back to article Analyst touts iPad 'transformer' after CEO confab

Will the Apple iPad 3 be an 'homage' to the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, complete with clever clip-on keyboard accessory? One financial analysts comments, posted after a meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, suggests it might be. Enter Citigroup researcher Richard Gardner, who late last week said he'd been chewing the fat with …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Now that would be "Magical, Revolutionary even!"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Cue Asus law suit......

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good old Apple

    Wow... Apple are going to invent a tablet that has a decent clip-on keyboard... what a magical and revolutionary idea... why on earth can't other manufacturers think of these things, instead of just copying the iPad?

  3. Richard Crossley
    Pirate

    Message to Asus

    Photograph the original transformer next to today's new paper as proof of Pior Art.

  4. jai

    this is an idea proposed by an analyst? so there's zero change of it ever happening then

  5. Urs Keller

    The next input method will be Siri, not a keyboard

    nt.

    1. spencer

      lol

      lol

    2. Paul_Murphy

      Works in Star Trek..

      ttfn

      1. Darryl

        I'd like to see Siri trying to understand Mr. Scott or Pavel Chekov

  6. TechnicianJack
    Trollface

    So, will this keyboard dock be supplied witht the iPad? Or will it be a £400 optional extra? How long until Apple starts saying that Asus have infringed on their patents!?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    homage?

    So when apple copy a design it's an homage, when anyone else does it their products are automatically banned from sale before the court case begins?

    1. Chris 3

      Hold your horses

      This article is a journalist's supposition based on an analyst's cagey interpretation of a conversation.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing new

    This was apples take around the mid 90's

    http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_duo/specs/mac_powerbook_duodock.html

    I'm pretty sure there were other solutions for other manufacturers

    1. Steve Ives

      the DuoDock...

      I had one of those...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Me too

        Loved it

  9. John P
    FAIL

    I hope that, if Apple do this, Asus sue the shit out of them so they can be on the receiving end of a 'prior art' law suit for once.

    Maybe Samsung could chip in too, make it a team effort!

    Fail - because any attempt to sue Apple will most likely fail while it is still bathed in the heavenly light of Saint Jobs.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Could just do a clip on keyboard for the iPad...

    1. Silverburn

      They used to a Keyboard/dock thingy. Seems to have been junked though.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    <trek> A keyboard - how quaint. </trek>

  12. Gordon 10

    Maybe I should patent an ipad shaped device with contacts on the corner. Then it could be used in landscape or portrait.

  13. David Paul Morgan

    gentlemen...

    ... Your lawyers.

  14. Bomberb

    A USB port might be the answer......

  15. Keep Refrigerated
    Trollface

    Can we have a spinning grave icon, please?

    For Shirley, Jobs must be, in his.

    And presumably the keyboard is going to have sharp, right angled corners, since y'know, Asus beat them to the attachable keyboard with rounded corners.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No need for sharp corners

      They'll just sue Asus and have their imports banned. I'm sure most US courts would be willing to take Apple's side against those evil foreigners. Actually, a lot of Euro and Aussie courts too for that matter.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You've all got the wrong end of the stick.

    In future the physical keyboard on laptops will be replaced with a flatscreen virtual keyboard, on which the size, shape and label of the virtual keys will change, depending on language selection, modifier key presses, or which application you are using. This will get rid of the need to manufacture overly complex and overly breakable keyboards in a range of different layouts.

    Apple [and other manufacturers] just need to sort out the haptic feedback, so typing on this kind of keyboard feels as natural as on one with actual moveable keys. Then the physical keyboard can be consigned to the dustbin of history [and not before time!]

    The future isn't a tablet with a clip-on keyboard to make it resemble a laptop; it's a laptop with a tablet for a keyboard.

    [Hey! —This "finger in the wind" unfounded speculation lark is really easy!]

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