Tablet rumors du jour: FT says 1/26 announcement, NYT says Jobs "extremely happy," MacRumors finds iSlate.com registration

I have a feeling that apple may just get rid of the on screen keyboard and instead have you write stuff on the screen with your finger and then have predictive text help you get what you wrote into text. I could see it also learning so eventually it will be quite easy for you to input stuff. I can also see that apple might also find a way to make it cheep and yet make it so that it is highly portable: might they use some very cheep but high resolution flexible material (probably not but hey, can't I dream)? One thing would be definite, whatever they do apple is going to try to come up with something nobody has thought of yet, but is so obvious in it's usage that everyone will want one: kind of like the ipod was, and the original imac was: the ipod made it suddenly easy to use an MP3 player and the imac suddenly made it easy to get onto the internet.

If it's running iPhoneOS, then I wouldn't buy it. I have no need for a larger format iPhone-type device. Now, on the other hand, if it's running OS X, a full snow-leopard OSX plus the ability to run both normal Mac and App-store Apps, then I'm all for it.

So basically the iPhone was/is the beta for the Mac Tablet?

If it is truly coming next spring, I'd better start getting money together.

I will be extremely disappointed if this device requires its software to go through the app-store.

Do you remember how the euphoria when the iPhone was first introduced? I have a feeling it's gonna be another magical keynote like that one.

I will be "extremely happy" if I can use this device as a drawing tablet (assuming that, unlike the iPhone, it works well with a stylus).

Preferably for under $800. If Apple wants to break into the netbook business, they'd have to price it there anyway.

And if Apple doesn't release tablet, then it'll be all doom and gloom from the analists.