Except for the fact that there are dozens of tablets already on the market. Guess why you never see anyone around with them.
Niche market, with little (not "no", but "little") software optimization for the devices, so far. That basically eliminates them from anybody other than geeks and gadget-heads. That's one of the reasons I consider Android a decent platform for tablets -- it's already well designed around touch screens, rotatable screens, etc., it's usable by non-techies, and has a decent application eco-system.
Another reason: Up until recently, tablets were UMPC based. Which means "more expensive", not less. Netbook convertible tablets and atom tablets, which bring the cost down, are a little more recent, but they're all marketed by minor players, and not well marketed within the US. They're a techie niche, still.
But, why run Ubuntu, or Windows XP, on a tablet, if it's not going to give you a meaningful tablet experience. UMPC tablets just about all had thumb keyboards on them, because they didn't have decent touch screen UI's that obsoleted the thumb keyboard. That's why the netbook finally took off, it fixed both the problems with an UMPC: lower cost, and didn't
require specialized versions of OSes, because it was a notebook type format instead of a tablet format.
Windows 7 is supposed to be better (I keep hearing from Mac friends, who can't wait any longer for a netbook, that it's a decent platform, and that MS is finally "getting it" with various aspects of things). But, I'm not interested in going in that direction. Android, Mac OS X, or Maemo are the only things I'm interested in seeing on a mid-range tablet right now. If Ubuntu fixes some UI issues (and becomes more like Maemo), then it could work on a tablet. But that's the extent of my OS interests on tablets right now.
Exactly! Tablets have been around for years but no one really uses them. An apple Tablet would just be a bigger iPhone. And, although the iPhone and an apple tablet are pretty good mobile computing devices, we all know that there are a lot of times where you really just need a full on mac.
Besides I prefer my comps. with a mouse and keyboard anyway.
I haven't seen anyone suggest that an Apple Tablet, even running Mac OS X instead of iPhone OS X, would replace a full on Mac. What it would do is give you a bigger screen than an iPhone, for doing bigger tasks. My phone or pocketable is really too small for decent note taking. Even with an external keyboard, the screen doesn't display enough information to give you a decent font size + text area to read enough of your notes to know if you've missed something ... or to scan back to remember context if you paused in your note taking for a second (or if you switched over to a drawing app, or to the camera, to capture a drawing).
Pocketables just aren't up to the task of being your entire mobile device. That's why it's laughable when people say "the iPhone is Apple's netbook". It's not the software that matters here, it's the range of input and output. The iPhone's screen isn't big enough, and it doesn't support external keyboards. It's even a limitation for a Nokia NIT (N800 or N810), which has a bigger, higher resolution, screen than an iPhone/iPodTouch. It did everything I wanted, software wise, but I needed a bigger screen in many meeting situations.
One of the reasons I'm leery of an iPhone based iTablet is ... that lack of keyboard and external display support. Like you said, sometimes you need a full size display and a full size keyboard. The Notion Ink and the EnTourage eDGe both give you the option for external keyboards. And the Notion Ink says it'll have external display support, as well. That should make it easily go from (and be usable at all of) my bus and train ride to work, to the meeting room (with my USB keyboard), to my desk at work (on my KVM switch, shared with my mac), back to the bus and train ride home, and to my desk at home (on my KVM switch, shared with an older iMac and a newer Ubuntu nettop). I can use it as a tablet on the bus, train, or on my couch. I can use it as a display with an external keyboard at a meeting (or at a table, etc.). I can use it for my lighter weight tasks at my desk.
Certainly, Apple could fix the iPhone platform, giving it external keyboard and display support, for an iTablet. And they'd need to, in order to interest me. (and they'd also have to fix that "can't bypass the app store" limitation, as well)
Anyway ... I don't see tablets as fitting your "either or" view of things. It's not "EITHER a tablet with a small screen with no keyboard OR a desktop machine with big screen and keyboard". A properly designed mid-range tablet will be able to do both. Any tablet that can't do both, is insufficiently designed. The difference between a tablet and a desktop should be "where you'd use it" and "that you'd only use the tablet for less-horsepower tasks, due to having fewer cpu/ram/power resources".
