November 16, 2009, 9:19 PM — I can't really tell if AppleInsider is being totally straight or extremely sarcastic, but the line from the title of this post towards the top of their article that in turn covers a CNNMoney.com roundup of analysts blathering on about how awesome the Apple tablet is going to be. The roundtable itself is pretty hilarious for spinning excitement out of vapor; it's like everyone is feeling bummed about not having correctly predicted that the iPhone would be a huge hit, and are falling all over themselves to preemptively anoint the Apple tablet the Greatest Device Ever Made.
Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC, is the most over-the-top of the commenters CNN has assembled. She says that the table will have a 10- to 12-inch screen and a high-end graphics card to drive it, will include a Webcam and video conferencing capabilities, and will come in several different models with different Internet connection capabilities. Sounds pricey? Well, don't worry about that: DiDio also claims that Apple "learned from its mistake" of pricing the original iPhone too high, and will magically make the thing a netbook competitor in terms of price. (Some might say that the initial high price of the iPhone wasn't so much a "mistake" so much as "wringing all the profit Apple could out of eager-to-spend early adopters," but that's neither here nor there.)
Is this based on secret sources within Apple or Apple's supply chain? Who knows! Certainly no basis of any kind for these assertions are included in the article. But at least DiDio didn't just openly place her faith in the awesomeness of the Steve, as David Wertheimer, executive director of the University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center, did. "The Tablet will be awesome, and my guess is that it will be an instant hit for people who loved Kindles and people who want netbooks," said Wertheimer; while he really can't imagine how this tablet will replace all those gizmos, he notes that "what I can't imagine, Steve Jobs often can." (Perhaps as a corrective to this, CNN has embedded a video in the article called "When Apple Flops.")
Of course, I'm on record as being suspicious of the tablet's chances, so when it does of course turn into a runaway success that remakes the computer industry, DiDio and Wertheimer are welcome to call me up and say they told me so. But unless they know more than they're letting on, these pronouncements based on rumors and wishful thinking can't be taken seriously as investment or purchasing advice. "Heaped praise on the mythical device" sounds about right.
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