Why the Idea of the Apple Tablet May Be Better Than the Reality

Why the Idea of the Apple Tablet May Be Better Than the Reality

As a rumor, the Apple tablet can be anything to anyone. We’ve all latched on to the idea that it’s a symbol of hope for the struggling print media industry. We’ve also taken the lack of substantiation as free reign to imagine a device capable of the impossible. We can even dream that we’re a part of a history-making event that we’ll one day tell our children about.

Could the Apple tablet change the world as we know it? Absolutely. But nothing will happen overnight, and history tells us that even in the midst of success, naysayers will emerge to attack every perceived flaw.

The anticipation and the lofty expectations surrounding the product launch put the Apple tablet atop a pedestal. Once the curtain lifts, it could take years before it returns to the same level of glory.

For now the Apple tablet in rumor form is still all of the following:

A Symbol of Hope

Each day brings with it a barrage of new rumors that inspire us to envision the Apple tablet as the device that will revolutionize industries in need of a fresh beginning.

Without fact or confirmation from Apple (though we now have at least semi-official confirmation that a tablet exists), we’re free to envision a world where Apple can breathe digital life into the publishing world much the same way it changed the music space. A world where Jobs can ride in on his trusty iSteed — wearing his iconic black turtleneck — and resuscitate the healthcare, entertainment, finance, and computing industries in one heroic maneuver.

The buildup to the Apple tablet is like a perfectly crafted fairytale with good triumphing over all in the end. But is this story more of an allegory about the notion of hope and how the appeal of believing in something unreal is more powerful than reality? How can we say that any of these guesses at revolutionary side-effects of the tablet aren’t anything more than wishful thinking where the need inspires the conjecture rather than vice versa?

Even should the tablet live up to every single expectation, it’s still not a magic box. A New York Times and print media resurgence won’t happen in six month’s time, let alone a year. Barriers to entry like price point, contracts with monthly fees, content licensing hiccups, and consumer unfamiliarity with a device that is neither personal computer nor mobile phone will prevent the tablet from being an immediate panacea.

A Catalyst for Imagination Without Bounds

As it stands the Apple tablet will: be a giant iPod Touch, run existing iPhone apps on OS X, iPhone OS, or a new OS altogether, have a tactile keyboard (and a hardware add-on) almost as good as a physical one, include a built-in web cam, support 3D navigation, get a docking station, serve as an alternative media viewing platform and e-book reader, have a 10″ (or 7″) screen, support Flash, be named iSlate, iGuide, or iPad, cost $600, $800, or $1000, and have Verizon and/or AT&T as telecommunications partner with a $60 per month two year contract. The list goes on.

Insert any variation of those specifications and you have yourself the sum of all rumors. Rumors that enterprising individuals are turning into creative visual what-ifs passed off as true representations that make our minds spin with wonder. Imagination without check in its finest hour.

Now that we’re so close, and still nothing is absolute, the unthinkable seems possible. The unknown is our tabula rasa, a blank slate that we can color in as we choose, the only limitation being the bounds of our own imagination.

But by that same logic, as soon as we know what the Apple tablet is, we will also know what it is not, and limitless imaginations will cease to be fathomable. Philosophically speaking the idea is better than the reality, because once it’s realized, what it could be is no longer a possibility.

A Piece of History in the Making

With the Apple tablet perched atop its untouchable pedestal we can pat ourselves on the back for having the foresight to predetermine that the device will be as much a game changer as the iPod or iPhone. We may not have been able to predict that the iPod would change the world of digital music and the music industry as a whole, or that the iPhone would become the device that everyone else would spend years trying to replicate (poorly at times), but this time around we know better.

In fact, one could make a strong argument that the abundance of rumors is not the result of any actual evidence, but more the side effect of all of us projecting our desire to have seen it coming. To say to our friends, “I told you so,” and tell our children and grand children that we experienced first hand the revolution of media. We’re essentially positioning ourselves as active participants and early adopters of Apple’s grand vision.

Personal opinion leads me to believe that whether or not the Apple tablet is a huge success or a whopping failure, we’re still a part of history in making. It’s just that in the last few hours of total darkness, the light in our minds shines brighter than ever.

[image courtesy of iStockphoto, frentusha]

Tags: apple, Apple Tablet

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