5 Reasons Why The Apple Tablet Will Fail

Posted by Editor on Jan 25, 2010 in Apple, Tablets

Readers of this blog will note that Tasty Slate is unabashedly fanboyish when it comes to all things Apple and tablet related. That said, not everyone has their spinning propeller hat ready to roll just yet. So, let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment and please feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments for pro/con or other reasons we should add. Here are five reasons why the Apple Tablet Will Fail:

5- Too expensive. How expensive is too expensive exactly? Personally I might pay up to $999 for a device that replaces my laptop and functions as a phone as well. But recent surveys have suggested that a majority of consumers won’t pay more than $799 at the high end and would prefer a price under $500.

4- Wireless account required. There have been a lot of recent rumblings that Apple will take the January 27th event as an opportunity to break AT&T’s exclusivity with the iPhone and extend this as well to the tablet with Verizon waiting in the wings. But will we be able to buy the tablet without a 2-year cellular contract, regardless of the carrier, or will that not be an option?

3- Apple TV. Every once in a while Apple fails to connect the desires of consumers with shipping products. Perhaps no one wants yet another gadget to play around with and is happy with smartphones and laptops. Apple has tried repeatedly to relaunch the Apple TV with only limited success, especially compared to the iPhone, iPod and pretty much every other product its launched recently- with the possible exception of the iPod HiFi.

2- Interface complexity. This seems like a long shot but there’s word on the street that the tablet will have a higher learning curve than an iPhone and will feature new forms of interaction that will need to be learned. Will this push consumers out of their comfort zone and relegate the product to the real geek zone, limiting it’s critical mass?

1- History. Truth is Apple is not the first to introduce a tablet computer and this is not even Apple’s first attempt at making a tablet- see Newton. Only Palm had a brief success in the ‘90s with its Pilot handheld PDA/tablet computer. Microsoft’s Bill Gates predicted years ago that tablets would take over but they’ve never caught on.

So what do you think? Will the tablet fail or does it have enough momentum to make it huge?