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50<br />
DECEMBER <strong>2009</strong> | UNITED.COM<br />
IT’S BEEN TWO and a half years since<br />
Apple released the iPhone. That might<br />
not seem like a long time, but for true<br />
Mac heads, it’s an eternity. Steve Jobs had<br />
scarcely returned to work after dealing<br />
with health issues early this year when<br />
the anticipation went viral: Welcome back,<br />
dude. Now where’s the next game-changer?<br />
Since then, the buzz has built to a<br />
fever pitch. Supposedly, Apple is set to<br />
release its newest gizmo this spring: a<br />
tech<br />
Dream Machine<br />
Apple’s new gadget is still under wraps, but some might<br />
say a tablet hasn’t generated this much excitement since<br />
Moses. BY ALYSSA GIACOBBE // ILLUSTRATION BY BRYAN CHRISTIE<br />
TECH WATCH<br />
More news from the<br />
cutting edge<br />
Among the iPhone’s<br />
limitations: lack of<br />
word processing and<br />
spreadsheet programs.<br />
Quickoffi ce rectifi es<br />
that for $10, allowing<br />
you to work on both<br />
Word and Excel<br />
documents. Available at<br />
iTunes app store.<br />
$700 tablet-like handheld device that<br />
will allow users to surf the web, watch<br />
video and play games from just about<br />
anywhere. Of course, that’s just an<br />
educated guess.<br />
Tech bloggers began geeking out over<br />
this rumored doohickey months ago.<br />
Apple’s tablet “could be a Kindle killer,”<br />
enthused PC World. Tech site Gizmodo<br />
enlisted a chocolatier to create an edible<br />
version of the fantasy device. And in<br />
QUICKOFFICE CRAIGSLY THIS IS PHOTOBOMB<br />
A blessing for those<br />
hankering for a 1975<br />
Schwinn but lacking<br />
the patience to monitor<br />
Craigslist, Craigsly<br />
sends email alerts each<br />
time your object of<br />
desire is listed. It won’t,<br />
however, help you<br />
haggle. craigsly.com<br />
To “photobomb” is<br />
to make a surprise<br />
appearance in a<br />
photograph without<br />
the knowledge of the<br />
subject, typically to<br />
riotous result.<br />
Giggle at entries, post<br />
your own.<br />
thisisphotobomb.com<br />
September, Wired.com mused that the<br />
gadget might save the print industry,<br />
though the author allowed that the<br />
whole thing might just be “a mediafabricated<br />
illusion.”<br />
Anyone who’s fi ddled with an iPhone<br />
can understand the excitement. The<br />
new device, which unlike digital readers<br />
is expected to replicate web layouts, as<br />
well as host video, audio and interactive<br />
features, “could reshape the book<br />
and magazine industries in the same<br />
way that the iPod and iPhone have<br />
radically changed music and phones,”<br />
says Jeremy Horwitz, editor of online<br />
magazine iLounge. “Tablets have failed<br />
so many times before, it’ll be interesting<br />
to see if the form can be made desirable,”<br />
says Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, adding<br />
that “screens sans keyboards” have been<br />
common in science fi ction since Star<br />
Trek. (And hey, Roddenberry was right<br />
about those sliding doors...)<br />
Just how long we’ll have to wait<br />
for the new gadget is hard to predict.<br />
Reports have cited a range of dates,<br />
from last September to mid-2010.<br />
According to insiders, the tablet’s been<br />
in the works since as early as 2003, but<br />
Jobs—who famously killed the Newton<br />
MessagePad back in the ’90s—is said to<br />
have wondered whether a tablet would<br />
actually be useful for much more than<br />
“surfi ng the web in the bathroom.”<br />
Apparently, he’s decided it will.<br />
(FACE)<br />
The buzz around the Apple tablet<br />
hasn’t deterred competitors from<br />
testing out their own models. Images of<br />
a Microsoft double-screened “booklet”<br />
SHUTTERSTOCK<br />
device called Courier surfaced in<br />
September; Silicon Valley vet Michael<br />
Arrington’s industry blog group<br />
(HESTON),<br />
TechCrunch is cooking up something<br />
called the CrunchPad, and Barnes &<br />
Noble released its own e-reader last<br />
month. But others are no doubt waiting COLLECTION<br />
to see what Jobs has cooked up. “Just<br />
like with the iPhone,” says CrunchGear EVERETT<br />
editor John Biggs, “once Apple shows<br />
BY<br />
the way, the rest will follow.”<br />
ALYSSA GIACOBBE uses her boyfriend’s iPhone<br />
to locate Quiznos shops while on road trips. PHOTOGRAPHS
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