Does the Apple tablet exist...

The talk surrounding the Apple tablet seem to have morphed from pure speculation and rumour, to a seemingly known position. It's now reached the point where people are no longer speculating if Apple will ever release a tablet (or media pad as some pundits have deemed to call it) to when Apple will release this fabled device.

So does the device actually exist in a form that is anywhere close to shipping?

The rumours have been supported by all sorts of "evidence" such as reported orders for 10" touchscreen displays to "an industry veteran" actually being allowed to see and handle the device (which I don't believe by the way). It's even been reported by The Financial Times that the device will make an appearance as early as next month.

It's reached the stage now where whenever Apple makes an announcement for a special event or product launch, people are automatically going to assume it's the tablet launch.

But I do think we will see an Apple tablet (or similar device) within the next six months.

Why?

Because Apple have not denied it either formally or via their many Industry contacts. They've said nothing. Nada!

Not unusual you might think as Apple are always secretive about their product, I mean, look how they sprung the iPhone on us! (although some of us were pretty much on the money 4 months before the iPhone was launched, give or take one or two features - How come we still can't wirelessly sync our iPhones?)

But if the tablet rumours were unfounded, Apple would need to set the record straight to prevent the damaging effect of continually disappointing us, especially if successive events came and went without the tablet being announced. The principle damaging effect would be the impact on the Apple share price, never mind suffering the wrath of the Apple faithful.

So by not saying anything, Apple are in effect confirming that something along the lines of the tablet is in the works. They wouldn't necessarily have to come out publicly and deny the existence of such a device, but I'm sure they could get the message out via their contacts or at least seed information to reset expectations.

So what form will the new tablet be and what functionality will it deliver?

Who knows?

I just hope they can pull off another technological tour de force to equal the iPhone, and surprise us with features we didn't even know we wanted.

Here's hoping!

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Us and Them...

The recent (current?) debacle over Apples handling of the App store seems to be waning slightly, especially following Phil Schillers response to the issues surrounding the handling of the NinjaWords application - (see Daring Fireball for the back story, I couldn't get on to the site to post a link when I wrote this post)

When it was in full force however, every man and his dog had a real downer on Apple (myself included, although limited only to a single tweet), and it did make me wonder just how much damage was being done to their reputation. It seemed every other tweet and every blog post was beating up on Apple, big time.

The problem has been that Apple have been a victim of its own success with the App store. My impressions are that it has grown too big, too fast and Apple are in constant state of catch up to put the right people and processes (and technology) in place to deal with the rapid expansion of the service. They'll get there in the end but in the meantime, they really have to manage the potential issues from day to day, and introduce some elements of damage limitation, as shown by Phil Schillers memo to Gruber.

But in reality, I don't think the impact on Apples reputation has been or will be significant in the medium to long term, at least in the mainstream.

You see, the only people to really get upset about these things are the developers and the hard core Apple fans. Your average Apple fan probably doesn't follow every twist and turn of developments in the App store, and as for the man in the street (rapidly becoming Apples new customer base), well, it's completely off their radar.

We have to realise that Apple already has a huge customer base, most of whom are not that concerned about the back story, they just want the App store to exist and deliver them new applications. So if the occasional App stumbles or is rejected, they probably don't even get to hear about it and Apple remain the purveyor of smart, shiny goods with reputation pretty much intact.

As for the current hard core fans, yes, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth and makes us incredulous on how the same organisation that can develop such an amazing device as the iPhone (and keep it totally secret for three years), can screw up handling the App store so badly and so publicly.

I bet there are a few people in Cupertino who are wishing they could throw the switch on the next latest and greatest developments, just to take our mind off recent events.

Which leads me to the Apple tablet..... (to be continued)

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Time for a re-evaluation...

Well just back from my first trip to my local leisure club following the MacMania09 Asia trip. It's been three weeks since I got back, and it's taken me that long to feel well enough to subject myself to some swimming and a nice hot sauna.

So I suppose, I'm back into the old routine.

However, I think I need to make some re-adjustments.

Since starting ScreenCastsOnline, I've been balancing the weekly shows with some external production work, mainly custom screencasts for clients. This was an absolute godsend in the early days, as it went a long way to keep our head above water, whilst I built up the ScreenCastsOnline audience. It's taken the best part of four years to build up ScreenCastsOnline to the level that it is now and the need for the external jobs to help pay the mortgage is not as necessary as it was in the early days.

ScreenCastsOnline is still mainly a one man show, I do all the technical and creative stuff, although my wife is getting more involved in the admin side of things. However, the one resource that is in limited supply, being such a small operation, is time.

The weekly show probably takes up the best part of a half to a third of the week, admin and maintenance related activities, another day or two and that's most of the week gone.

The problem is, as any self employed person will tell you, it's so hard to say no to work.

An even bigger problem is the time it takes to do the commissioned stuff. You would not believe how much work and effort that can go into a scripted three minute screencast for a client. I've done loads of them and I still don't believe it!

The result of this is that I feel that ScreenCastsOnline takes a back seat some weeks and that just doesn't sit well with me. It also means I have no spare time for my pet projects or just free time to kick back and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

So come September, I've decided to pretty much say no to all* requests for custom screencasts and concentrate more on ScreenCastsOnline.

*All? Look, I'm not completely crazy. If someone needs a screencast and is prepared to pay a premium for it, I'd be daft to say no. Also, if a prestigious project turns up that will increase the visibility of ScreenCastsOnline then again, I'm not going to turn them away. I'm just saying, I'm going to be highly selective in what I take on.

So if that goes to plan, I'd like to take some time to build on the current success of ScreenCastsOnline and make it an even better resource for members and non-members alike.

I'd like time to focus on such issues as:

• Making the huge amount of content on the ScreenCastsOnline archive more accessible
• Making search easier
• Revamping the ScreenCastsOnline website
• Enhancing the Membership experience
• Promoting and marketing ScreenCastsOnline more effectively
• Streamlining and automating the production process
  
• Ramping up show production to produce more shows in advance
  
• Giving myself some time to work on some other ideas I have
  

Of course, the other option would be to expand ScreenCastsOnline with some extra people but realistically, I don't really want to go down that route. I really just want ScreenCastsOnline to remain small but perfectly formed!

We'll see how it goes come September.

PS I'm going to try and restart my regular blogging activities too, perhaps not everyday but a lot more frequent.

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The Perils of Re-Tweeting!

Ahem!

I re-tweeted a tweet yesterday, all to do with Microsoft plans of opening retail stores which for all intents and purposes, resemble Apple stores. No big deal as I re-tweet a lot of tweets if I find them interesting. I always give attribution, and wherever possible, I try not to edit the tweet, unless I need to reduce it to less than 140 characters.

All well and good.

Except, the tweet yesterday included a fairly common expletive.

I pondered about editing it out, but in the end, I re-tweeted in it's entirety. In hindsight, perhaps I should have masked the expletive.

I've had no negative feedback at all via Twitter, and never thought anymore about it. Until that is, a few hours ago when a relative of mine expressed surprise at the language I'd used in the tweet, which he thought was very untypical of me (perhaps he hasn't been around me when I'm trying my best at DIY).

The bottom line was that he'd mistakenly thought the tweet (and the language) was mine and was unfamiliar with the concept of the re-tweet. In case you're unsure, if you see a tweet that starts:

RT @username:

This means that I'm reposting or re-tweeting (RT) a tweet from @username to share amongst my followers (who may not follow the original poster)

I wonder how many more people also think I've started to develop a potty mouth?

I haven't, honest!

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Back Home

Arrived back in the UK safely yesterday and now in catch up mode. This was the first trip where I really couldn't keep on top of emails and membership enquiries although I enlisted the services of my son to help out with setting up new members!

As a consequence, I'm working my way through the backlog of emails and responding to the oldest ones first, so it may take me a day or two to get up to date.

I can't tell you how nice it is to get back to quick and "always on" broadband.

The trip itself was amazing and I tried as best I could to keep the updates coming via iWeb, Tumblr and AudioBoo. As promised, I'll do a show this week all about iWeb and the tools I used when away.

I'll also be posting more photos and videos now that I'm back home and have no bandwidth constraints. I blew through the 50MB before the end of the first week and it now looks like the iPhone usage meter may not match with the actual usage figures if Leos experiences are anything to go by. At £6 per megabyte, I may have a nasty bill waiting for me :-(

Be sure to checkout the content generated by Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko and Derrick Story to see how the pros do it! You can also checkout the MacMania09 Flickr group to be inundated with photos. This will be updated over the next few weeks.

I've posted a couple of short movies over on my MobileMe Gallery page and YouTube,

The Great Wall of China

Rafting in Guilin

both created with the iPhone. The difference in aspect ratios is due to the different project settings I used in iMovie. Hope you like them!

One thing that was a complete eye opener to me when traveling was just how good a content generator the iPhone has become now that it has a decent camera, the video is just outstanding. The fact that you always have your iPhone with you makes it a complete game changer.

More blog posts to follow once I've caught up with email and the show!

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