In my last post I surmised what the probable specs of an Apple tablet would be while also showing why Apple has a great shot at making it all work. But a tablet is only going to be as good as the software that runs on it and will only work if people see a use for it so this post is going to look at what the Apple tablet will do if it exists at all.

There are two rumours about the name of the tablet device... iSlate or Magic Slate. The latter actually is a better name in my not so humble opinion. But the name points to something bigger than just what it’s trying to name. The word “slate” conjures up the idea of a blackboard (screw you PC thugs) which of course gives the idea of writing. It’s this, mixed with the rumours about Apple’s iWork.com that provides the key as to what Apple is trying to achieve with the tablet.

Apple’s iWork application is a Mac suite in the same vain as Microsoft’s Office but it also has an online collaboration aspect since early 2009. The big problem with iWork.com was that it has been beta for the last year and also lacks many features but in its current form works well with the desktop application. iWork.com however may become more than just a collaboration tool for other iWork users. Currently you can share documents with Windows users by way of Word/Excel or PDF documents but no one can edit them online. There appears to be a move towards online editing in some form that resembles Google Docs but with a much more advanced interface a la MobileMe Mail. Throw in a mobile version of iWork for iPhone/iPod Touch/mythical tablet and you have document editing on the fly and access to documents on the fly and you’ve got a documentation system that can give you the information wherever you are whenever you need it.

Documentation on portable devices has often been poorly done with some exceptions. Documents To Go has long been a favourite of mine since the days when I had a Palm and I currently use it on my iPhone as well because it is such a nice tool to be able to edit documents on the fly and then synch back. The big problem I have with Documents To Go is that it doesn’t support the iWork format which is what I use all the time for my document editing, especially spreadsheets which I often use. It also requires a separate application to transfer those documents onto my iPhone and back again. If Apple produced a mobile version of iWork that stored everything on iWork.com then you’d eliminate the need for synching all the time because it would just work on documents stored online (a backup would be stored on the local machines though for security).

The other facet of documentation will more than likely come from Apple getting into Books. Amazon has the Kindle and Sony has the eBook Reader and there is another device called the Nook but these are single purpose devices that aren’t really that nice to use. On the iPhone there are great apps like Classics which has a beautiful interface that feels like you’re actually reading a book but there is also Stanza, BookShelf, Eucalyptus all of which have nice interfaces. I like Classics because it doesn’t feel like a computer program and that’s the problem with reading on a screen. It doesn’t move like paper it moves like a long list of text and if you’ve ever read a long list it gets tiresome and boring and you switch off. Classics however has an animation when you turn the page and the text doesn’t scroll so it really feels like you’re reading a book. Now, if Apple developed something similar and had books as purchase options from the iTunes store then Apple would have conquered the entire media sector. This isn’t a bad thing because it would force competitors to buck up their ideas instead of being stagnant in their approaches to things, especially media. Now while a device like a tablet will never replace physical books and papers and magazines it does give people more than over priced options (I mean how many books really are worth $30?) and therefore people would buy more. It happened with music and movies so there’s nothing to suggest it won’t happen with books.

But it won’t stop there. It seems to make sense that Apple will release mobile versions of the iLife suite as well. Imagine a keyboard on the screen that lets you make music in GarageBand wherever you are. Imagine being able to blog in iWeb wherever you are (handy for my site). Imagine editing your videos or keeping all your photos organised wherever you are all from a mobile device rather than carrying around a bulky laptop or being forced to do that sort of work when you get back to your desktop.

The potential for a tablet device really is huge but it needs to be done well. Apple has experience in turning sloppy technology into game changers as can be seen with the iPod, iPhone, and iPod Touch. But Apple is a software company above all else, it just happens to make the hardware that goes with it. As such Apple’s software is screaming out for a mobile outing which I think Apple will deliver on. When it delivers it will show Microsoft, Palm and Google how cloud based computing should be done. This comes not because I’m a Mac fanboi or anything like that but because of pure hard evidence. Apple has time and time again changed the way we interact with the media we have today and I can’t wait to see what this year has in store for us.

In two weeks Apple may be holding a media event that has kicked up the whole tablet storm again. I think it’s highly plausible this time but to see why I say this we need to look at why it will be Apple who remain the only hope for the future of tablets.

Apple more or less invented pen based computing with the Newton, Palm followed with the Palm Pilot, Microsoft released various pen based products including a tablet OS for tablet computing. Essentially all of these failed for one very basic reason... our brains can’t handle it.

When we write we write with two different forms of technology. We either use pen and paper or we use a computer or a typewriter. On their own these two can work quite well, often backing each other up as a writer might jot notes down on a pad and then add them to a document on a computer. The problem comes when you combine the two to try and kill two birds with one stone. What tends to happen is that the two technologies compete with each other and therefore nothing gets done.

As a computer a tablet works quite well with a keyboard and possibly a trackpad depending on the design of the tablet. But in this configuration the tablet kind of defeats itself because the whole idea is to remove the mouse and keyboard and use a stylus. As a PDA the tablet kind of works well but there’s one use of a tablet that makes sense but fails dismally.

Document editing on a Newton, a Palm Pilot, or a Windows Mobile device is both easy and difficult at the same time. Newton and Palm went the handwriting way by using a series of strokes that mimicked handwriting. The problem was that it wasn’t really proper handwriting and needed to be very very precise for it to work. In reality it meant more backspacing to correct the incorrect text that it meant productivity was more or less impossible. For short notes it was great but for longer notes it was very difficult to use and forget about documents in Word or Excel. Microsoft tried handwriting recognition but they failed worse than everyone else so they had an onscreen keyboard. This kind of made sense but Windows Mobile is very imprecise so it was literally hit and miss as to what keys you’d be pressing. Productivity was reduced even more due to incorrect key presses.

In essence tablet computing was held back from progressing because the interface sucked badly. Then in 2007 the second step to Apple’s tablet development happened... OS X. OS X is of course the operating system that drives the iPhone and the iPod Touch. It uses a technology Apple calls Multi-Touch whereby instead of having a pen you manipulated a touch screen with your fingers. This technology is old in fact I remember using systems like this back in 1996-98 when I was doing computer retail. The problems with those systems were many. First they were stupidly expensive with screen overlays (these fitted over a standard monitor) cost three times the monitor making it almost as expensive as a new computer. They were also very very hit and miss as to working. Their biggest problem though were they were mostly designed for Windows and that meant they were notoriously difficult to setup let alone use. There are some touchscreens that work on Linux such as the Lotto terminals around the country all run Linux and work pretty well but then they are really only designed for a single purpose not proper computing. So when Apple bought out the iPhone it proved that touchscreen computing had come to the point where it was cheap, reliable, and not dependant on Windows which has largely been holding back computing for the last 10 years.

So now Apple has all the pieces to produce a tablet that works. The first was the MacBook Air which was really an experiment in whether or not you can maintain decent specs with a minimal footprint. The second step was developing an OS that was powerful enough to be useable for many tasks a tablet makes sense for while at the same time being simple enough to use that doesn’t require a mouse and keyboard for making it truly portable.

But what will it look like? Well, it makes sense that the unit would be kind of a larger iPhone/iPod Touch running flash memory instead of hard drives (solid state is still far too expensive). It will probably use a more powerful version of the ARM processor that Apple has long had a long history with (they co-developed it with Acorn) and their acquisition of P.A. Semi means they have access to some great video and audio products that would make the Apple tablet a great media playback system but I’ll look at its use in my next post. It will make sense that it would have a Dock Connector because it won’t be designed to act as a standalone computer if it’s running OS X instead of Mac OS X. I surmise however that it will also have a DisplayPort allowing it to be connected to a monitor or more likely a projector given its nature. This will make the device slightly thicker than the iPhone but should in theory make in thinner than the MacBook Air still.

All in all this could be very exciting for people who don’t want a laptop but need something portable but with a larger screen than what the iPhone and iPod Touch have. Even for those with laptops it’s not always desirable to carry around so a tablet makes sense. Apple won’t be introducing a pen based computer but it will be introducing a tablet done well.

One of the most powerful features of Mac OS X is not a Mac OS X specific feature but one that has been around for almost as long as *NIX operating systems but is one of the most under-utilised features of Mac OS X. It's power makes for some interesting ways of forcing software to conform to your way of storing files. This magical feature is called Aliases.

In layman's terms an alias is a shortcut but it does more than just create an icon to a file or application. The best way to describe an alias is to think of a railway junction. When a train is coming to said junction it will default to a single path, however throw a switch and the train is diverted to another path. That's the function of an alias. The beauty of an alias is that if an application such as iWeb, iPhoto, Bento, etc requires a dedicated path for a file you can create an alias in that directory to point to a file in a separate directory or even external drive or network path. This way you can keep files stored in a central location and have a number of machines connecting to the same file.

The caveat is that if you try to run the applications that require that file on multiple machines at the same time you run the risk of corrupting that file. Thankfully though many applications can lock a file so that it can't be edited by more than one person at a time.

So, a Mac miracle happened recently. Not that any of you would have noticed, as it was a family miracle and not one broadcast across the net. My eldest brother after years of using a PC, decided to buy not one Mac, but two. To me, after years of using Macs and going on about how great they are...it was pleasing to know that he...well, never listened to a word I said.

This is because I should point out that his email contained two gems of info. One, that friends had been convincing him to buy a Mac. And two, he was really worried because he had all these M$ Office docs and what the heck was he going to do with those!?

At that point, I introduced my head briefly to the same wall I had been banging against for years, then realised...as I often have, that you simply can't win. I didn't feel like I had failed in preaching to convertees (those that I try to convert), because they simply don't know they need to be converted.

Well it's that time of year again when the Mac world contemplates what Apple has in store for developers. As always there's those that don't get the concept of a Developer's Conference and naturally assume that Apple is going to release updated Macs and iPhones.

The gimme is that Apple is going to fully release the SDK for iPhone as well as v2.0 of OS X which is not to be confused with Mac OS X which is the version of OS X for the Mac not the iPhone/iPod Touch. Confused yet? It's a gimme because that's what Apple said was going to happen so you don't need a degree in rocket science to figure that one... just a pair of working ears.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the SDK is going to bring in terms of native apps for the iPhone but contrary to popular belief viruses and malware are not it. If we haven't seen a rash of viruses and malware since the release of XCode what seriously is leading people to think that this is going to be the case with the iPhone SDK?

Daniel over on Roughly Drafted posted his list of possible annoucements for MacWorld but the one that caught my eye the most was his idea of an XServe Mini:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/29/ten-big-predictions-for-apple-in-2008/

To quote him:

I've got one word for it, FUD. Oh wait that's three words, Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Bill Gates got really good at using FUD and I fear that Steve (formerly Steve of the Reality Distortion Field) is giving it a spin as well!

It's been a month since the bombshell and the dust has settled but has the FUD? Not for me it hasn't.

What were the two major announcements at this years 2005 Worldwide Developers Conference again? Oh yeah...The next version of the Mac OS will be called "Leopard" and Apple will be using intel chips in the entire Macintosh range by 2007.

One of the things I love about Macs is their longevity. It's not at all rare to see a 10 year old Mac (or older) still being used. With Apple's continued move towards industry standards, I suspect this trend will continue, as hardware and peripheral options remain available.

Starting with the PCI based Macs (the likes of the 7200, 8500 & 9600 PowerMacs) Apple opened the door to such popular options as USB and FireWire upgrades. Neither of these were found on Macs of the day nor were they in common use when these computers were manufactured, but now they can be retro fitted extending these computer's usefulness (matched with the appropriate operating system).

Once the G3 series was released, Apple made their next major move towards industry compatibility -- IDE based drives (both optical and magnetic). Now it is possible to put the largest and fastest optical and hard drives on the market into an older Mac and it can either be connected directly to the motherboard (G3 series and newer) or to an IDE daughter card in a PCI expansion slot, in older Macs.

While it is true that newer Macintosh operating systems don't support the older machines, it has to be pointed out that those older Macs don't stop working because a newer operating system is released. Often, they work very well indeed with Mac OS 8, 9 or X 10.2, so why worry?

It is with this in mind that I have focused on owning pre-loved Macs in recent years. Between my wife and I we have an Indigo iMac, Tangerine iBook, G3 Series PowerBook and a Blue & White PowerMac in regular use. All of them were second-hand, and all of them still run fine (although the screen on the G3 Series PowerBook has developed an occasional hinge related issue, but it still works well with an external monitor).

All of these computers are pre-OS X in manufacture, yet all of them are running OS X now, either 10.2 or 10.3. In fact, the newest machine is seven years old! That's getting pretty geriatric in computing years, yet it does a fantastic job! This is my workhorse Blue & White PowerMac.

When it first shipped it had a paltry 64Mb RAM, 6Gb hard drive, 100Mb internal Zip Drive, 32x CD-ROM, 16Mb ATi Rage Pro video card, two FireWire and two USB 1.1 ports and a 350Mhz G3 CPU. Today it sports a substantial 704Mb of RAM, a 40Gb hard drive plus a large 120Gb hard drive, the same Zip Drive, a genuine CD/DVD burning Superdrive, 32Mb ATi Radeon 7000 video card plus two 16Mb ATi Rage Pro video cards, two more FireWire and three additional USB 2 ports, an internal 56K modem and a 400MHz G4 CPU.

This gives me a total of five on board USB ports, four FireWire ports, three monitors, ADB, two 7200 RPM hard drives, a 56k Modem, 10/100baseT Ethernet and supercomputer CPU performance.

Is there anything that this old Mac can't do? Well, not that I can find. Sure the latest games are not going to run well -- I'd need to find more recent CPU and video card upgrades, but for everything else, this Mac does the trick.

The icing on the cake is the G4 CPU and the SuperDrive combination. This allows iLife '05 to function completely. So along with the usual email, Internet and word processing tasks, my old Blue & White can produce amazing audiovisual work. Given the price of any Mac with a SuperDrive installed as standard (new or second--hand), the upgraded Blue & White represents fantastic value. The only catch with this model is that it came in two revisions, and the first one (Rev 1) had a bug in the IDE controller that makes upgrading the hard drive a no go.

The Blue & White has one or two tricks absent on newer Mac as well. It still carries an ADB port -- so you can plug in an old Apple keyboard. For serious typing, the new Apple USB keyboards are not nearly as popular, and the Blue & White gives you the choice. Unlike brand new Macs, it can boot into Classic (Mac OS 8.6 -- 9.2) and hold as many as four internal hard drives. It also has motherboard switches controlling the CPU and bus speed, so it is easier to upgrade the CPU than on almost any newer Mac.

So what do I do regularly with this revitalised Mac? Word processing, email, Internet surfing, website writing with a good text editor , image manipulation with Photoshop 7, managing my music in iTunes (1500+ tracks), managing my digital photos in iPhoto (1800+ images), producing video (usually from still photos) in iMovie and making DVDs to present my work. My two indulgences are Age Of Empires, which runs in Classic, and X--Plane, a sophisticated flight simulator, which runs in either Classic or OS X.

Hopefully the Blue & White will live on as my primary computer for a few more years yet. The only thing that has impressed as much as this Mac was my previous machine, a Beige G3 PowerMac. Almost all of the component upgrades I've installed in the Blue & White were originally installed in the Beige (excluding the internal modem and SuperDrive -- it had a high speed CD burner instead)! I only upgraded to the B&W for some additional software and hardware compatibility.

Are Apple Macs more expensive to buy than Wintel machines? Sometimes they are. Are Apple Macs more expensive to own in the long run than Wintel machines? Not often. The range of upgrade and expansion options for them is only increasing, allowing upgradeable Macs to last a long time and be a particularly good investment.