Ok, so I am going to throw my hat into the ring here with Apple Tablet predictions, what I have seen and heard so far range from the boring to the ludicrous. I have also heard a few things from the mother ship which seemed to make sense, at how I perceive reality.

So here goes:

• 10″ tablet-like device, much like an oversized iPod touch, smaller would not make sense, bigger would be too big.
• WiFi is a no-brainer, 3G for data connectivity, and bluetooth for audio connectivity as well as keyboard and mouse. This last part is key is any amount of data entry needs to be done on the device (such as email, IM, etc…)
• There will be a front-facing camera on the device.
• The operating system will be iPhone-like but with new interface elements to fit the larger screen size. Some have speculated that there will be a new major iPhone OS version released at the same time but this is doubtful, typically these have come with new iPhones to support new hardware features and to serve as an incentive to upgrade.
• Getting a 3G plan will be optional, and I would imagine that this would impact the price of the device (which would be cheaper with a 3G contract). I would expect to see both GSM and CDMA in the device.
• New version of iTunes for content management much like podcasts in iTunes, iTunes extras is probably a good preview of things to come. Expect to see both pay-for and free content for the device.
• This will be a content access/viewing device so expect to see new applications for this as well as new UI elements to support this. I have seen rumors of a steep learning curve, but this makes no sense, not the Apple way.
• It will be released in March and the price will be around $800.
• Apple will position this as a new kind of device so as not to eat into iPhone/iPod sales or MacBook sales.

Of course I will do a post-mortem when the device actually comes out.

There are three bugs in the current release of iTunes, they are so glaring I wonder how they got through QA. Maybe Apple has been working hard on the next release so has thrown a junior at the current release.

So here are the three bugs I am running into:

1. It no longer automatically synchronizes with my AppleTV when new video podcasts are downloaded, or movies or TV shows for that matter, I always seem to have to sync manually.
2. I have podcasts set up so that audio podcasts are placed on my iPod and video podcasts are placed on my AppleTV. iTunes provides a powerful set of controls which allow me to set that up, and it worked for a while, and then something happened. For some reason the podcasts now get automatically deselected from sync after I remove the last episode in it, and I have to manually re-enable sync when new episodes arrive.
3. Finally syncing my iPod manually almost always results in either it crashing or iTunes locking up.

I have done a complete reinstall of iTunes, having deleted all preference files, etc… but to no avail.

Apple, what gives??

I downloaded a copy of the Bing app for the iPhone this morning and it looks pretty good, better than Google’s app which mostly just redirects to Safari.

I got a new Apple Magic Mouse on November 5th, and had to change the batteries in it today, after only 22 days of use.

So I got the new Apple Magic Mouse and I am finding it to be very nice. I also liked the previous Mighty Mouse a lot too, but I think I must have been one of the very few. I have small hands, have RSI and some arthritis, and for some reason the smaller mouse worked best for me.

The Magic Mouse works pretty well for me, though one could feel that the software is half finished and that the multi-touch surface could do a lot more than it actually does.

For some reason I could only use the wired version of the Mighty Mouse, I experienced a lot of lag and ‘float’ with the bluetooth version for some reason. The Magic Mouse has really tight tracking and no ‘float’ which is very nice. It has been a while since I used a wireless mouse that works this well in this respect.

Finally there is the small matter of power consumption, I bought mine on November 5th, it is now the 12th and the batteries are down to 70% already. That is 30% over a period of 7 days, which suggests that they will be dead in a month. These are the included batteries so presumably they were new.

I will post a follow-up on December 5th with more information as to battery consumption.

Apparently Apple is shopping a $30 month subscription plan to the media networks for content (1, 2).

I think this is a good idea.

Most of the content on the iTunes Movie store is buy-only which is not an attractive proposition since I suspect that most of it will only get watched once (or twice, maybe). The high cost of buying programs is what puts me off buying anything on the store. For example if I want to catch up on the Family Guy on the iTunes Movie store, I would need to buy all the seasons which would cost me between $10 and $30 a season, a show-stopper for me. For that kind of money I am better off going to Netflix but then I have to wait for 2 days. I know you can rent movies and I do once in a while but the selection is pretty thin.

So if I was able to have access to the content on the iTunes Movie store for $30/month and pay per movie rented, that would be an attractive proposition for me.

Attractive in the way cable wasn’t because I would get 70 channels for a basic cable subscription (67 of which I did not watch), and I would need to get premium subscriptions for better quality content, which is why I killed off my cable 4 years ago.

The interesting thing about this plan though is that it moves close to the a-la-carte programming that cable companies fought tooth and nail against time and time again.

Interesting, PC Tools now has anti-virus software for Macs.

I tried it out and the scan came up negative, and I uninstalled the software.

I have not run anti-virus software since the days of Mac OS 9 and may even have dropped it since Mac OS 8.

Still you have to assume that Mac OS X will become a target once the ecosystem is large enough.

Apple just announced a new raft of products today. I’ll spare you the me-too and just direct you to the Apple site for details.

Of interest to me is the new mouse which looks very nice, I currently use the wired Mighty Mouse from Apple because it fits my hand nicely and I don’t like the tracking (floating) of the Bluetooth variant. But I will certainly try this new one and see how it goes.

The new remotes are very cute, I will have to try one of those too.

And there is the inevitable. My Airport Express died two weeks ago, on sunday morning at 6:45am. It was out of warranty, so I went and bought myself a new one. And it just figures that Apple would update it two weeks later (today.)

Can’t think how I missed it, but the MacResearch weblog tracks the use of Macs in research.

Particularly interesting to me is the tutorial on OpenCL (currently there are six parts, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

Some interesting user interface ideas for the iPhone as more and more apps are put onto it. An Exposé Concept video (on MobileCrunch) from a Swedish design house, and a redesign from Bruce Tognazzini.

Both worth looking at.

I don’t have too many apps, but I have grouped them into logical groups and have 5 screens to navigate, going to the home screen is easy, going to the far end is more complicated. All least iTunes allows me to move screens around so that I can put the most useful stuff closer to the home screen.