Specific OS = Limited functionality and yet more time spent suckling at Steve's teet, begging for "basic" functionality that the competition has had from the get-go (like copy/paste, multitasking, 3rd party apps, etc.. etc..).
For a phone, there's not much more you can add, but for a Tablet, you're entering a realm occupied by not only other Tablets, but Tablets that are basically full computers in a slim form-factor.
So Apple would have a Tablet that you spend 800 bucks on to read books, while everyone else prices their Tablets at 400-500 bucks and you can do, well, whatever the hell you want to with it.
It has been said many times here, but just for the sake of it.
Apple makes their products not only based on cutting edge hardware or software specs, but tries to make a perfect marriage between the two, which would/should result in a perfect user experience. (I'm not saying here thatthey always succeed).
Apple does not make products (anymore) for people that feel the need to customize their own experience. Apple makes products for the kind of people that want shiny things that work together when they are taken out of the box. Most average users (and no all people that read this, is not an average user of Apple hardware) do not care about copy-paste, multitasking or jailbraking. I know many, many people with an iPhone, and many just frown when I show them the copy-paste function or shrug if I tell them about jailbraking. The iTunes APPs are sufficient for them. They would like it for example if Apple would update the springboard with a status screen, but don't even know now that they miss it. The iPhone is revered by the large majority, because you can pick it up and use it. Try to find and change settings in Winmo and you will see the difference. The same holds true for OS X and Windows.
If you feel that you must be able to run office, customize etc etc. on a tablet than I fear that Windows is a more suitable platform for that.
However. The fact that the Tablets you speak of are so wildly unsuccesfull is because they are crap at everything that they advertise as an advantage:
- Full windows OS: try clicking with sausage-fingers on a 4 pixel box. The OS has not been adapted in any way, safe for a software keyboard.
- Full Office functionality: again, too many buttons in the interface, no use of multitouch or whatever touch. And how in *** are you going to be doing any serious text-editing or slide production on a tablet the size of a piece of paper that needs to be set on the table.
Most people own already a computer, so they would do these things on that one anyway.
The same concept will apply to the tablet. It is not a viable alternative for a full featured laptop or PC. The existing tablets prove this theory. So, it should be geared at those things that you would be able to do better or equally good on a tablet than on a laptop. The things I'm speaking of are the consumption of content. You don't need a keyboard to watch a movie, read the Esquire or read a book. You don't need a full physical keyboard to write the usual private emails, instant messages or updates to facebook, twitter etc.
