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Hey everybody,

We might as well just make it a throwback week for all the Apple news that's out there right now. In addition to Phill Schiller's announcement that Apple's holiday line is "set," there's a new set of...ready for it?...gossip about the Apple tablet! Yay! After you read this you'll hopefully feel the way we do--we're getting close!

Twenty Years in the Making
As much as we'd like to think that the Slate, or iTablet, or whatever other clever name you want to call it, will be a new addition to the technology world, there are a bajillion netbooks out there that have the same set of specifications the tablet will. However, those specs started being tweaked and refined almost twenty years ago in Cupertino with the Pen Mac. The Pen Mac and its sequel, the PenLite, were tablet concepts with styluses that ended up on the cutting room floor in favor of handheld devices. Now that we have the iPod and iPhone, maybe Apple will roll out one of the only things that's missing from its lineup--maybe the tablet's time has finally come.

Times Slip?
And then there's the latest piece of conjecture that's been making fans crazy--Bill Keller's possible slip of the tongue at a digital media talk at the New York Times. He heralded the coming of "the impending Apple slate," which could be a flippant, off hand remark or actual knowledge. After all, the Times was rumored to be in discussions with Apple about a new device for the dissemination of news...we'll have to wait and see, but it feels so right! (we know, we know...we've been saying it for months.)

Retrevo Survey
We do have something for you as far as cold hard facts are concerned...a new study done across a sample of over seven hundred people by the shopping site retrevo.com has some actual empirical data concerning the market response to an Apple tablet. To continue growing, Apple has to capture more PC users in its net, and they have to move fast if they want to do that with the tablet. Fewer PC users than Mac users already own a netbook, and about twenty percent of each group plan to buy one by the end of this year. iPhone users had the highest drive to own new technology, with fifty nine percent already owning a netbook or planning to buy one shortly. Talking about price proved interesting, too: whereas the majority of Mac users were willing to pay upwards of six hundred bucks for the rumoured tablet, PC users said no way--only thirty six percent of the users surveyed said they'd fork over that much cash.

Check out the full study results here,, and tell us what the tablet's worth to you on Twitter!

Till tomorrow, Newsies...