For the first time, Apple won’t be at the annual Macworld trade show in January. But CEO Steve Jobs and his team will still make the month interesting. Apple has scheduled a press briefing for Jan. 26 in San Francisco, and Apple watchers are salivating at the prospect of a tablet computer that looks like an iPhone on steroids.
A MacInsider report that Apple registered the domain name islate.com at least as far back as 2007 fueled rumors that the tablet may be named iSlate. While Apple has steadfastly refused to comment on the rumors, there is a consensus among the Apple cognoscenti that the device will be a 10-inch-wide tablet, not much thicker than an iPhone, feature the same multi-touch screen as the iPhone and iPod touch, be keyboard-free, and support music, video, e-books and iPhone apps. The price is rumored to be around $800.
The iSlate is exciting not just Apple “fanboys” but also Wall Street. Apple’s stock has reached unknown heights in recent weeks as the rumor mills started going crazy. The stock price has risen from $192 on Dec. 18 to about $211 on New Year’s Eve, giving the company a market capitalization of $190 billion.
Is Content King?
There are also rumors that Apple is cutting content deals with publishers, broadcasters and movie studios, suggesting Apple intends its device to be a Kindle killer. An influential review in The New Yorker magazine panned Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader and said reading books on the iPod touch was a superior experience.
Is the crazed enthusiasm appropriate? Will consumers really flock to Apple stores to pay close to $1,000 — far more than a Kindle — just to watch YouTube videos on a larger screen? Some analysts believe that by cutting content deals, Apple could make its tablet a must-have device….