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Speculation about Apple's long-awaited tablet-like device was reaching a climax as the hours ticked away to Wednesday's expected unveiling of a brand new, category-defining product by the Cupertino, Calif.-based company.
Perhaps the only thing Apple watchers agree on is that it won't be called an "iTablet." Mac Observer columnist Chuck La Tournous held out hope Tuesday that "this isn't an "i-" anything," instead pushing for a name such as "Palette" or "Canvas."
La Tournous also raised an issue that we later asked some longtime Apple VARs to comment on -- exactly what is Apple's new product going to be instrumental at doing in such a way that millions will suddenly discover that they "won't be able to live without" it?
"I don't feel a gap in my technology needs right now. My desktop and (increasingly) my laptop serve my full-bore computer needs and my iPhone serves me very well as a mobile computing device. Almost every item in my once-long wish list has been checked off, either by improvements to the phone by Apple, or more often by ingenious apps from independent developers," he writes.
If Apple fans like La Tournous believe their needs are mostly met already, it means Apple might have more of a challenge with its tablet device than it had with the iPod and iPhone, although both of those were obviously groundbreaking devices.
But the iPod and iPhone also had the advantage of breaking into healthy, existing markets for portable music players in the case of the former and smart phones for the latter. That is to say, as products they were "primary devices" with established potential user bases.
Can the same be said of a 10-inch multi-touch tablet (citing the barebones specs of what most expect to see from Apple on Wednesday)? What category does such a device slide into, what existing consumer base that's already using something similar as a primary device but is eager from a sleeker, better product from Apple?
La Tournous isn't sure, but he is pretty confident that Apple must have figured it out ahead of time.
"I firmly believe Apple's already thought this through and the new device will have something more, something new to offer. Something none of us have guessed. Something none of us knew we wanted. And something that, starting [Wednesday], many of us suddenly won't be able to live without," he writes.
That would seem to be a pretty tall order, even for such a successful deliverer of "doh!-I-wish-I'd-thought-of-that" products as Apple. We put the question of what "primary device" function the new Apple product will serve to one longstanding Apple reseller partner.
"I think there's a chance that this is the primary device for periodicals or printed pubs. It becomes the paper of the 21st century, especially if it's essentially go full-time connectivity," said Nick Gold, sales manager at Baltimore-based Chesapeake Systems.
Gold also echoed La Tournous' sentiment that it would likely be a mistake to view the new device as "as a scaled-back computer" a la netbooks, or "merely a bigger iPhone," or even as "another Kindle-like eReader." Instead, "Apple makes devices that are powerful enough for what they're optimized to do and that's what this one will be," Gold said.
Here's another question -- given the fair assumption that this will be a consumer-targeted product first and foremost, might Apple also eventually penetrate the commercial space with it, perhaps even more forcefully than the stealthy fashion with which the iPhone has come to compete with the Blackberry in business environments?
