Analyst: Touchscreen MacBook 3-5 years away
Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray’s chief Apple analyst, issued a report to clients Thursday offering his take on 15 “unanswered questions” about Apple’s Mac, iPod, iPhone and retail businesses. Much of it covers territory that will be familiar to Apple (AAPL) watchers, but one point struck me as new.
It has to do with Apple’s Multi-Touch technology, which Munster describes as a fully-protected “core differentiator” of Apple’s products.
Munster believes that the Multi-Touch gestures pioneered on the iPhone and recently added to the MacBook Air and Pro, are “just the beginning of Apple’s exploration of Multi-Touch on the Mac.” Eventually, Munster says, those gesture controls will work their way from MacBook’s trackpad, where they currently reside, to the backlit screen, for “a more dynamic user interface for the Mac.”
A touchscreen MacBook — the so-called MacBook Touch — was something many Apple enthusiasts hoped would be announced at MacWorld this year. Gizmodo last November ran a contest inviting users to imagine what an Apple Tablet computer would look like. You can see the winner, and 20 other notable entries, here.
Munster shares Gizmodo’s enthusiasm for such a device, but doesn’t expect to see one anytime soon. He writes:
“Ultimately we expect Apple to develop a full touch-screen MacBook, although not until the technology has fully matured over the next 3-5 years.”
[Photoshop rendition of a MacBook Touch by Logan Lape, Gizmodo. Posted with permission.]
By the end of last year, I wrote:
I think that Apple has the right technology to revolutionize the computer industry, in a way never seen before.
I have an idea for that to happen; there it is: let Apple create a laptop computer just the size e shape of the current Macbook pro, but with some significant differences regarding the computer body, I mean, the body where the keyboard sits. Let´s make that body just like a giant iPhone where you can produce any type of keyboard. Let´s make the system to move files and folder icons from the screen to that surface, and let´s leave the screen just for visual work area.
Let´s move the computer speakers to both sides of the screen, and let´s put two microphones and two sight cameras, one on each side.
Man, Apple can do this!…and much more…
Perhaps they are waiting for screen technology like OLED to advance before applying touch. Maybe it doesn’t scale easily to even a slightly larger screen. The iPhone is glass, how much would glass flex on a larger screen? As to the Axiotron Modbook, perhaps someone should ask why they haven’t come up with a second offering based on the MacBook Air. Now that would be a tablet Mac!
rather a long time, considering the entire development of the iphone itself was, what… 2 years or so? (Jobs said how long in the Macworld intro last year)
So now taking 2 products they ALREADY have , and are great at innovating, the Cocoa Touch and a laptop, will really take THREE to FIVE years???
sounds absurd.
I think they could make one next week, if they wanted, but MAYBE the market demand is not there for a few years?
I don’t doubt that it could use more development time. But what exactly is it that needs developing beyond the stuff in the iPhone?
I think there’s a market for a small tablet right now, offering little functionality beyond being a big iPhone. With room for usb ports it would be the ultimate travel computer.
- Murphy Mac
Personally, I am ready to buy an 8″ Touch tomorrow. Possibly 2 of them.
Interestingly, USA Today reports on the front page of their Money section today 5/1/08 about a third party company Axiotron converting a MacBook into a tablet PC. Online version of the article: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/edwardbaig/2008-04-30-tablet-mac-axiotron-modbook_N.htm
Downer Any time you can toss a wet blanket, you do so. What do you have against Apple anyway?
I will be first in line to buy a touchscreen MAC…I love my iPhone and can’t wait for a touchscreen MAC to be available…GO AAPL!!!!!
- Analyst: Apple will sell 4.47 million iPhones this quarter
- Best Buy to sell iPhones starting Sept. 7
- Steve Jobs: 60 million iPhone apps downloaded
- iPhone: Trouble in the App Store
- iPhone nano: A rumor before its time
- On the road
- iPhone apps: 1,001 and counting
- Jobs tells Times: No cancer
- Who is to blame for MobileMe?
- Two weeks later, New Yorkers wait 4 1/2 hours for an iPhone
- I do not like Best Buy and would not... More
- say goodbye to the iphone and hello t... More
- Why don't you change the name of this... More
- Eh, I guess you can't get everyone to... More
- An Iphone Nano would be nice, it woul... More
- don't forget you don't need the roku... More
- "My wife is unhappy with the iPhone b... More
- I was discriminated against at best b... More
- Make that 60,000,001 sweety.... More
- The big questions are: Is this wha... More
Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
Hello, this is Simon Yu from the AAW NEWS Blog (http://koreaworld.wordpress.com) I hope that I could copy this article, but before that, I contact you this way because I think that I should get an official approval from the author. Well, regarding the topic, please contact me via hotmail: scientistsimon@hotmail.com