First, he said, tablet computers were not a big enough market for Apple to spend its limited resources chasing. And even if the market grew, it would not reach a size to be of interest. The form factor was all wrong. Apple was more interested in defining markets than trying to catch other companies that were busy trying to create a market for questionable products. Still, some of the NIH scientists pressed the issue. Steve's follow-up answer was the most impressive I had heard him give.
First, he said, the wireless bandwidth for huge images, plus the security needed to successfully do what NIH wanted, was just not on the horizon. (Apple staff had been notably fuzzy earlier in the briefing about wireless standards after 802.11b.) Plus, tablets' screen resolution was nowhere near that required for NIH's high-quality medical images. Finally, any product designed to work in the medical field would attract significant liability. The hint was that Apple wasn't interested in anything with that kind of potential liability. That pretty well shut down the issue.
Think about that. Doctors and scientists wanted this thing because they thought it could help them do their job better, which in turn could help save lives. But a significant reason why Apple dared not develop a product was because of litigation issues.
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