one of many iTablet mockups

Wow it is like Christmas came early!  Rumors are flying on the internet today, December 23, that the Apple tablet computer is going to be launched soon, perhaps as early as Tuesday, January 26th!  (with delivery in March?)  Apple has booked presentation space, reports the Financial Times, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.  Tuesday is the usual day of the week Apple HQ chooses to announce new products and updates to existing products.  With MacWorld 2010 starting just two weeks later there would be a huge fan and developer base in San Francisco just waiting to pounce on the tablet and dream up new and wonderful ways to use it and develop for it.

Many people have poured cold water on the new iTablet talk.  Why would they need yet another device, half way between the iPhone and the Macbook?  That’s precisely why we need it!  Because it is half the size of a Macbook which allows you to squeeze it onto your airplane, bus or train seat that much more easily.  It can be slid into your briefcase like a magazine.  It can be propped up on your knees while you relax in your barcalounger or in your own comfy bed.  And yet,  being twice the size of an iPhone it allows visually challenged oldsters, like myself, the opportunity to watch videos, play games, compose text and use applications without going blind from squinting to see the 3×5 screen.  Typing would be a lot easier on the bigger virtual keyboard.  Whether that is a 7”, 10” or 11” screen remains to be seen, but any one of those is better than the iPhone’s gorgeous but teeny tiny interface.  What with the millions of us baby boomers needing bifocals, Apple is opening up huge market potential.  At the bespectacled age of 54 no one knows this better than Steve Jobs. Apparently he is very happy with the tablet’s development so far and is saying we will be very surprised as to how we interact with it. New multi-touch gestures perhaps?

The world the tablet opens for the App store is breathtaking.  Applications could be run full size, not scrunched onto tiny screens.  This would greatly increase the potential for  their depth and scope.  Speculation is building that Apple’s recent TV licensing talks with CBS and Disney may result in TV subscriptions being offered to Apple customers, much in the way cable companies sell TV subscriptions.  Print media would also rejoice… perhaps people have not envisioned reading a magazine on the tablet, using sweeping gestures to flip the page, all in glossy full colour virtual issues.  No trees gave their lives in the making of those issues, no post office trucks spewed diesel smoke their virtual delivery to your tablet.

Yes for those of us who can envision using an iTablet Christmas has indeed come early.  For all the rest, get ready to jump on the bandwagon as we roll on by with our iTablets clutched in our hot little hands!   For now sit back and watch the rumors fly!!

This is an iTablet rumor post by The Apps Machine