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Apple Tablet to Smash Competition… if it exists

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apple_tabletIf we learned anything from Apple’s iPod event (or non-event, depending on whether you care about the nano), it’s that nobody knows what Apple’s going to do next. Yet, that didn’t stop Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider from invading my feed reader with this headline: Steve Jobs: Apple Tablet Is Going To Destroy The Kindle[!!!] (!!! emphasis mine).

Jobs didn’t actually say that, of course. Frommer was just making an inference based on this quote in reference to a question about the Kindle from David Pogue:

“…I think the general-purpose devices will win the day. Because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device.”

Sounds about right to me and anyone else paying attention to the consumer electronics industry. Convergence is occurring all around us. Feature and smart phones are replacing dedicated media players and cameras. Apple’s tackling this shift head-on with the iPhone, iPod touch and camera-equipped nano. But how do you jump from that to inferring the tsunami-like rise of the Apple Tablet, crushing the Kindle beneath its mass and momentum like the hand of God striking the Earth to purge the unworthy?*

Everyone knows Apple is working on a tablet. But we also all knew they were putting cameras in the iPod touch, and we saw how that worked out. I think we need to walk away from that and keep this quote from George Clooney in mind: “Everybody be cool… you, be cool.”

* If you’re going to use hyperbole, you might as well go all the way.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. bluespapa

    09/10/2009 at 5:37 pm

    After joining Matthiew in finding no purpose to having an Apple tablet, I handed someone my UMPC open to Google Maps to have her show me where she was from in India, and all the gestures she made were the iPhone/iTouch gestures to manipulate the map and zoom in and out.

    She also wanted to look at a bigger screen and had a bit of a struggle even with her reading glasses.

    That’s exactly why people are saying such a device would be a killer for the boomers. A screen bigger than an iPhone, with all the capacitive touch.

  2. Josh

    09/12/2009 at 6:01 am

    Best. Hyperbole. Ever.

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