The Apple Tablet: Giant iPhone? Or Something Useful?

Before I start all this, I'll be completely honest. If you know me, you know that I am not a big fan of Apple, especially when it comes to the iPhone. I disagree with it being a smartphone when the company that makes it makes such stupid decisions with it (Adobe Flash 10.1 will be wicked nice on pretty much every single smartphone except it, by Apple's choice). And when it comes to their desktops and laptops, the price is just ridiculous for what you're ultimately getting.

That said, Apple does deserve some credit. There's two things I will never take away from them: Their hardware is really good and their advertising is the best in the industry. For their hardware, I'll even give the iPhone props. It does have a very nice processor and the screen is gorgeous. I personally am not a big fan of software keyboards, but the iPhone's is really good. And their ad schemes, while incredibly pretentious and often misleading ("There's an app for that...BUT YOU CAN'T MAKE IT"), are incredibly effective. The proof of this is when you ask the average person what the most popular phone out now is, chances are they'll say iPhone. It seems as if every spoiled kid, college hipster, sorority girl, and aging yuppie has one.

So when the rumblings and grumblings of a possible Apple tablet started, all of the iDrones (my name for the Apple obsessed who buy whatever almost all-white device with fruit on the back comes out) came out in force. And they may possibly have reason to be excited. It really comes down to one question: What the hell is it going to be? Is it going to be a giant iPhone, or is it going to be a multitouch, no-keyboard Mac? Personally, I'd rather see the latter.

The biggest problem I have with the iPhone is it's absolute lack of customization and Apple's ruthless and random control of it's apps (yes, we all know about jailbreaking, but you can't say Corolas are faster than Ferraris if your Corola is "suped up"). If the Apple tablet suffers the same fate, then it won't be hard to imagine that some of its coolest features will be blocked for some half-assed, if any, reason. As you can tell from my post about the 4 Relevant Devices in the future, I'm not a fan of tablets in general because they have such limited uses that laptops can't do anyway, but if Apple continues to, well, be Apple then your iSlate users will quickly become annoyed. But I really don't think this will be the case. Jobs isn't stupid, and an iPhone-esque tablet will only compete with the iPhone, allowing for people to have one and not the other.

So by my logic it will be a mutlitouch Mac sans-keyboard. And I'll be honest, it'll be good for what it does. If the rumors are true, you'll find some good content from some big names bringing magazines and such that may or may not be specially made for the interface. And if those are true, we may see some wireless carrier support like Sprint and AT&T's work with Amazon's Kindle e-reader. But then we have 2 questions: What carrier will it be with and will we have to pay?

AT&T is having all kinds of trouble with the data intensive iPhone already. They simply don't have enough bandwith to accommodate all data-hogs they created. Don't believe me? Try making a call or getting 3G in New York and San Francisco. Good luck. And frankly, a device like the tablet with as much hype as their phone may just break AT&T's network totally. So if not them, then who? T-Mobile, with less strain and less 3G? Not likely. Sprint? Not a big enough subscriber base for Apple, I think, and more importantly their pricing isn't high enough to allow for what Apple will want to make. So will it go to Verizon? It seems like the likely choice. Not even AT&T will argue with them having the best 3G coverage (Openly they do, but in the lawsuits around the maps, they never even tried to deny their accuracy). The problem with Verizon is that it's CDMA, which while it isn't a problem to me, it isn't worldwide. Apple is trying to increase it's global marketshare, and creating a US only device won't help, and I doubt they'll make a US version and a Global version. Which leads us back to: AT&T. AT&T isn't smart enough to admit that it can't take it so they'll try. And let the finger-pointing begin!

Or will we find it carrier-less just running on WiFi? I certainly think so. Attaching it to a carrier is too netbooky, and while it's rare, I agree with Apple that the netbook is a dead-end technology. Sure, they're cheap, but for a few hundred dollars more, you can double the power and screen size. And it's not like not having a carrier is a bad thing, otherwise Macbooks wouldn't continue to increase sales like they do.

So how much will we pay? I have a bet with Matt and our co-worker right now. Matt says it'll be at $999 with a 2 year contract with a carrier, and if he's right, you can expect the same $59.99 for 5GB (thanks, FCC) of data transfer per month. I have it at a carrier-less $1200, and our coworker has it at an Apple-inflated $1500. Even though I have no intention of buying another Apple product again (the girlfriend demanded an iPod last Christmas...), what they do is always interesting and usually is a game-changer. And tomorrow, we'll all find out how wrong we all are.