400,000 Apple tablets?

The Apple tablet rumor hype has reached full force and now China Business news is reporting that Foxconn is making between 300,000 and 400,00 10.6” tablets for Apple. Still no date set for arrival but Q1 next year is mentioned. A 10.6” device seems a little larger than I expected, but as I mentioned in a previous post if the Apple tablet is positioned as an eBook reader on steroids then maybe that’s about right. Apple’s iPod Touch being the only really successful MID on the market it will be interesting to see if Steve Jobs can conquer the tablet category as well.

A lot of the success of an Apple tablet will rely on the applications and frankly I can’t think of a single app on my iPhone that really needs more screen real-estate. Perhaps the YouTube app might be a bit better with a larger screen but that’s about it. I’m even quite satisfied with the smaller screen browser.

Apple’s recent positioning of the iPhone 3Gs as a gaming platform might be in preparation for developers to be thinking about how to create tablet-specific games. I suppose if the Apple tablet includes an accelerometer you could easily imagine holding the tablet like a steering wheel that you can peer into for racing, and flying games.

I’m not sold on the market need for an Apple tablet, or eBook reader for that matter but if Apple can get content deals like exclusive rights to Dan Brown’s novels, for example, then they’ll be able to give consumers the excuse they need to fork out $800 for yet another tech product.

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