Finding a place for an Apple tablet

It will be great to watch We Will Rock You, i have bought tickets from
http://ticketfront.com/event/We_Will_Rock_You-tickets looking forward to it.

Look at what Sports Illustrated can do with a Tablet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CzQyjw1Gw&feature=related

Honestly the only difference I see in a Tablet PC vs a Laptop PC is the fact that you can use a stylus to sketch with, etc. Yea it is pressure sensitive but what is the real difference? Why not incorporate these features into a macbook pro and call it a day... You don't need yet another device to carry along with you while you are already carrying a macbook pro or a laptop pc.

It also would have recommended that Apple did something like this back in 2006 when the tablet was really popular. I had a Toshiba Tecra back then and it was a POS. All of the tablet stuff seemed to work it was just the processor and memory and video card which continued to fail.

I know I would not buy a second device to do these things if I were ok with buying yet another device I would just buy a Wacom Tablet...

@Jordan and Talobab
There is a lot of bad faith on both sides. Apple does not always listen to teh customers or potential users. They don't create a product that they think people want, but that they think people need. But, hey, that's how they revolutionize the market! They did it with the phone industry pretty well.
Now, Apple came to already existing markets with the iPod and the iPhone, but they manage to completely revolutionize these markets. Apple did not create the mobile internet. But i think that few people will disagree that it really took off with the iPhone. THey manage to create a great user's experience where other smartphone could only offer a hassle.
I think that after these huge successes, Apple has enough leverage to take off with the tablet market, provided they offer a great product, actually usable.

The way i see it, a few years back, all computing seemed to converge toward laptops, almost killing desktops. A Macbook Pro was doing the trick for me for a while. However, with the improving syncing technologies and server based applications, i think the industry is currently moving the other way where people can satisfy with a cheap powerful computer at home, and a small device (for many a netbook) for basic needs on the go (mostly internet, email, social networking, basic photo, music, films, basic Office editing).
I already moved that way, changing my Macbook Pro for a 27" iMac and wanted a Air for travelling. But if a cheap tablet can do all the stuffs mentioned above, it would likely do the trick for me. Some sort of mac netbook. It would need some usb ports to be able to transfer photos from my camera. I don't need the power to run a full photoshop, but at least basic iPhoto to correct and trim pictures. The iPhone can do several of these things, but the experience is still too limited to qualify as a serious competitor in teh netbook market. A tablet priced in the 600-800 range woulod have me sold.

i have been wanting a tablet device from apple for YEARS. to all who say that nobody will buy one or use one, i am here to disprove that assertion. if apple puts the same thought into the tablet that they did into the iphone and ipod, this will be a game changer, and i will be there with them from day one.

My belief is that Apple will be positioning this device to be a potential Kindle killer. If you look at what Apple has done to the MP3 industry and to the phone industry, the ebook business seems to be the next logical course for Apple. There is no way in hell Apple will simply release a multitouch table that simply does everything an iPhone or a netbook does. The selling point of this device will be that on top of offering all those features we have come to expect (net, email, music, movies, etc), it'll offer a type of hybrid screen (like Pixel Qi) that can serve double duty as ereader and an iEverything else device. Out of all the rumors out there, that's what makes the most sense to me. The "iPod" of eBook readers is what this tablet will be.

I can't help but wonder why Axiotron's Modbook never really took off http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook . It's a fantastic Apple Tablet (at least the NVIDIA revisions are), is respectably priced at $1649, and has the full Snow Leopard OS. Is its low adoption rate due to pricing, a lack of availability at local retailers, a lack of OS X apps developed for a Tablet Mac, and/or its size? By comparing the Modbook to this mythical iSlate, I think 2 things are almost certain: (1) The iSlate is definitely going to have a screen below 13" and (2) it probably won't have a full version of OS X on it due to its reduced size and chipset (it won't have an Intel Core 2 Duo or higher inside). That doesn't mean that Apple won't create Keynote Lite, Pages Lite, iMovie Lite, etc., but the chances of those mythical apps being available at launch are slim to none IMO. I'm excited about this device primarily for media including video and ebooks and am almost certain those are its initial targeted uses. That being said, we should see the iSlate around the $600 price point.

"Very interesting writeup. Gruber says early in the post that the iPhone was a complete secret before it released, and that's not quite true -- we all knew there was going to be an Apple phone eventually, even if we didn't know specifics ..."

Did you read Guber's piece? Because you missed his point entirely. Of course everyone knew there would be a phone. But no one had any hard data on the phone.

Just like with the tablet. Everyone "knows" Apple is working on it. No one outside of the the teams developing it has any hard data.

As a designer for lights, sound and multimedia for my college theater I would love to have a tablet with VNC capabilities that would allow me to control my macbook pro up in the booth while I sat in the audience with the Director and Technical Designer to run through cues and make changes on the fly without having to run up to the booth. I suppose I'm something of a niche market though.

@Jordon

The mouse is not necessary at all. I don't have a mouse now. I don't have a mouse on my iPhone and I use some spreadsheet programs there (but the small screen is a drag). Actually, its a lot easier with a touchscreen. Thats why most fast food / checkout areas use touchscreens. I have had Tablets in the past, NEC made a great one years ago called the NEC Versa Litepad. When it worked it was tremendous for everything I just described. The problem was, it had serious hardware issues and often locked up. If Apple can step in and make a Tablet that runs and is lightweight and thin, it will be a big deal for service industries, technicians and quite possibly, students. Apple has always had great student discount programs and imagine all of a students textbooks in one small device...