Why I’m Not Buying the Apple Tablet Rumor

No argument from us Dan. Tablets have been and continue to be a niche market. We’d like to think otherwise at our site and we’re heavy-duty tablet & UMPC users for sure, but the reality is that Tablets haven’t caught on yet. That said, if anyone can give the tablet space a big shot in the arm, my money is on the folks in Cupertino. ;)

I’m absolutely sure that Apple is working on a “tablet” – really a larger iPod touch that can run Mac software. Or really a subset of Mac software since the tablet CPU will be slower, less power hungry than that in a Macbook. Why? Because people want additional ability to view and edit more kinds of files in a very small form factor. Especially in Japan, Apple’s lagging market that they keep saying they will fix but haven’t yet.

Why Asus or a mfr involved now? Because this “tablet” needs to be cheaper than a MacBook, so mfring must not add significant costs to it.

Now will this “model” turn into a shipping product? Maybe, or maybe not if Apple can’t hit the price point they need which I think needs to be between 799 and 999.

Last I checked, Asus won the contract to manufacture Macbooks. That means that there was some sort of bidding process going on, and reason tells me that Asus wasn’t simply the lowest bidder. They had to have a good platform to sell to Apple for the Macbook, which means that Asus had to have done a significant amount of engineering themselves, rather than simply taking specs and schematics straight from Apple. Asus engineers computers that they build. They aren’t simply a factory out in Taiwan that takes orders for HP and Apple.

Though it’s uncertain how true the leak is, assuming that Apple would never let anyone else do design on one of their products is more than slightly fanboyish. Maybe Asus just wants attention. Maybe it’s one of a million Apple rumors that comes up every year. Maybe it’s legitimate. I do know, though, that if it’s going to happen, Asus would indeed be doing at least a significant part of the design process.

That Apple is doing some research and building prototypes of a tablet computer is a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t they? That’s a far cry from a product introduction, though.

I thought that what apple really loved to do was to prove everyone wrong?
Ipod? it will never work.
Iphone? it will never work.
And your quadrant theory? nice, but if it was the case why would they keep trying (you missed the recent apple TV)?
Everybody would love to see a bigger ipod touch with the capability to add calendar event, maybe a GPS, maybe something more… and this is where Apple comes. to prove to everyone that the UMPC was not a bad concept, it was just not done properly, like mp3 players, like operating system, like mobile phones… nice concepts bettered by Apple.
One more… why could they do with a tablet? one of the core market of apple is… designers (photoshop anyone?). What if the tablet was actually good for design not just for handwriting? Multitouch and high res pressure sensitive screen?
Ok I give up i think my post is long enough to compete with the others before. lol

I’d definitely prefer something more along the lines of a UMPC done right. I’m really really liking that new HTC thing and I’ll probably get one at some point, if Apple doesn’t come out with something better first. I’d personally like to see them go with a full keyboard built in somehow.

Yah, you have to think of how apple approaches stuff, to make it not a niche market.

What can apple do with this new mp3 technology to make music players better?

What can apple do to make cell phones better?

I am way excited to see the amazing things, above and beyond just being a bigger ipod touch, that they will allow the tablet to do. it will revolutionize the way students take notes, business professionals take notes, etc… and be trendy. it will be awesome.

ASUS would be the best guys to go to for that sort of thing, assuming Apple’s only interested in designing the pretty case themselves. The EEEPCs are selling like hotcakes.

Then again, the tablet rumor has been floating around so long that anyone could pop up and say something and all the Mac fans would hang on every word. The Intel Mac, widescreen iPod, and iPhone rumors were the same way for years.

Also, the iPhone wasn’t simply an iPod with a keypad on it, like people were thinking (and which was most obvious, although the Rokr showed how well *that* worked out), so Apple probably would want to engineer something from scratch themselves to get everything all innovativey and what not.

Either way, the EEEPC should satiate many if not most UMPC and Mac users for a while. If the UMPC Mac turns out to be $800 or more, Mac users may even prefer to switch over to something less expensive now that it’s been proven it can be done (and with all the companies probably rushing to design their own EEE clones). Word Processing, Web, E-mail, etc. are standard UMPC fare, and a workhorse would cost too much, so Apple would have to do something special to make people want to need it and/or shell out the dough.