I am amused by the steady drumbeat of rumors about the forthcoming Apple tablet. Before anyone gets too excited about what they’ve read, it might be instructive to go back and look at previous rumors. Here, for example, is a supposed mock-up of the iPhone, published by a now-defunct fan site in December 2006, only a month before the actual iPhone was publicly unveiled:
Love that slide-out keyboard. Whatever happened to it?
This mock-up is from a month earlier. Classic!
That one turned out to be part of a "viral marketing campaign." In other words, a hoax.
And here’s a rumored iPhone ad, previewed in August 2006. Funny, I don’t remember seeing this one.
Hilarious.
When you see pundits talking confidently about how Apple is going to revolutionize computing with its new iWhatever, just remember how wrong they’ve been in the past.
Anyone looking forward to buying a Tablet PC from Apple?
Update: A colleague points to MacLife’s amusing History of the Apple Tablet Rumor, originally produced last summer and much in need of updating…
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
Good stuff! Take some possibilities then add a bit of frenzy, and we get some amusing results. Funny how history repeats itself.
I see very little appeal to any tablet platform outside of a few vertical markets. I guess I’m just an old timer who likes my gadgets and tools to do one thing and do it very well.
Unfortunately in the case of the iPhone the product did revolutionize the market.
As a current tablet user, I am interested in what Apple has to offer.
If it is nothing more than a big ass touch for $700 or whatever they think is appropriate, then, no thanks.
If anything, history shows that Apple is a lot more innovative in their designs than the rumor mill people! I never would have bought an iPhone if it were anything like the picx above 😉
yep 😎
(but you’re absolutely right – the rumor frenzy is ludicrous)
But the rumor mill hasn’t hurt Apple’s stock price 😉
iPad? iTablet? Wonder what they are going to call it? I see this as a short lived gimmick hardware device. Only if it’s close to a real Mac will it even work. Anything less will be worthless.
If Apple can produce a tablet PC as good as they did a mobile phone, I’m interested.
“I see very little appeal to any tablet platform outside of a few vertical markets.”
“I see this as a short lived gimmick hardware device.”
This reminds me of the reaction to the very first iPod.
“When you see pundits talking confidently about how Apple is going to revolutionize computing with its new iWhatever, just remember how wrong they’ve been in the past.”
I might note though, that most of those mockups were not by pundits, but by fan boys.
And…like it or not, recently Apple is two for three in making a space for itself in existing markets. iPod, iPhone and Apple TV.
I don’t think Apple TV is a failure–and I’m a PC guy. I think it’s a little ahead of the times, and that it needs honing, which is impossible with current technology. But five years from now, we might be singing a different tune.
The ultimate Apple analyst has chimed in — and it kinda makes sense:
“in answer to my central question, regarding why buy The Tablet if you already have an iPhone and a MacBook, my best guess is that ultimately, The Tablet is something you’ll buy instead of a MacBook.
It will not be pitched as such by Apple. It will be defined by three or four of its built-in primary apps.
Like all Apple products, The Tablet will do less than we expect but the things it does do, it will do insanely well. It will offer a fraction of the functionality of a MacBook — but that fraction will be way more fun. The same Asperger-y critics who dismissed the iPhone will focus on all that The Tablet doesn’t do and declare that this time, Apple really has ******* up but good.
Put another way, let’s say instead of a MacBook and an iPhone, you’ve got an iMac and an iPhone, but you also want a portable secondary computer. Today, that portable from Apple (portable as opposed to the iPhone’s mobile) is a MacBook. With The Tablet, you’ll have the option of a device that will more closely resemble the iPhone…”
http://daringfireball.net/2009/12/the_tablet