So, there are more than just a few rumors about the possible Apple Tablet and why wouldn't there be a lot of buzz around the company that has a knack of delivering products that changes paradigms? I personally don't think there will be one. Now, to be clear, I would very much like there to be one but one question keeps coming up for me. Where will the Apple Tablet fit into the company's product line? A lot of buzz today seems to think that Amazon's changing of the Kindle royalty fees to publishers is some indication of the iminent arrival of the iSlate. I can't seem to connect the dots. How will Apple benefit from developing a tablet that would directly compete with the Kindle? Reading books on the iPhone or iPod touch are just as enjoyable. There is definitely a gap in the market for a tablet device, techies have been after it for years and let's face it, who would be better to develop one than Apple? However, what is the market segment that this fit into?
Schools - Apple's devices have never been cheap, hence I don't see it replacing paper notebooks in the short term.
Business - Executives could walk around with their slick tablets and look ace in the boardroom but other than that, who in the organisation would benefit from a tablet? Assistants? Would the market be big enough? I may be being very short sighted here but are there any others who would benefit?
General Consumers - Why would home users choose a tablet over a laptop or a desktop? I wouldn't, would you? Why? How will a tablet provide a better user experience?
The iPod and iPhone were part of the master plan for creating the AppStore and iTunes which are the real cash cows for Apple. Apple is happy on the desktop and laptop fronts because if they wanted to compete head to head with Microsoft or Dell they could be churning out low cost machines with the same awesome OS X. Although, they have cornered the design, music production, video production and now developer communities with their hardware. Where will the tablet fit and how will it benefit Apple?
Forget the hardware, what is Apple planning in the long run? This is the question that everyone should be asking. I guess on January 27th 2010 we'll all find out.
