The iEffect: How Apple's Tablet Will Change the World

Experts weigh in on Apple's rumored iTablet

The Internet is buzzing with rumors that Apple's tablet-style gadget, pegged as a larger version of the iPod Touch, will be unveiled as early as this month, forecasting a move that insiders say will change the way we think about and use technology.

As rumors continue to swirl about what the tablet will be named, what it'll look like, and how much it will cost, techies have taken to the blogs to predict the iTablet's iEffect:

  • Joe Wilcox writes at Betanews that there's no way Apple's tablet will live up to the "ridiculous" hype and that it's little more than a novelty, "niche" product that can't succeed in the mainstream market. "The question everyone should ask: What would you use an Apple tablet, or any other, for?" he writes.
  • Randall Kennedy blogs at InfoWorld that while Apple's tablet sounds good in theory, it will "fail big time" in practice. Tablet-style computers won't be portable, easy to type or write on or be able to compete with new models of netbooks, Kennedy writes. Putting it simply? "Tablet PCs suck," he writes.
  • Naysayers will be tablet converts when they actually see the "exciting" Apple product and forget about nostalgia, blogger and former iPhone skeptic MG Siegler writes for The Washington Post. "The tablet computer is the latest, and perhaps most important step in a line of technology taking us (to the future)," Siegler writes.
  • Apple's newest gadget also has the potential to change the way we ingest and pay for media, Brian Lam blogs for Gizmodo. The device will move book and magazine publishing, journalism and advertising into the next decade, according to Lam, who places Apple in the "pole position in distribution of this next-generation print content."
  • David Carr similarly gushes over the tablet's ability to upend the media world, writing for The New York Times that the tablet has the ability to renew the "romance" between the reader and what he reads. Carr feels like a kid on Christmas morning:  "I haven't been this excited about buying something since I was 8 years old."
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