It's Time For An Apple Tablet: Where's My iPod Touch HD? (AAPL)
Apple's (AAPL) iPod touch is a hit, and PC makers like Dell (DELL) and Asus are doing good business selling cheap, small “netbook” laptops. It's time for Steve Jobs to smash them together into a killer multi-touch tablet.
Context & Ripple Effects
At the end of 2008, Apple's iPod touch is selling well while Dell and Asus profit from cheap, small netbook laptops — two product lines that this analysis argues are one device waiting to be merged. The piece is a direct call for Steve Jobs to build a multi-touch tablet that would neutralize the netbook threat from within.
The call proved prescient in the coverage arc that followed: an Apple patent surfacing a possible tablet design in early 2009, then reports of an Apple tablet arriving in 2010 and a $1.2 billion tablet computer project later that year — the run-up to what became the iPad.
First-order effects
- Apple faces immediate strategic pressure to answer the netbook wave from Dell and Asus with its own large-screen touch device rather than cede the cheap-portable segment.
- If built as an 'iPod Touch HD,' the device would extend the App Store/iOS economics beyond the phone-sized screen, giving developers a new canvas on day one.
Second-order effects
- Netbook makers like Asus and Dell would be forced to reposition — competing against a premium Apple tablet that undercuts the netbook's value proposition rather than just another Windows laptop vendor.
- Component suppliers and carriers would recalibrate around a new mid-size touch category sitting between the smartphone and the laptop.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, tablets become a distinct third computing category, and rivals' tablet attempts get judged almost entirely by app ecosystems — as later coverage asking 'why buy this instead of an iPad?' and HP's TouchPad's app shortfall illustrate.
- Success would cement the model of Apple defining categories and competitors defining themselves reactively against it, shifting industry innovation from spec sheets to software platforms.
The trend: This is an early data point in the shift from spec-driven portable PCs toward touch-first, app-ecosystem-defined computing devices — the category creation that culminated in the iPad era.