My wishlist for a tablet Mac

[Ceroc Addict]

• 7 to 10 inch touch screen
• 4+ GB of flash memory - instant on, but contents of memory not lost when powered off
• Battery life of at least 5 hours
• One FW port
• One USB2.0 port
• Audio in/out
• Video out
• 802.11g
• A thumb board accessory (attaches via USB)
• Don't care what processor runs it, as long as it's capable of supporting Tiger and video at an acceptable speed (and power consumption)
• Cheap enough that I justify getting two (or more) of them

[fryke]

A thumbboard on a 7-10 inch screen makes not much sense to me. Unless you mean with a cable. But then you'd have to put the table somewhere stable. Which means you could use a real USB keyboard. Hm.

[Ceroc Addict]

Originally Posted by fryke

A thumbboard on a 7-10 inch screen makes not much sense to me. Unless you mean with a cable. But then you'd have to put the table somewhere stable. Which means you could use a real USB keyboard. Hm.

I'd prefer the thumbboard actually built into the sides of the tablet, but the rumors currently around seem to be putting the kibosh on that already (i.e. I'm partly conforming my hopes to the most probable reality, so as not to be too crushed - I'd also prefer more than 4GB of storage).

However, a thumb board (joined via cable) would be more useful for me than a keyboard

• When using the tablet while lying in bed (the tablet would be held in some kind of mounting system)
• While using the tablet in my lap on the train (impossible to manage both a keyboard and a tablet on my lap at once )

but of course, one of the many USB keyboards/mouses could just be attached to the tablet anyway.

Kap

P.S. A spotlight into the more insane parts of my mind - there could be a "personal mounting system" developed (like a backpack, with overhead suspension bar) to hold the tablet (while walking, sitting in the park, etc.) for which a cable thumb board would be more useful than a keyboard.

[fjdouse]

NO to flash memory or internal batteries.

Flash memory is degradable, I've had NAND flash die on me more than once, Flash memory is ok if it's in the form of an external card which can be replaced. Same with batteries, manufacturers rip off customers by not allowing them to be replaced either.

Personally, I'm just waiting for a PROPER palmtop, from someone, ANYONE!! With normal batteries, replaceable memory, colour screen and a proper keyboard like they used to make....

[Quicksilver]

A5 sized PMD (Personal Media Device) Music, Movies, Internet, iChat, Email and possibly Games. i already pre-ordered a PSP for gaming though.

Thumboard and click button with a software based keyboard or (optionally the ability to connect a small keyboard).

The software based keyboard would act like the dock and flip up as a transparant tool kind of how the volume shows when adjusting. The dock would be located on one of the sides of the screen when used in Cinema/horizontal mode and located on the bottom when used as Vertical/Notes mode (with a stylis).

iWish.

[fryke]

fjdouse: The Nokia 9500/9300 communicators come close. Their keyboards are probably a tad too small, but they're still quite good - and with Tiger and a relatively simple hack, you can iSync the device with your Mac. The UI's a bit slow, but that's a small price to pay for the good battery life the devices have.