Well, we didn't get an iTablet, we got Macbook Mini. Except it's more like a "Macbook Thin." Which is interesting because making it Thin instead of Mini addresses Bill Manning's complaints about UMPCs, which I thought were spot-on.
I wasn't predicting a tablet, just hoping for one. The Macbook Thin is a great product for the "not me" demographic. There's a lot of neat tech packed into the thing but I don't have a need or a desire for one. I will stand by one thing I said, which is that there's a lot of overlap in the components that go into the Thin and the components that would go into an iTablet. Imagine breaking off the screen half of the Thin, replacing the keyboard with a 13 inch touchscreen, and you'd have a pretty kickass tablet. The internals of the two products would be pretty similar.
Right before Macworld there was a rumor that a tablet is in development, but wasn't going to be ready by January. (This rumor persists, and is gathering strength.) What if the Macbook Thin was actually a "Plan B" product, when it became clear that the tablet wasn't ready, conceived both to make some money, and also get some of this superthin tech out into the field and shake out the bugs?
One thing that is scary about the Thin, relative to my tablet obsession, is the price. If the high-end Thin is $3000, how much might the tablet cost? $4000? $5000? That's too much to pay for a device which is by design an ancillary device to another computer you already own. Maybe that in itself was the reason for delaying the tablet - getting the Thin into production will also allow them to ramp up production of components, streamline the production lines, and bring down costs, so that the eventual tablet will hit a reasonable price point.
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