The Apple Tablet fits in the future

The rumored Apple Table (iTablet, MacTablet or even TabletMac) is on the horizon with more and more stories revolving around a cheap, portable touchscreen. And since the CrunchPad is dead, and the competition take on the market is pretty bad, the upcoming Apple product seems reasonable. Even more with today’s announcement of Time Inc. and their digital magazine concept. Do you know what this means to Apple?

It means huge bucks. Imagine you come back from work, kick off on the couch with your new Apple Tablet – iTunes has already downloaded the magazines and daily newspapers you subscribe. You just swipe through them, watch videos, post comments. You check the sports section, with best clips, charts and statistics. You move on to the TV schedule, you select what your Apple TV should record, and what channel you want to watch now.

You go through the classifieds and you can call or email straight from the pages of the newspaper. Publishers can post interactive polls and quizzes. Remember The Minority Report and their digital newspapers? The future might be closer than you think. Just not so thin yet, but still appealing.

I think this is what Apple is trying to do. They have the platform for micropublishing and micro-payments (iTunes), and it proved very well both with music, videos and apps (the App Store). Publishers are striving to find a new, up-to-date business model. Sharing their content for free to any search engine and internet user is not good enough. Moreover, if Apple introduces the podcast, everyone-can-contribute model, even the smaller local publisher from any place in the World can get access to this huge distribution channel.

First Wired has made the iTablet concept app. Now the Times Inc. with its Sport Illustrated. Something is definitely in the air. And Apple has done it once, redefining the way we buy and sell music. It did it twice, with the apps. They say it’s three times a charm, so why not to push the paper media to the 21st Century?