Apple Tablet is hard to swallow

SOME NEWS SOURCES are now so convinced that Apple will announce a new tablet computer within the next few months that they are presenting the hypothesis as fact rather than conjecture or wishful thinking.

It's real, honest guv: Some of the finest Photoshop fakery money can buy

We at The Inq, on the other hand are cut from a sterner cloth and will remain agnostic about the fabled Apple Tablet until we can actually hold one in our sweaty mitts. It's not that we are unbelievers - we also think the probability of the Cupertino company coming up with a touch-screen device which sits neatly between the Ipod/Iphone and Macbook marques is quite high. We just think some of the devil in the detail doesn't add up.

Take the predicted price point for example. Most pundits are pegging the mythical beast at anywhere between $700 and $1,000. Now we know that's not chump change in anyone's book, but Apple just doesn't do cheap. If Jobs and all his little minions are going to bless the faithful with a revolutionary new product, it's not going to be built down to a price. Apple didn't invest cartloads of cash in the technology which allows it to hew computer chassis out of single blocks of aluminium for nothing. The chances of the first iteration of the Itable(t) - as we've just decided to name it - being made from polycarbonate are, in our opinion, next to none. Two or three years down the line Apple may decide to offer a lite version of the device for those of us with restricted budgets, but Apple has never needed to cut its costs and, as long as it maintains its cultish status with millions of Macolytes, it never will.

Which brings us onto design. Just about everyone with an opinion on the matter has decided that the Itable(t) (maybe Islate is better) will look to all the world like a mutant Iphone. Some have gone to great lengths making convincing Photoshopped mock-ups of the non existent device, and very pretty they look too. But they have failed to take one very important thing into consideration. Knowing your way around the distort functions in Photoshop does not make you an industrial designer. It certainly doesn't make you an industrial designer of the stature of Apple's British wunderkind Jonathan Ive.

Ive is probably the most talented designer of his generation. His work is everywhere you look and Apple obviously pays him a small fortune to come up with innovative and utterly desirable products. He also has an ego.

Given free reign - which he undoubtedly is - to design the Islab, the chances of Ive kicking back in his chair and saying, "Cobblers to all this working malarkey, just make it look like a bloody great Iphone on steroids," are slim to none. Again, this will not be a cheap product. It will be a premium device aimed at the same people who bought a Macbook Air despite a price tag scary enough to make your gonads beat a hasty retreat.

Chances are the Itab will take its design cues from that direction, rather than the shiny black plastickery of the Iphone and Ipod Touch. It's true that these devices are beautiful and desirable, but make that slab of a scratch magnet ten times the size and you are just asking for trouble. Just ask anyone who has ever put their Iphone in the same pocket as their keys for more than a nanosecond.

When the Iphone was released onto an unsuspecting market, it was totally unlike anything else available. Pundits howled that it was too big, that no-one wanted a touch-screen phone, that PDAs had to have proper keyboards, that nobody was really interested in playing games on a mobile phone.

Two years on and words seem to be the dish of the day. Every single handset manufacturer on the planet has shamelessly copied the Iphone's form and functionality. And every major player has tried to mimic the staggeringly successful App Store, which recently passed the 2 billion downloads milestone.

If Ives wants to make as big a splash with the iPill (OK bottom of barrel reached, we'll stop now - ed) he knows he'll have to pull something utterly brilliant and totally different out of the bag. And it won't be the product of the mind of anyone who does a bit of Photoshop jiggery pokery for a sorry little Apple fanboi Web site.

So 'what will the device look like?' we hear you cry. We don't know. Haven't got a clue. And do you know why we haven't got a clue? Because we are not paid millions of dollars to be one of the finest industrial designers who has ever walked the planet! We write inflammatory nonsense for a website based in some instances on guesswork, conjecture, bullplop and wishful thinking. It's not our place to know these things, it's our place to wait and see… and hopefully have our metaphorical socks blown off if and when the thing ever materialises.

A quick Google search will dig up all sorts of theories, some even claiming to be based on real encounters with Itable(t) prototypes. But how many prototypes would Apple have made of such an important product? Do you really think there would be just the one? Prototypes are made for a reason, they help human beings to make informed decisions about how products feel and fit into the real world. And if a prototype fails to make the grade or live up to expectations, it is consigned forever to the dustbin of history.

So what are our predictions for Apple's next stride forward into computer legend? Well… if you're going to twist our arm. As we've already suggested, it won't be cheap. $1,200 will be the absolute minimum for an entry level model. The first batch will be made using Apple's aluminium monoblock technology and will look more like the dismembered screen from a Macbook Air than an Iphone.

There will be no speakers built into the device to cut down on size, weight and magnetic interference. It will, however, feature a microphone, and speech recognition will play a big part in the user interface.

More traditional input will be via an on-screen virtual keyboard much like the Iphone's but there will be a twist. Keys will be arranged in two groups on either side of the screen allowing users to grasp the tablet by its edges and type using two thumbs. Anyone who has ever seen a teenager texting at 120 words a minute will get the picture.

You will, of course be able to use a traditional QWERTY layout but, as we all know, the QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow down typists using manual typewriters to prevent the keys from jamming. If anyone can drag us away from this anachronistic standard, Apple can. Lets' face it, who really thought the Ipod's Clickwheel was a good idea when they first encountered it?

Ports and plugholes will be kept to an absolute minimum to prevent possible damage from environmental factors like dust. This device is not meant to replace your computer, it is an extension of it, a peripheral if you will. Connectivity duties will be carried out by a simple dock which will also act as a stand, allowing the tablet to be used as a traditional desktop monitor, and all the ports will be included in the dock.

This is, of course, just the ill-considered opinion of one person and should not be taken as fact. Unlike some lesser web sites, we are not presenting it as such. µ

TOP TEN UTTERLY INNACURATE APPLE PREDICTIONS

1. "Next Christmas the Ipod will be dead, finished, gone, Kaput." (Alan 'you're fired' Sugar).
2. Apple will release an Iphone Nano (Just about everyone on the planet).
3. "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." (Microsoft's Steve Ballmer).
4. We have an Ipod/Iphone killer. (Every company and every publication ever).
5. No-one will buy a computer that doesn't have a floppy drive. (ditto)
6. "It is possible Apple created another design revolution with the Cube." (Inside Mac Games).
7. "I'd shut [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders." (Michael Dell)
8. "UltraPortable PCs from Apple using Flash memory will be delivered as early as 2007." (Benjamin Reitzes)
9. "Apple TV will include features beyond streaming content and could have an impact on video similar to what the iPod has done for music." (Andy Neff)
10. "The first batch [of Apple tablets] will be made using Apple's aluminium monoblock technology and will look more like the dismembered screen from a Macbook Air than an Iphone." (Stewart Meagher).