
Image courtesy Apple
The rumors about an upcoming Apple Tablet just won’t go away. There have been many reports about Apple gearing up for the production of a tablet type of device. The company supposedly has ordered tons of flash memory chips and 10-inch displays to gear up to make a tablet. A recent rumor even has Apple negotiating with Verizon to put the mystery tablet on the carrier’s LTE high-speed wireless network. That one may be a bit far-fetched since Verizon hasn’t launched that network, yet. The constant tablet rumors indicate that a lot of folks are anxious for Apple to get a tablet on the market. The current rumor makes me think that perhaps Apple is not thinking about a computing tablet, rather a giant iPod.
Those of us who have been tablet enthusiasts for a long time immediately think of a slate device with a computer’s typical functionality. We immediately think of inking on the screen, along with the typical functions that can be done on any computer. This may not be what Apple has in mind, however, as it’s sounding like they are looking to produce a “media tablet”. This tablet would be designed from the ground up to make it easy to consume media, in different forms.
I can see such a tablet used for reading e-books, watching movies, and of course listening to music. This would feed right into the Apple model of selling content through the iTunes store. They already sell content, but this tablet would enable them to compete directly with Amazon in the e-book retail space. That’s a business that has already been proven to be successful for Amazon, so Apple would just be joining the fray.
This giant iPod, or iPod DX borrowing from Amazon’s Kindle naming convention, would be running the iPhone OS. That’s the same OS running on the iPod Touch, so it’s not a stretch by any means. The OS could handle a larger screened device quite handily, although apps would need to take advantage of the big display. This tablet could work just like the iPod Touch today, just with better interaction given the larger screen. No phone capability is needed; Apple could just go with Wi-Fi.
This giant iPod would have a huge advantage over other slate devices- the App Store. Running the same OS as the iPod Touch (and iPhone), the tablet would be able to run the tens of thousands of apps in the App Store right out of the box. They might not be optimized for the big screen (and big touch interface), but apps that do that will come in time. The point is there would be a huge selection of available apps at the launch of such a tablet.
So, the giant iPod tablet will handle the existing iTunes content, the App Store products and also add e-books to the mix. This presents a huge business opportunity for Apple so we may very well see this tablet soon.
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