Apple Tablet Rumors: The Breakdown

With only a short hour left until Apple makes the announcement that it is supposed to unleashed its long-awaited tablet, the excitement and the rumors are at a fevered pitch. In fact, if the rumor mill was like a pepper mill it would have been seasoning our techie lives with its own brand of spicy speculation for quite a few years. If you believe some of the idle chatter that’s been going around, Apple’s new gizmo could possibly come packaged with the meaning of life — okay, I’m exaggerating, but some of them have been off the wall.

One of my favorite crazy tablet rumors was when tech analysts started declaring the tablet as “the gadget to end all gadgets”. Seriously? Isn’t every gadget supposed to be that gadget? With little to no solid information regarding tech specifications, we techies projected everything we would want a wonder gadget to do onto the phantom schematics of a never seen, only heard, of piece of tech.

One of the more persistent and sensible rumors alleges that the fabled tablet will be like an “iPhone on steroids”, which ties into Terry McGraw, CEO of McGraw-Hill’s statement that “the Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system.” It only makes sense to take what makes the iPhone great and expand upon it. According to ComputerWorld, the iPhone broke serious records in the recently ended quarter, selling 8.7 units compared to 7.4 million in 2008.

Release date was one of the more frustrating rumors. Even though concepts of the tablet may have existed since 1983, the excitement about the mystery gadget finally debuting really kicked off around 2004. From then on in, every month brought new, titillating tidbits of possible release dates, followed up by dream crushing reports of the inevitable delay. 2009 was an especially rough year, with all the drama with TechCrunch and the drama with their tablet, now renamed the JooJoo. Honestly, the tech world has been nursing a serious case of digital blue balls waiting for Apple to make this announcement.

Functionality has also been a big rumor generator. What shiny new functions will this gizmo be offering? To date, we still don’t know. Right now, the most prevalent speculation has dubbed the tablet as the digital Moses of the magazine industry. Publishers are placing all their eggs in Apple’s basket, hoping Steve Jobs and his magical touchscreen tablet can lead them out of the wilderness of irrelevancy, due to their slow action to adapt to the web. We’ve seen Time Inc.’s projection of a possible way for mags to deliver their content in innovative new ways, and it all centers around a slick looking tablet with a decent sized screen mesmerizing the masses.

So the hour is almost upon us and I have a few questions.  On a scale of 1-10, how geeked are you for this release? Do you think this announcement and subsequent release will change the gadget landscape in a relevant way? And the most important question has to be this: Will you be forking over what Apple sets as the asking price to be an early adopter of this new tech or are you going to do a wait and see?

About the Author
Sherri is a freelance writer that has a love of all things fun and geeky including gadgets, gaming, anime, and comics. When she isn't writing or out on the town living it up, she loves doing 10-12 hour marathon sessions on her Xbox 360 or one of her older consoles. It's not an addiction, it's a way of life!
See all posts by Sherri L. Smith.