Why the Apple tablet will fail

Rumors about the possibly impending launch of a tablet computer/thing from Apple have been raging since the release of the iPhone. But all this buildup will hurt the product. Apple is always secretive about new launches and improvements of their products. This strategy, coupled with benchmark-creating levels of quality, makes Apple appear to deliver almost perfect quality beyond anything their competitors can achieve. (This is why most nay-sayers focus on technological specs and the like when comparing Apple’s products to others. ) But this same stamp of quality also creates enormous pressure on new product launches. And the iSlate/iTablet /Apple Tablet will quite probably be highest pressure launch yet.

Already analysts are talking about the iSlate/iTablet as a Kindle killer, presuming millions of units sold in the first 6 months and a market created or recreated solely by this machine.

While I don’t doubt that Apple will release a Tablet, and that it’s quality will be outstanding, I do doubt that it can live up to all this hype.

A color e-ink tablet with touch display and the perfect UI using all the products from Apple’s App store and launched with an SDK to make developers sit up and howl could just barely live up to the hype.

And Apple can hardly deliver this, since color e-ink touch is just a tad expensive these days.

Don’t get me wrong, he Apple iSlate will be awesome. It has to live up to the highest quality standards in tech today just for Apple to launch it, my faith in Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive is solid as rock. But the hype might be killing a perfect product. What if they release the iSlate and it doesn’t live up to half the expectations? Will sales half just because of the anticlimax?

Well, this being Apple, probably not. But still, it would be a shame if an innovative product unlike anything but the invention of the iPhone and the Personal Computer would be accepted as anything but great innovation.