Will the Apple tablet defy the rumors like the iPod did?

For months, I’ve been reading about all of the hype and rumors surrounding the expected announcement of a tablet computer from Apple.  Like the rumors and hype leading up to the announcement of the fist iPod, the hype and rumors of Apple’s tablet computer will likely give way to something almost completely unexpected, and maybe, disappointing.  In October 2001, it was rumored that Steve Jobs would announce the successor to the Newton.  Apple was going to reinvent the PDA.  Instead, Apple released a hard drive based digital music player for $399.  A lot of Apple fans everywhere were crushed.  They wanted an Apple branded PDA, and they couldn’t understand why Apple would want to produce consumer electronics.  More than 9 years later, the iPod has been a runaway success, and the most popular music player in the world.  It revolutionized the way we all listen to music.  If Apple does indeed release a tablet computer next week, it too will be misunderstood, and it will disappoint a lot of people.

Apple fans always create their own versions of what they want to see from Apple.  Over time, they add to their creations, read about other people’s ideas, and gradually form an image of what is to be announced.  When Steve Jobs later announces the actual product, our hopes are either totally dashed, or we are surprised and delighted.  There will be a lot of tech pundits, and Apple fans who will criticize Apple’s latest creation.  They will complain that it costs too much, that it leaves out features, or that it has no chance at success.  The original iPod contained a 5GB internal hard drive, and held about 1000 songs.  Its original sales price is the same as the sales price of an iPod touch with over 12 times of the original’s storage capacity, and far more features.  The original iPod became the best selling digital music player before it even began supporting Windows.  Apple’s tablet computer will likely garner a similar market share against its competitors despite its price, and its leaving out some key features that everyone had hoped for and wanted.

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Most Mac users that I know these days are relatively new to the platform.  For them, Mac OS X is all that they have ever known.  What most people are unaware of is that Mac OS X was not some shiny new operating system that sprang onto the scene just 9 years ago.  It is derived from an operating system that was first launched in 1989 by a company called NeXT.

NeXT, Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple in 1985.  After being sidelined by Apple’s board, Jobs took with him some of Apple’s best and brightest employees, some of whom worked on the original Macintosh.  Jobs also recruited Avie Tevanian from Carnegie Mellon University.  Tevanian had been one of the engineers who developed the Mach Kernel.  His work was instrumental in the creation of NeXTSTEP, the operating system created for all of the computers that were manufactured by NeXT.  NeXTSTEP was light years ahead of everything else on the market at the time.    It had many features contained in operating systems today such as multitasking ability that was not common in the late 80’s.  NeXTSTEP, similar to Linux is based upon UNIX which gave it rock solid stability.  NeXTSTEP also incorporated Adobe’s display postscript technology, which is also part of Mac OS X today.  This is what gives Mac OS X its beautiful, smooth appearance on the screen.  NeXTSTEP, like Mac OS X, and the iPhone OS today, incorporated the Objective-C programming language, and included tools for developers to create applications.  Perhaps the most important contribution made by NeXTSTEP was that a NeXT computer was used by Tim Berners-Lee to develop the World Wide Web.

Video of Steve Jobs demonstrating NeXTSTEP

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