Rumors has confirmed that Apple is indeed working on a tablet device to bridge the iPod/iPhone to the entry-level Macs -- and to provide an inexpensive, flexible interface device to manage the many devices that the company is delivering in 2007.
The "iPortal" as it has been called by some -- "iTablet" by others, and simply "T-7" in Apple documents acquired by MOSR's reporters at Macworld San Francisco, is a project that has been in development even longer than the series of new devices revealed over the past six months......AppleTV, iPhone, etc.
In fact, T-7 is the product of no less than three iterations of the project that CEO Steve Jobs personally nixed over the past five years.
First introduced as an answer to devices like hybrid-laptop/tablets, hand-helds like the Palm/Handspring, thin-clients like Panasonic's "ToughBook" and Microsoft's "Origami," the original Apple Tablet project tried too hard to be "all things to all users," according to documents Rumors received in late 2001.
In reports received a few months later in early 2002, Rumors confirmed that Steve Jobs had personally shut down the project in favor of a roadmap for the iPod (and later its iPhone cousin) which would position those devices as increasingly feature-rich, and would eventually see those devices take over the legacy of the Newton -- that is, provide an entry-level hand-held/ultraportable computing category with pricing as low as $99 or less at the entry level and no more than $499 at the high-end.
However, key members of the team which produced the very first Tablet prototypes went back to the drawing board with the blessing of the Executive Suite. And although two more concepts were shot down by Jobs as well as a third which didn't even get past the V.P. level.....the team which produces Apple's most innovative designs wasn't ready to give up on the concept of a device that is long on display space, feature-rich, and light on cost.
All without clashing with Apple's increasingly iPod-focused roadmap. Hardly an easy task; and one that nearly drove the key figures in the project to quit Infinite Loop for good. But, after years of struggling with spec lists, prototypes, and the changing visions of the Executive Suite.....the team managed, at long last, in 2004 to get approval to form a permanent project division in Cupertino and deliver a final prototype at about the same time as the iPhone team in early-mid 2006.
It was a long, stressful, hairline-receding journey to get to that stage....but at last, the final prototype was delivered and signed off on by Jobs late last year.
