I have found it hard to avoid the excitement happening online for Apple’s upcoming announcement, allegedly, of their very own tablet. Being well-versed in the titles of many of these articles and the actual content of a few, I feel that I can break them into two categories: 1.) People who wish to gain credibility in the tech community by correctly guessing what Apple’s next product will be based on largely unreliable and circumstancal evidence, and 2.) people who don’t actually care what the product is or how well it will work, but are simply waiting expectantly for Apple to lay the next revolution upon them.

Based on that, I’ll probably fit best into the first category, simply because I do plan to make some predictions. However, I feel that I differ from most of the web community in that category because I’m almost certain my predictions will be correct, based on historical evidence, and I won’t be waiting for Apple to endow us all with the blessing of truth next week, or whenever the announcement is. That said, here are my predictions about Apple’s latest and greatest:

  1. It will be overpriced – This is a given for Apple, like the free square in Bingo.
  2. Data entry will suck – Steve Jobs publicly hates buttons, and this handicap affects almost any touchscreen device. It is also probably the largest shortcoming of the iPhone that everyone simply ignores. Now imagine if the iPhone was bigger. There is, of course, the possibility of handwriting recognition, but I firmly believe that this is what holds the already-present tablet computer market back. I don’t mean that the recogonition technology hold us back, but trying to hold a computer, even a small one, and write legibly is uncomfortable and annoying.
  3. It will be successful – I don’t mean iPhone successful, just standard Apple successful. Without wireless carrier contract subsidies to offset their price hiking, I don’t think Apple can even get to most people. There are, however, a fair number of people out there just waiting for Apple to upend the technological market and revolutionize their lives. Probably enough to keep Apple profitable.

Well, with that out of the way, I’d like to end this post on another late-breaking Apple newsflash from the city. Apparently, there are talks over Microsoft Bing becoming the default search engine on the iPhone. I have no idea whether or not this is true, or the odds of it happening, but if it does, it would probably be one of the best business moves Microsoft has ever made for their ‘new’ search engine (certainly better than those dumbass commercials). See, even though Apple’s marketing department has done its best to paint Microsoft as the great evil which you can only defeat by buying a MacBook, the vast majority of MacFans I know have pledged their one allegiance to the mighty Apple. Thus says the iPhone-carrying MacFan, if Apple tells me that Bing should be the default search engine, it must be the best, and I shall use it. Plus, it seems that most of Bing’s marketing has been aimed at seperating the Bing name from Microsoft, so both companies may be hoping that nobody will even realize that this impurity is being introduced on an Apple product.