By E. Brown
Former Apple employee, Andreas Haas, thinks he has a niche market. He’s taken the MacBook and modified it into a tablet PC. Is the market ready?
Haas founded Axiotron in January 2005. The official ship date for the Modbook was Decemnber 2007. How many units have the they sold? I could not find the answer to that. How does Axiotron intend to stay in business? From their own Web site comes this insight:
Axiotron determines a potential project or market to be a viable case of Solution Hardware if all of the following characteristics are met
- Off-the-shelf hardware is insufficient.
- Market size warrants full product cycle.
- Profitability can be achieved early in product life cycle.
Could I also use the Modbook as a digital notebook? Yes! Take a look at how to use Inkbook as a way to write notes and then transcribe or export them as you’d like.
But, the question stills remains, “is the market ready?” Just because you build it does not guarantee they will come. The buzz may be out but unless the dollars are coming in, Modbook may go the way of the Apple Newton.
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WeirdGuy Creative 
Macrumors has an article about the possibility of Apple actually coming out with one in the fall.
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/05/23/tablet-mac-coming-in-fall-2008/
But what Apple does is for anyone to guess – the modbook, as you pointed out is here and now.
I have to say, I totally agree with you, I would love a tablet Mac.
At this time I would wait for Apple to do it…which may be when the cows come home, but who knows.
My question would be if Apple were to make a tablet, would it come with a pen?
Or would STeve have us pinching and swirling doodlies with our fingers. :)
Im not against finger painting, but alas, that is getting to why I would want the tablet…(seems obvious to you and me, but to others its not that obvious it seems)…and that is to draw with.
a.k.a. wacom. :)
Seeing that there is not a pen for the iphone, who knows…why does this matter?
Well I personally could see using the iphone or the ipod touch to doodle on as well.
If Apple wont do this, will there be a 3rd party who makes a pen?
It seems this has been asked before and the answer was that it was tried but somehow it will only respond to human touch.
Anyway, you bring up a topic that I know many artist are interested in.
And for some, the mod book may be the thing.
For me, the down side is the modbook is not, from what I understand, a pro model…this is a bit unfortunate. Machines get out of date quite quickly and the one I have now wont run quite a few basic apps because of processor speed alone. (And its a pro laptop…albeit from the powerbook days.) :)
Peace
dAlen