Apple’s new tablet is closely related to the iPhone
All the rumors about the Apple tablet computer have some interesting facets that point to the very close familial relationship between the soon-to-be-announced tablet and the lineup veteran iPhone.
Although the world, or at least the technical press, is shouting the virtues of Apple’s latest unannounced product from the rooftops, perhaps we should step back and take a look at the the iTablet’s smaller but older brother, and think about what the family genes could have to say about the tablet. The iPhone is, after all, a maturing product and Apple will be benefitting from the experience of building millions of iPhones when it embarks upon the iTablet journey.
The two products are said to be similar in many ways. Wafer thin, just like the iPhone, the new tablet will cut a sleek and sexy figure. The touchscreen is said to be built from the same material, although the enclosure is said to be made of brushed aluminum, a trait genetically inherited from it’s Mac Book Pro forbears. Almost undoubtedly, a large number of components will be shared between the two devices, and much of the engineering applicable to the iPhone will be shared by the tablet.
The operating system came under some special scrutiny today in an article on Slashgear. They are reporting that the operating system for the iPhone is very much the same as what will be used for the tablet, and that the dearth of major upgrades in iPhone OS 3.x lately is due to Apple not wanting to spill the beans about new sections of code written for the tablet. This would tell us that Apple will be running exactly the same code on the iPhone and the tablet, although it will be running much faster on the tablet given the speedier ARM processor that the new device is said to have.
As a guess, current iPhone users will take to the new device like ducks to water, and we will also be the beneficiaries of all of the R & D that is going into the tablet. We can almost certainly expect some of the tablet functionality to creep back into the iPhone, especially things that are inherent in the operating system, such as a number of nifty new gestures that have been reported. It’s a win all the way around.
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