for everything to scale perfectly)?
Resolution independence is all about the pixel density. Would you really want an iPod touch where everything was four times bigger?
There are a lot of custom UIs in the App Store. They were designed to work on just one screen size, because there *is* only one screen size. all the images they use would be grainy when scaled up.
There should be no compatibility issues with a larger screen. If an app wants the dimensions of the iPhone, just run it in a window on the larger screen. In fact, a device with a larger screen could allow you to run multiple apps at the same time, which you can’t do currently on the iPhone/iPod touch.
Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.
ummm . . . *cough* *idiot*
the iphone doesnt support multiple programs because the cpu doesnt cache well enough. and steve jobbs thought it used too much battery.
this product would require a much larger battery, and hugely better processor, coupled with the screen, thats one heil of an expensive device.
If Apple goes after the content, this is definitely a Kindle Killer. And I say that as a happy Kindle user.
I’ve been begging for an Apple Tablet for years; this combined with the Pogo Sketch – http://www.tech...nch-in-fall-09/ – would rock!
Regarding the form factor:
It can still fit into a jacket pocket, like a paperback or a Kindle. Granted it cannot fit into a pant pocket, but so what. If done right, this could be the thing that replaces nearly all of the still clunky/bulky input and reading materials for most (college) students, who’s large screen notebooks and incessant key-clicking have become a real nuisance in classrooms over the last 10 years or so.
What it does need to be truly awesome however is (finally) functional handwriting recognition. Only then will it be a true game changer, and basically become the eBook/Textbook reader and note taking device of choice.
I have thought for a long time about what it would take to make handwriting recognition really work (better than the Windows Tablet version I played around with a few years ago, etc.), and the answer is, the software simply needs to learn our personal squiggles from the ground up instead of always tying to be so “AI” intelligent about it. Each letter and each word is simply a cypher of sorts. That way there could also be much better support for a personal form of shorthand and abbreviation expansion, etc. They would all simply be a form of writing “gesture”.
(Presumably Apple still has all of the HwRecog research stuff from the Newton, no? Whatever happened with all of that?)
Then you simply need to train it for a half hour or so from the ground up, and create a very fast/elegant one-touch correction mechanism that basically says: We thought you said… please type what you meant here: … with touch keyboard already opened. Every word, now matter how idiosynchratic your scribbles, could then be recognized. And it could autoexpand your oft-used shortcuts, e.g. “M-A” to “Mike Arrington” asf.
Imagine writing blog posts “by hand” this way. There is a certain immediacy of scribbling your thoughts that in my experience the keyboard/screen paradigm cannot match. E.g. I do my best copywriting by hand, but am then left with the nuisance of having to get it back into digital format.
Add to this some innovative new software ideas similar to Apple’s existing touch paradigm, and allow e.g. circling of content to create Mindmap-like entries and line-drawn linking between them, and you would really have something that goes way beyond the current computing paradigm. Same for an annotation overlay of eBook texts/textbooks that is badly needed to make eTextbooks truly viable to use.
Please, please, I could really use this yesterday. I don’t see BTW why it needs to cost more than $500-600, the iPod Touch is now near $200 retail in the base version, and the only significant cost driver should be screen size and a bit more memory. But I would gladly pay $2K for it if it really, truly worked.
They have tablets that do all that TODAY. Most of which now cost less than $2000.
Joe, really all of what I described above? Also, if that is really the case, then the people making them are doing a horrible job letting people know about their innovations, no?
I’m in a different camp here…. and I can’t imagine Apple would spend vast amounts of R&D dollars on a dead technology. Dead technology in this reference being: “handwriting”.
The future of handwriting will be through graphology, nostalgia and artistry.
Anything that can be written by hand can be typed much faster by trained fingers. Any ink-driven gesture that can express words or phrases can be exceeded by the speed of macros.
I’m 26, and my sole use for handwriting is through personal cards and chicken-scratching phone numbers while talking on the other line, or driving in the car.
My 12 year old brother says that pens and pencils feel weird in his fingers, and his handwriting has a closer resemblance to poorly scripted Arabic than his native English. Meanwhile, he can type emails at around 65wpm. And counting.
@ Alex S: I’m not trying to shoot you down here… just playing the other side of the card. Frankly…. there are plenty of HWrec technologies out there, and my guess is that Apple would freely rely on 3rd party development in this particular case.
@dougan – I can see your point, but then again there are likely still tons of people out there (like me) who actually learned to write with pen and paper long before anything else, and weren’t using a computer in kindergarden… so for many of those the immediacy of handwriting still exists.
Note that my idea about the “custom cypher” recognition would allow even your brother’s arabic looking squiggles to be read. I would think that a personal sort of shorthand that auto-expands would still be plenty fast.
Also, the way I see it, the current paradigm of keyboard plus mouse/pointing device is making it so that the context has to be constantly switched, which is known to be resource expensive from a neurological point of view. Pointing and writing with the same input tool (i.e. stylus) seems to have some things going for it in that regard.
And I still believe that underlining and annotation, as well as quick sub-itemization similar to a Mind-mapping program would all be features that could bridge a lot of existing gaps, especially with textbooks/studying. People are still required to read/study with those, as most of the professors are definitely not Gen Y yet…
Textbooks loaded into a tablet with the above features could be a real boon to tie everything together, and create a whole new paradigm of usability compared to what is still mostly done today. Old content media and new computer and internet-based methods still have not met in a number of ways.
Why should anyone pay attention to the opinion of a person stupid enough to write while driving?
you have to get a hold of yourself.
Uh… The iPhone already has the handwriting recognition inside it.
http://www.appl...ftware_2_0.html
(You didn’t really think that they squeezed all 5,000 Chinese characters into a single mini-keyboard did you???)
English handwriting recognition is a dead end for mass-market computing due to unrealistic consumer expectations. Humans cannot perform handwriting recognition at 100%, not even on their own handwriting. Yet the expectation for a computer is that, if it says “handwriting recognition”, it will work every time. Your post is a good example.
The only English handwriting recognition technology which has found significant market success is Graffiti from Palm, and that is because it reverses the expectations. It is a new alphabet with specific instructions, and so if the recognition fails, the user feels it is their own fault and just tries again. This does not happen when the promise is simply “handwriting recognition.” Then when it fails we blame the machine or the software design or the programmers. Our perception of the value of the product is lessened.
The issue of the correction UI is extremely difficult. If the machine does not recognize your handwriting then simply writing more will not be an efficient way to correct it. Almost every handwriting-recognizing device today has a keyboard for correcting recognition failures. Most people just end up using the keyboard for most text input. It’s faster and more accurate, and the correction UI is the same as the initial input. Palm had a touch keyboard in addition to Graffiti and Apple learned from that. They did not even bother with handwriting recognition in the iPhone.
I highly doubt they will offer handwriting recognition as anything other than a curiousity on a tablet form factor (if at all). OS X already includes handwriting recognition called Inkwell–do you ever hear about it from Apple? (Did you even know it was in there?)
7-inch screen is what you get on a portable DVD player which the kids use in the backseat of a car when the family goes on a long drive, plus, the first-gen netbooks have 7-inch displays, so the form factor has been acceptable to the public for a while.
This is a natural reach for Apple. The current model of iPod Touch with its 3.5-inch screen is a challenge to the eyes of the bi-focal crowd, such as this writer.
As economy turns south, people will appreciate iPod Touch more than iPhone, because the latter is shackled by a hefty wireless subscription fee.
If Apple makes this model available, hopefully sooner than the “fall of ‘09″ as reported, I will be there to pay my Apple tax again.
I will finally get an iPod for myself.
I am really looking forward to a device like this. They a good one comes out, I am getting it. Will it be Apple, or the CrunchPad?
When’s yours coming out? I haven’t seen much since the initial post…
Not sure what happened there, but it should have read, “The day a good one comes out”, not “They a good one comes out”.
RIP Kindle.
Every app for iPhone/iPod touch is designed for a 480×320 screen. I wonder how apple will deal with this issues on a much larger screen….
As this becomes larger, how exactly will it be used?
As in, with an iPhone, I just hold it in either one hand and type with that thumb or I hold it with both hands typing with both thumbs. With a larger device, are you expected to lay it down somewhere to use or do you hold it with one hand and use the other to type?
The other choice I see is to hold it up with both hands and have the keyboards use only a portion of the side next to your hand instead of having it on the bottom like it is now. This would mean you could still type with your thumbs because the letters are close by.
Am I missing the point or does someone else see my issue?
I can just speak from my personal experience with my Archos 7 I have had for about a week. I have a touch and my wife has an iPhone and I love both.
The larger Archos screen is great for really watching videos as the viewing area is 3X my touch. My kids love it in that they can enjoyably watch a movie or look at the pictures. Also, I get three columns of real internet and don’t need to pinch and squeeze like I do on my touch. When surfing, I hold it like a tablet and use my finger or a stylus.
It’s not anywhere near as portable as the touch in that you can’t put it in your pocket, but it’s not designed to be as portable either.
If you really want 7″ PMP today, you can get it today in the Archos 7. I got one for Christmas and did a little write-up here: http://budurl.com/Archos07
If you must have iTunes or App Store, you are out of luck.
Nothing overly exciting, same whore different hole.
Awesome, can’t wait! =) Was originally wanting a Mac OS X based one, but a larger version of the iPod Toich might be cool.
I’ve seen rumors now of a large format and small format ipod. I wonder what is it going to be like running an ipod touch application on a smaller screen, and what about a larger? And vice versa?
Curious to see how apple is going to make this work.
Amazon has the Kendal and Apple has the Fondle?
I can’t wait to play fieldrunners on it.
Woo!
If I put my iphone really close to my eye it looks like a itouch tablet.
(sorry just testing facebook connect)
I hope Apple understands that a tablet is not a phone. I don’t care about the current iPhone limitations, but I would NEVER buy a tablet with the same limitations.
If I ever buy a tablet, I want to run full applications on it, I want it to support background applications and everything else. I also want to download apps from third-party sources just like I can do on my Mac, not just from the AppStore.
If this thing is just a iPod touch with larger screen, it will have very limited use, if any.
Great…. now once I get my hands on this new touch, I will not stop reading Tech Crunch all day at work… Arrington… we’re gonna need to up it to like 20 new posts per day
There are lots of rumors. iPod will be bigger, iPhone will go Nano version. http://tinyurl.com/6r4qmw. But I love them anyway:)
Holy cow! Just today I published an article about Apple’s next new device being a NetPad, a device about the side of three iPhones side by side. Many technical details about how this would look and work are in the article, at http://www.myallo.com/blog
I hope the storage will be in TB instead of GB. I can’t wait for this new iPod Touch.
I want a sub $500 tablet PC. I could care less about a netbook. I have a laptop. I need a touch screen that I can write on for school work, jot down business ideas/sketches, and something that allows me to just toss it in my back pack without costing me a frickin fortune. After all it’s not going to be as powerful as my gaming machine, nor as productive at bigger tasks besides note taking, mild browsing, and task management.
Great device! Hope all this is true! i love my ipod touch, it has changed my computing life. I no longer have to carry my laptop with me wherever I go.
Larger screen size does make sense per Apple’s positioning as a gaming platform … exciting stuff
We’ll just have to wait and see what happens at Macworld. Exciting times!
A 7inch Gaming System??? {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/KvyOIxDPkv_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”A 7inch Gaming System??? ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/wRvaYneAZR”}}}
robert.wenek@yahoo.com
i am eagerly waiting for this big screen ipod.large screen iPod touch device to should be released in the Fall of ‘09, with a 7 or 9 inch screen.apple is so cheeky when they want to lounch any new product.first they make it famous in market with romours and then lounch it.isnt it?