“The Tablet” and gadget portability theory
I haven't written about the supposed Apple tablet yet because nobody knows anything (including whether it even exists), so everyone's just talking out of their asses about it. — Normally, I'm perfectly willing to join in and endlessly talk …
Context & Ripple Effects
The supposed Apple tablet has been the industry's running parlor game all second half of 2009: Gizmodo published insider-sourced details on the device in August, and by late September CrunchGear was already framing the coming tablet wars among rivals who have shipped nothing. Marco.org's entry point is deliberately contrarian — nobody outside Cupertino knows anything, including whether the product exists, so he redirects the conversation to a theory of gadget portability instead of fake specs.
What sits under the rumor is real: Flurry's data shows a record-breaking Christmas for the App Store, giving any new Apple screen an instant app economy, while separate reports describe Apple courting CBS and Walt Disney for a subscription TV service and a patent application covering tactile-feedback multi-touch typing. That the same-day pickup came from Daring Fireball rather than a gadget blog says something about how this story travels — through commentator networks, not leaks.
First-order effects
- If Apple does announce a tablet on the January timeframe being discussed, every rival named in the tablet-wars framing has to show comparable hardware or concede the category before it is even defined.
- The rumor cycle is itself a first-order event: Gizmodo's sourcing, patent filings, and carrier gossip fill a news vacuum, and commentators like Marco.org and Daring Fireball monetize skepticism of exactly that coverage.
Second-order effects
- Content owners become the swing variable — if Apple's talks with network owners about a subscription TV service are real, the tablet's value case rests on media deals as much as on silicon or screen size.
- A record App Store quarter means developers, not carriers, are the supply side to watch: a third Apple form factor would trigger an immediate land grab to rebuild app catalogs for a new screen.
Third-order effects
- Portability theory frames the structural question: whether a slate succeeds as a scaled-up iPod touch or a scaled-down Mac decides whose business gets displaced — netbook makers, e-reader vendors, or neither.
- If the pattern holds, pre-launch speculation becomes a permanent fixture of major hardware cycles, with Apple absorbing free marketing and competitors forced to benchmark against products that do not officially exist.
The trend: Consumer gadgets are sorting along a portability spectrum between pocket and lap, and the rumored Apple tablet is the first credible attempt to claim and define that middle ground.