It’s no secret to us (or our readers) that Apple’s products tend to generate what some might consider insane amounts of interest for weeks, months, and even years before they’re launched or even announced. Whether you love the company or hate its guts, you can’t deny that Apple is particularly prone to being fodder for the rumor mill. It comes in all forms: leaked photos (be they real, fake, or merely imaginative fan creations), analyst speculation based on “what if” scenarios for investors, “insider” reports from Asian supply chains, and a fair amount of conjecture via the press, both mainstream and blog alike. Here at Engadget, we’ve always been pretty proud of our ability to decode fact from fiction, and we try not to add too much noise to the echo chamber in which the gadget world seems to sometimes live. That said, we do cover plenty of rumors — and the Apple Tablet (in its many rumored form factors) may just be the biggest and most twisted of them all.
Apple’s been kicking around the idea of a tablet since at least… oh, 1983. From real, physical prototypes to out-there ideas such as the Knowledge Navigator — the company (who did not, alas, invent the idea of a tablet PC) has, somewhat unsurprisingly, seen fit to investigate the possibility for almost as long as it’s been around. For one reason or another, though, they’ve never actually produced a device which saw the light of retail day (well, besides the Newton). Perhaps that’s part of the fascination that Apple fans have with the product — it’s been rumored so long, and seemed on the verge of actual arrival so many times that it’s become a Holy Grail of sorts for the tech community.
Evidence that any tablet actually existed or would come to retail, however, has always been slim at best. In the entire lifespan of Engadget, not one viable photo of a real-looking prototype has ever emerged, and not one source within Apple itself has ever really hinted that it was at work on such a product. Oh sure, there have been dozens — possibly hundreds — of people “familiar with the matter,” but almost no one who would or could go on record to talk about the tablet, and in the end, it’s always seemed like a non-starter. The Apple Tablet rumor started in earnest around 2002 — before Engadget was even around. By the time we arrived to the party, the idea that Apple might be working on a tablet or slate PC was pretty firmly entrenched into the psyche of the avid gadget geek, but again, perilously little evidence existed to support the idea, or shall we say… the hope?
And here we are, in January of 2010, on the verge of yet another expiration date for the rumored launch of an Apple Tablet (though let’s be honest — this thing is starting to feel pretty real). We thought now might be as good a time as any to take a look back — back through the rumor timeline of one of the gadget world’s longest-standing, and seemingly best-loved unicorns. Join us for the ride, won’t you?
Continue reading The Apple Tablet: a complete history, supposedly
The Apple Tablet: a complete history, supposedly originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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