Those who know what the Apple Tablet actually is have had a circle of secrecy woven around them twice by Cupertino’s Mephistophelean lawyers, but with all the ballyhoo right now about a late January announcement, it’s still easy to forget we actually don’t really know the first thing about the forthcoming device. How big will it be? What will the hardware be like? Is it more like a Macbook without a keyboard, or is it just like a big iPod Touch? What operating system will the Apple Tablet even run?
It’s been assumed for awhile that the Apple Tablet will probably be more iPhone-like than Mac-like, since Apple wants another platform on which the App Store can shine. It now looks like that assumption is correct: Apple has reportedly told select developers to ready full screen version of their apps to demo on the Apple Tablet in January.
According to Business Insider’s source, the Apple Tablet isn’t slated to go on sale in January, but only be announced, similarly to the way the original iPhone was announced over six months before it was actually released. This time window will allow other app developers to update their applications to support Apple’s new device.
It seems pretty sure, then, that the Apple Tablet will run the iPhone OS. But maybe not. What I wonder is whether or not the Apple Tablet will actually converge both of Apple’s operating systems — iPhone OS and OS X — and herald the introduction of the App Store to traditional Mac computers as well.