Five ¢ents

Stefan Constantinescu went in-depth to explain why the current Apple tablet rumors are no different from those that have kept recurring over the last 7 years in the press.

My personal take is that Apple won’t release a new device that depends on a new interaction model any time soon. Equally damning, a larger-sized device would imply to most consumers that they would be able to run any Mac app they wanted. The truth is that most Mac apps (and UI paradigms) would provide a horrible user experience if coerced tomorrow to run on such an iTablet. A two-inch interface is not a 10-inch interface, is not a 10-foot interface. A tablet creates a new category (five inches?), something neither consumers nor the industry seem to be clamoring for.

Apple’s M.O. is clearly to polish things internally, eternally iterating, before releasing a new product. (Much less a new platform!) As Mac OS X 10.6 is to be the first time they open up multitouch on the desktop, I doubt very much that they’d launch a new product without a useful application ecosystem. (The 1st gen iPhone was a clear exception, but logical considering its ground-breaking nature and solid 1st-party applications.)

One of Apple’s hallmarks is to keep their product lineup simple and uncluttered. Where would the tablet fit in? Is Axiotron selling enough of their tablets to make that market tempting? Couldn’t they add full-screen multitouch/pen input to an existing or only-partially revamped form-factor?

Finally, what about all the extra work? If an Apple tablet used an App Store of its own, that would push the already-straining approval process past its limits. Wait times for application reviews would likely double their current ~14 days. The existing Mac/iPhone developer community would be further fragmented, reducing the amount of new work being released. Apple would have to hire thousands of new developers, support staff, evangelists, etc. to handle the increased workload.

If you need a Mac tablet, badly, go ahead and buy a ModBook. It’s your best chance to be part of the Mac tablet myth. TUAW