I have yet to figure out why computer manufacturers continue to think tablet PC's are a good idea.  They generally combine the very worst features of a laptop, and the very worst features of a phone or PDA to make a device that's largely worthless.  For a brief time I worked for a company that was backed by a maker of tablet PC's, and my experience with them was very painful.  They were bulky, slow, and difficult to use.  The only tablet PC's I've seen that seem vaguely useful are the ones that are actually full blown laptops with a touch screen. 

So having said that, rumor has it that Apple is working on a tablet PC.  My initial reaction was, that Apple's collective ego was finally getting the better of them.  That they figured they could enter a space that was historically populated with nothing but failures, and somehow wave their magic wands and make a success.  But as I've thought about this more, I have a feeling they might be onto something.

So here's what we're probably going to see:

• Screen size between iPhone and MacBook
• Wireless (3G and WiFi)
• High quality display (ideally suitable for long periods of reading)
• HD video playback

So you end up with some kind of large iPhone that's well suited to reading and watching movies that's reasonably portable.  Still, other than having the nice iPhone interface, it's not really that innovative.  It would be somewhat risky for Apple because, as is the bain of all tablet devices, it doesn't do any particularly task better than anything else.  If you want to watch a movie it's better to use your Apple TV and your big screen.  If you want to surf the web it's better to use your laptop.  If you want something portable an iPhone fits better in your pocket.  So what's Apple's gambit here?

I believe the critical clue here is that they've been hiring people with game and game system development experience.  The Internet rumor mill was suggesting that they might be putting together a game console to compete with the Wii, 360, and PS3.  I think they may be doing that, in a sense, but that this is a level way beyond that.  Instead they are working on this tablet device as portable video game platform.

The iPhone has already become a pretty hot gaming platform and that's with no good control scheme for it.  Tilting and tapping on the screen do allow for some games, but by and large, it's not ideal.  Many games have compensated by adding a kind of soft control stick.  But if you took that basica iPhone gaming concept and scaled it up a bit with a decent controller built in, you could have something really interesting.  But then make it even more powerful by giving it a docking station with an HDMI output so you can plug it into your TV.  Provide an option to add on a couple wireless controllers and now it's competing against the Wii but has the advantage that you can take this console with you. 

The device would be less powerful than the 360 or the PS3, but it could likely rival the Wii and be portable at the same time.  It'd be more expensive than the Wii, but with all of those capabilities, plus being portable, it would really bring something new to the table.  It could be a rival in the netbook space while really being it's own beast.  So I think maybe Apple might be onto something.

Not that Apple can't handle itself, but I found this analysis a bit short sighted:

According to Ken Dulaney, author of the report, the lack of battery life on the 3G iPhone makes it impossible to maintain synchronisation with an Exchange server for a full day even if no calls are made. That's a serious issue, but the lack of security is the biggest impediment to enterprise adoption.

I'll ignore his comments about encryption because I know nothing about it.  As for his comments on battery life, they are at least a little unfair.  First of all, the iPhone has superior battery life to other 3G phones from what I've seen in various independent tests.  What kills the battery is 3G and location services.  If you turn these off and stick to edge data, your battery life is sufficient for at least a day and a half, maybe two days if you are using push data from exchange (probably longer if you have it ask for data periodically instead). 

I find that I'm able to just use edge most of the time and be perfectly happy with it.  It's more than sufficient for basic e-mail and calendar use, which seems to be the point of the article.  If I need the extra bandwidth, I can flip on 3G temporarily, and then shut it back down to preserve battery life.  The only flaw in this regard is the fact that the 3G switch is buried a bit in the settings menus.  It would be nice if I could have a one-button power saver mode that would turn off 3G and location services.

If I compare this to my previous windows mobile phone I find them to be functionally equivalent in terms of their exchange support except that the iPhone doesn't seem to support GAL (which would allow me to look up coworker contact info on the go).  The interface though is overall much better on the iPhone, give or take how you feel about soft vs. hard keyboards. 

I grant that the iPhone is still very much a work in progress, but I find that, day to day, I enjoy using it far more than I did the Windows Mobile phone I used to own.  As a media player it is infinitely more capable.  As a web browser it is even better than that.  It does need cut and past functionality, and it would be nice if I could run apps in the background, but overall I've found the design compromises to be reasonable so far. 

If you've not been following the news, Apple is releasing an SDK for the iPhone.  This will allow developers to develop software for the iPhone which could then be distributed through the iTunes store.  This would allow developers to extend the basic functionality of the iPhone so that you'd no longer be dependent on web based applications.  Sounds good right?

Well here's the problem.  Apple made this exclusive deal with AT&T and so Apple's revenues are tied to AT&T's revenues.  Therefore they are compelled to limit the ability of software on the iPhone to make use of the network.  Specifically this will require blocking of Skype and, it seems, blocking of Sun's effort to port Java to the platform.  Presumably if there ever is a java port, it will be crippled by Apple to insure that Skype like features cannot be included. 

Apple has always been very controlling about their platform which is, arguably, why the user experience is as good as it is.  With strong control over available hardware, etc, they are able to limit who can muck about with the systems and make them buggy, prone to security problems, etc.  For example, you've got maybe four video cards you can choose from with Apple, but the cards are all tested thoroughly by Apple and the drivers are all provided by Apple.  So your choices are limited, but at the end of the day it generally improves the quality and consistency of the user experience.

The trouble is that, in this case, they are using their control purely in the interests of profit.  If Skype and similar products were made available on the iPhone, the user experience would not be diminished, just AT&T's revenue and, by extension, Apple's revenue.  In fact, it's very likely that the contract they have with AT&T makes blocking of such applications a requirement. 

This seems to be the first step in what is likely to become a pattern for Apple, using their tendency to control the user experience to promote their own bottom line over time.  This can be seen elsewhere as well.  For example, Safari uses special hidden API calls to improve it's performance over 3rd party browsers.  Does user experience benefit from limits access to those calls?  No.  But it does perhaps broaden the adoption of Safari and helps Apple down the line by giving them control over the web experience akin to what IE has done on Windows.

In the long term this feeds into a mindset that lock in is preferred and that it's a path to riches.  Thus, in the long run, the user experience will diminish as they focus more and more on generating greater revenues rather than on making a compelling user experience.  They'll assume that their current penchant for making sexy technology will bail them out of that self-destructive tendency but history has shown that no company can pull that off forever. 

I was reading an article about the predictable ongoing failure of the Zune.  It occurs to me that a big reason why they fail in many of their endeavors is there's no expectation of success.  That is, they have such a large cash flow from established products that they can just throw away money on dead end projects. 

If they invest money in making the Zune and nobody buys it, no big deal, it doesn't have to succeed because they are so profitable elsewhere.  Same thing on Windows Mobile devices.  They don't feel any particular push to really dominate the market because they figure they'll eventually win just by buying out the market.  But the trouble for them is that this strategy only works when there's minimal genuine competition.  Had they entered the MP3 player market with the Zune before the first iPods they would have dominated a market full of rather crappy products.  They could have afforded to get it right in the 3.0 version, but with the iPod as the 800lb gorilla they would have to release a product that totally blows the doors off.  Not gonna happen.

Now they face the iPhone and iPod Touch as competition.  Can you imagine Microsoft actually making an interface that good?  Not a chance.  They think in terms of SDK's, compatibility, and portability.  They want to make it easy for a Windows desktop developer to write code for a phone, but don't account for the fact that they are two distinctly different interfaces.  They might have a hope if they can crank out something decent looking and dirt cheap of taking out the bottom of the market, but they still won't be making money.

The one exception to what I'm saying is the Xbox and I don't think it's as much of an exception as it appears.  The only reason they are successful with the Xbox is that it's actually a pretty well understood market for them.  All they are doing is making a lightweight computer, an OS, derived from their other products, and an SDK for all of this, also derived from their other products.  The Xbox just runs ports of their software on custom hardware.  Simple.  They don't have to figure out radically different user interfaces, etc.

So after much kvetching, I decided that, rather than getting a Macbook Pro, I would get a Mac Pro, the uber desktop computer from Apple.  The truth is I don't use laptops that often.  They are nice to have and eventually I'll get one, but the reality is that my old desktop was starting to show it's age.  It's still a decent machine but with the hard drive failure, I realized I was going to want a new desktop very soon.

Now, getting this computer was a bit more of a challenge than it should have been.  Follow me through the cut for why you don't buy open box merchandise.