The rumours are getting hotter about the Apple January event and the possibility of the introduction of the long awaited – never materializing Apple Tablet, the infamous or famous (depending how you look at it), Apple iPad. This picture is not what the actual product will look like, it’s a possible rendition of it might look like. Note the keyboard, this is the part that amazes me the most. As you are aware, more than 99% of the computer users never use their numeric keypad. In the picture, the numeric keypad has been replaced by a large touchpad and I am surprised that how come, Apple in their designing minds, haven’t’ come up with a keyboard like that. No need for the mouse anymore and that touchpad is even larger than the new MacBook Pro’s touchpad. I hope apple incorporates this design in the next release of their thin full 101 pro keyboard.
Have you also noticed that there are no tablets being introduced by any major OEMs! Why? The answer is simple: They are all waiting for Apple to see what the next design might be. Just like all smartphone OEMs that copied iPhone from A-Z, the Apple iPad, if ever released, will be copied. I bet, if Apple releases the iPad, in 3-6 months, every major OEM will have a tablet PC copied from Apple design. May be this is ‘a’ reason that Apple still hasn’t introduced their long awaited iPad. But question remains: What would be the real application of this device and how powerful could it be to justify it’s purchase? If you have a Netbook – a Notebook and some kind of Smartphone, then how could you justify the purchase of such device? Will this device replace our Netbooks, that most of us just bought or will it replace the iPhone? Will it have 3G / 4G capabilities already build in and will it only work with AT&T? What task can it perform that it could not be achieved with of the items in the list of devices that I just mentioned? All good questions, if I may add, but not that many answers. I have faith in the Apple’s propaganda machine and I am sure that in time they will come up with perfectly logical reasons as to why ‘we all’ need such a device, to the point that we will ask ourselves: “How the hell did I get along all these years without an iPad”. Apple’s propaganda machine is truly powerful and the best case and point will be iPod and iPhone. Apple never gives advance notices as to what they are working on and rightly so, but there will be an event in January and it might contain an iPad and a ‘surprise’! Now what could that surprise be? With Apple, its an impossibility to guess, since the guesser is nearly always wrong. This time – Kevin Rose is even quiet and we still have to hear his predications for this event. What do you think? An iPad? New iPod Touch? I guess we gotta wait and see.
I will be attending the WWDC10 at the end of june and I am happy to know if Steve Jobs will be there running the entire Keynote address. Let’s hope so. Happy computing…