Minority Report: Mac tablet? I remain unconvinced

Fabled device more likely to appear in netbook form

The rumour mill is in overdrive with reports - yet again - that Apple will soon unveil a Mac tablet. Seb Janacek is not so sure…

Apple has a successful track record of taking things that exist already and innovating. The iPod is the perfect example. The market was full of competing products but no dominant player.

Apple repeated the same trick six years later with the iPhone. Not the first smartphone on the market in 2007 but without question it's the most important model on the market two years later.

Now the rumour mill is yet again revving up with more and more predictions that the fabled tablet Mac will soon appear.

The latest developments include a report of an analyst that has actually played with the device, and veteran Apple analyst Gene Munster outlining the likely feature set and sales predictions - complete with a very professional-looking mock-up of how the tablet could look if it existed.

Once again, Apple enters the realms of hyper-reality.

But a Mac tablet? I remain unconvinced.

Try this exercise: Find a metal picture frame about 10 inches across and carry it around with you all day. A little heavy?

Put it flat on a table and mime writing on it. Then try tapping on a virtual keyboard. Make a record of how long it is before your neck and upper back start aching. How about propping it up against your legs or against some books on a table. Slipped off, didn't it?

Try using it to call your insurance company. A little big?

Try putting it in your bag with your keys, phone, lunch etc. Did it get scratched?

The point is it's a terrible user experience.

I simply don't see it as a convincing product for Apple or for the consumer. And based on the success of tablet computers so far, it's fair to say that the market remains distinctly unmoved.

Now, give it a keyboard. Also, to save it from getting horribly scratched maybe we could protect that screen with a lid. It doesn't look much like a tablet anymore, does it? Looks more like a little notebook.

It's surely more likely that Apple will respond to the demand for smaller notebooks with a small notebook, rather than launch an entirely new product form factor. A pure play tablet is a huge gamble even for a company with a track record of developing winning form factors.

Yes, a new portable Mac product is imminent. It's evident from the core Apple product line-up, which since the early days of the return of Steve Jobs has a simple symmetry: pro desktop, pro notebook, consumer desktop, consumer notebook.

There's a clear gap in the Apple product line where the MacBooks used to be which is now occupied by a three-year-old plastic model that looks starkly different from the rest of the Apple range.

I agree with some of the predictions. Apple will almost certainly announce a replacement for the MacBook line this autumn (October has become its traditional month for notebook releases).

But a Mac tablet? Normally I'd be willing to suspend belief and drink the Kool Aid in anticipation of the next great thing to roll off the Cupertino conveyor belt but this one requires too much of a leap of faith.

Now it just remains to be seen what Apple does release. Or more interesting still, what it chooses not to.