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Mike Elgan's picture
Mike Elgan

The World Is My Office

I'll keep predicting Apple's "new Newton" until I'm right!

SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. -- I've predicted in the past that Apple will not only ship a UMPC-size device -- bigger than an iPhone but smaller than a MacBook -- but will dominate the market with it. I've been wrong about this before. But I'm going to keep predicting it until I'm right.

I believe in recycling, and that's why I keep recycling this prediction. In a nutshell, the prediction is this: Apple will introduce a giant iPhone with an iPhone-like multi-touch, physics and gestures (MPG) user interface, and that it will be the first real "Eee PC Killer."  

Now, MacDailyNews reports that a source told them that Apple will finally make my prediction true by shipping such a device in October. Could this be one of the products Steve Jobs referred to during yesterday's earnings call when he said, "we’re busy finishing several more wonderful new products to launch in the coming months."

MacDailyNews' source said: 

Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion's haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at "low" price that will reduce margins.

The source also said the devices will run App Store software. 

Will this rumor turn out to be true? I think there's a small chance that the October part will be true, but that the larger prediction about the device is pretty solid. 

So here's my prediction again. Maybe I'll be right this time. It's true that two wrongs don't make a right. But three wrongs and one right make for a sweet "I told you so!"

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What People Are Saying

Stop Predicting, Start Brokering

Or you could convince Apple to sell their old technology and let Amazon really spice up the Kindle.

Wishful writing isn't the same as facilitating (or in the Amazon model -- brokering)!