This might be little more than an amusing hack, but it looks like it could be a neat little thing while on a train or whatever.. and given the generous size of MacBook Pro / MacBook trackpads, it could be quite workable, even.

If Apple aren’t actually going to launch that damn tablet, there sure is a LOT of hype going around the intarweb these days… a few links from 9to5mac below, all from the last couple of days. One notable bit of news that lends a lot of credibility, is that devs are being asked to prepare their apps so they can be demoed at the January event. I’m not really sceptical about the device itself – I think there’ll be plenty of cool things made, if you give them a platform with a new, great interface. We’ll see

Developers being asked to ready their apps for fullscreen use / january demo

“tablet event” in January, launch come March? Apple has rented a venue for an event

NY Times source: you’ll be surprised how you interact with this tablet

I’m curious what this tablet business is going to become. From all the mockup videos and ‘real fake’ videos I’ve seen, it appears it’s going to largely become a platform for big business to advertise stuff. Case in point, that Sports Illustrated tablet demo that was knocking around earlier this month – but there have been others.

Looking at this, it seems so nice and responsive – but to be honest, it’s a little TOO perfect. You notice how there’s never any mistakes in the way the user interacts with the touch UI? Seems too good to be true, so it’s probably just a mockup. Anyway … I would welcome a lightweight book reader such as this, with a distribution system as easy and user friendly as iTunes, and a touch user interface as pleasant to use as that of the iPhone. I on the other hand wouldn’t welcome it if the tablet is as closed a platform as the iPhone is. Frankly, the closed-off nature and proprietary content delivery system is making me consider other smartphones, but for now I can’t think of one that delivers as the iPhone does.

Despite those misgivings, imagine all the cool games you could do with a larger (say maybe 12″) touch area. I imagine another thing that would crop up REAL fast is a piano application.. because obviously this phantom tablet Apple are supposedly probably actually making, will have an app store similar to the iPhone. There’s talk of a 70/30 revenue split for content suppliers, and presumably this same ratio will apply to application developers. Maybe one should take a look at this emerging market and join the throng of would-be gold-diggers? Then again, let’s see what we get come March 2010

Apple’s senior VP of product design, Jony Ive, talks about some of the production methods, and a few gems about product design strategy.