A long time coming.
Rumours of a “tablet” Macintosh have been floating around for nearly a decade now but the whispers circulating about what we all now think of as The Apple Tablet (or iSlate, or whatever) actually began in earnest around April 2009. That’s nearly a year of rumour, hype, speculation and commentary (myself included) with absolutely no evidence of anything new actually being developed by the boys and girls in Cupertino. Yet here we are in 2010 still at it, with the very latest rumours suggesting that an announcement is mere weeks away and that the most-eagerly anticipated Apple device since the iPhone will be available to buy come March.
Appetites are wet. There’s a feeling that something is coming. It’s fine to get excited… But tablets with pico-projectors? C’mon now, settle down at the back. I think we need to read two of the more sensible evaluations of this whole situation…
Step forward Mr Gruber. Step forward Mr Siracusa.
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Update: John Gruber has posted another piece on the rumoured Apple tablet. Clicky.
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Update #2: Lots more reasonable and thoughtful “predictions” appearing on the web now, so you may also be interested to read the views of Aaron Mahnke and Neven Mrgan. I’m particular taken by Tim VanDamme’s prediction, though the product he describes (illustrated with some wonderfully simple diagrams) sounds/looks very much like something that i “invented” a while ago (see “The MacBook-style iPod/iPhone Dock” in this blog entry from August 2009).