Meet the Maker of Apple's Other Tablet

(page 2 of 2)

German reporters covering Apple nicknamed him Totengräber, or "gravedigger." "They'd see me named as manager for this or that product, and then they'd tilt their heads and ask me, 'How long?' "

He left Apple in 2001 and co-founded a software startup called Our World Live that sought to create products for the media and entertainment industry. It ran out of funding in 2004.

When tablet PCs running Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows made their debut, Haas bought one. On it he installed Adobe (ADBE) Photoshop and Illustrator, hoping for a machine that would be something of a digital canvas. It didn't work out. "It sucked," he says. "I dug a little deeper and realized there was little chance that Microsoft would ever create a tablet that's useful for creative professionals."

So he decided to make one himself. He founded Axiotron in 2005. The idea was simple: Why not modify an existing MacBook and change it into a tablet? Axiotron sells a conversion kit that independent Mac dealers such as Other World Computing in Woodstock, Ill., or Tekserve in New York can use to refashion a MacBook into the digital canvas that Haas imagined. They're sold in nine countries. Supply your own MacBook, and you'll pay about $700. Buy one that's already been converted, and it will cost about $1,650.

Not for the Consumer Market

The Modbook is so specialized and its appeal so narrow there's little chance the consumer-oriented, media-centric tablet due in coming days will represent much of a threat at all. Where the Modbook is intended for creating art, the iSlate (or whatever it's ultimately called) will largely be for the relatively broad activity of consuming it. Haas is hoping that the new device might make tablet computing more popular, and thus sell more Modbooks.

Haas knows nothing specific about the new device that's coming. Two years ago, Axiotron transferred to Apple a trademarked name, "MacTablet." Haas is reluctant to say much about the episode for legal reasons. But he's happy to speculate on the device he thinks is coming from Apple.

"I think it's going to be a device that's like the iPhone and iPod Touch, but I think it's going to have a larger screen," he says. Only recently has Apple taken to describing the iPod Touch as a "pocket computer," he says. "That is a niche I expect Apple to expand on with this new device."

Hesseldahl is a reporter for Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Business Exchange

Track and share business topics across the Web.