The Apple Tablet

If you know me at all you know that I am an Apple fan. I have a 24” iMac at home (I have a new 27” iMac at work), a 13” MacBook and an iPhone 3G (I’m waiting for the next gen version hopefully to come out this Summer before I upgrade). Before being a “Mac” I was a “PC” running Linux. I loved its power, stability and flexibility. Now I believe the Mac has all that and the prettiest, best designed interface ever and that’s important to me also. Plus the hardware is just incredibly designed. So, now I’m a Mac through and through. (By the way, I was a PC running Windows back in the darker days of my computing experience from Windows ‘95 through XP.)

So, with that introduction out of the way, on to my thoughts on the proposed Apple tablet that will supposedly (hopefully) be released at the end of this month (January 2010) and the main reason I’m writing this blog post. I’m going to stick my neck out just a little by saying I think the tablet has huge potential and will be a big success. Beyond that though is why I think it’ll be successful.

I’m also a big fan of John Gruber of Daring Fireball and you only need read his post about “The Tablet” to know my thoughts on it. I think John is spot on with his analysis.

Additionally, I don’t think (as some have surmised) that it will be called iSlate or iTablet. I also don’t think the $1000 price is true. (If it does in fact cost $1000, I believe it will in some way be better and more than anyone has predicted in ways we can’t imagine right now.) I’m guessing that the price tag will be in the more reasonable $500-600 range.

I think Grubers best points are the following: “I say they’re swinging big — redefining the experience of personal computing.” this “The Tablet will do less than we expect but the things it does do, it will do insanely well. It will offer a fraction of the functionality of a MacBook — but that fraction will be way more fun. The same myopic feature-checklist-obsessed critics who dismissed the iPhone will focus on all that The Tablet doesn’t do and declare that this time, Apple really has fucked up but good. The rest of us will get in line to buy one.” and lastly “The Tablet, I say, is going to be Apple’s new answer to what you use for personal portable general computing.”

To sum up this post and put the finest point on it I can, I’ll say this: what Gruber says above about those who dismissed the iPhone rings so very true to me. I think the iPhone is the best portable device ever created. Ever. But that’s me. There are millions and millions of people that have yet to buy an iPhone. I understand why and I’m okay with that. My Mom has always said “that’s what sells soap”. I just see a lot of potential in the tablet platform and I think the real wealth of the platform is what we can’t imagine yet. What new paradigms will it bring about in mobile computing? Maybe none. But just maybe…