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The Apple Tablet

The web is currently drowning in a sea of Apple Tablet rumours as anticipation grows around the event on the 27th of this month. But at the risk of adding one more to the ocean, I wanted to share some thoughts on why I’m particularly excited about this one.

The tablet won’t be a tablet

Not in the way that everyone’s thinking, anyway. Because that’s just not Apple’s style. Have they ever just made a Mac-ified version of whatever’s already out there? No. Look at their history; especially their recent history: the iPod revolutionised the MP3 player. The iPhone revolutionised the mobile phone. We may have become used to them now (it’s hard to remember a time before the iPhone, isn’t it?), but don’t forget how groundbreaking they were at launch, and because groundbreaking is exactly what Apple do, there’s no way they’re simply going to bring out a tablet-sized MacBook Pro. Want that? Get a ModBook. Apple are thinking about the bigger picture.

The case for this sort of speculation is articulated much more artfully than me by John Gruber, whose excellent article concludes with this sentence:

I think The Tablet is nothing short of Apple’s reconception of personal computing.

Tim has provided a great round-up of Tablet rumours and has even gone so far as to illustrate a potential ‘docking station’ concept, expanding upon the tantalising patent drawing that’s recently been doing the rounds again. (Tim’s tablet image appears in the header illustration above.)

The fact that Apple will announce the Tablet on 27th January is no longer in dispute: it will happen. But what excites me is not the certainty; it’s the uncertainty: the rabbit that Steve eventually pulls from his hat will be something far different from the tablets in use today, and I can’t wait to see it!