January 25, 2010, 11:20 PM — Say, have you heard the news about Apple's earnings for the last quarter? They were pretty good, if you consider "record-breaking" pretty good! Apple's profits went up 50 percent; sold 3.36 million Macs; sold fewer iPods, but saw per-iPod revenue go up enough to keep overall iPod revenue steady, thanks to booming iPod Touch sales; a surge in Mac sales in Italy and Spain; strong sales in education markets; etc.; etc.; blah, blah blah; WHAT ABOUT THE TABLET, RIGHT? THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW, RIGHT?
All right, you jackals, here it is, Steve Jobs, from the beginning of the call:
"The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we're really excited about."
Are you happy now, you jackals? Yes, we're going to see a tablet in a couple of days! (Or something else Steve's excited about. A new line of Newtons? iPod Shuffles in new colors?) And, if you listen to the doubters, Apple will need all the money it's making, for when the tablet flops. Let's listen to what the doubters have to say on CNN, shall we? Your own humble blogger experiences his fifteen seconds of fame at about the 0:30 mark:
While I may not have the marketing savvy of those guys at the coffee shop, I do have my convictions -- which, of course, will be completely overturned with the tablet is a huge success and everyone is issued one by law sometime in September. I thus leave you with this video as a testament to my foolishness.
In other, less interesting news, Tim Cook said some things that could be interpreted as meaning that there will be no Verizon iPhone, without actually coming out and saying it. So that's a rumor that will still be interesting to see how it plays out on Wednesday. Also, Seth Weintraub at 9 to 5 Mac hears from book publishers that the tablet "isn't going to cost anywhere near $1,000." Much of my skepticism has been based on the tablet being quite pricey (and for the record, I consider $700-800 to be near $1,000), so if that's true, it would change my view of the thing's prospects a lot.
Follow Josh on Google+
