Pat's Posts: Apple’s Tablet Will Be A Winner: YEAH RIGHT

The Apple fan boy fuelled rumour mill is once again going into hyper-drive as gadget blogs globally get the digital equivalent of their knickers in a huge twist over the hypothetical Apple Tablet.

Just this morning gizmodo, engadget and a bunch of other fan boy hangouts were running hot amidst rumours that Apple would announce a Tablet device which is essentially a beeded up iPod Touch/iPhone in September. Cut forward a mere 3 hours later and the same “sources” are now saying that the imaginary release date is getting pushed back by at least a year.

Launch date speculation aside, has anyone actually asked the question “do we really need an Apple tablet?”. Superficially the concept is almost guaranteed to give Apple fanboys and gadget blog editors severe wood, not to mention something to excited about, but then these are the same people who spent upwards of a fortnight debating the pros and cons of Steve Jobs getting an organ transplant.

Cut through the hype and things start to look somewhat doubtful for the long term outlook of an Apple tablet. Take its form factor for instance. If the rumnours are to be believed it’ll be too big to pocket and too small to be useful as a computer replacement. About the only real use I can see for an Apple Tablet would be as an ebook reader/video player. I already have a laptop that does perfectly good video playback and competing against Amazon who have already got the ebook market sewn up with the Kindle simply doesnt make sense (besides whats wrong with old fashiopned books?). This said, books and video content coudl theoretically present a pretty compelling growth opportunity Apple as iTunes surely must be feeling the pressure with customers no longer being locked into their proprietary DRM for music.

Perhaps the single biggest nail in the Apple Tablet’s metaphorical coffin however lies in the recent history of the tech sector which is litered with the wreckage of gadgets that whilst sounded nifty, didnt really solve any problems for anyone, only to die from a lack of demand and subsequent uptake. The tech market is a pretty darwinian place. Unless a gadget really fulfills a real and genuine need, odds are that it simply wont survive. Anyone remember the Palm Audrey? The concept of a kitchen computing appliance sounded very blade runner-esque but in reality was really a solution looking for a problem. What about Microsoft’s Bob? Designed as Windows 3.1 retarded cousin, Bob was essentially a room filled with clickable objects. No one had bothered to ask if the public they wanted or actually needed Bob and he bombed completely.

Is the Steve Jobs reality distortion feild strong enough to overcome these issues? Could Apple prove me wrong and end up with a run-away winner on their hands? At the risk of incurring the wrath of every Apple biggot onthe planet I think the tablet could be the biggest stinker Apple cranks out after close to a decade of sucessful product launches. Here’s hoping the little company in Cupertino that could proves me wrong.