People in the know and strokers of beards have grave
doubts that Apple's tablet will make the big splash that the tame Apple press
appears to expect.
According to
DigiTimes market watchers have come out with mixed shipment expectations for 2010. The
most positive claim that tablet sales, including Apples will top as many as 8-9
million units this year. However those who are less optimistic look to shipments
of merely 1-1.2 million units.
Skeptics pointed out that sales of the MacBook Air have
not measured up to expectations, meaning that not all Apple-branded products
can expect guaranteed sales. Few believe that people will be so dumb as to pay
$600-1,000 for a device equipped with a virtual keyboard, simply on the promise
of improved touch input or e-book functionality.
If sales of the device are weaker than expected, other PC
vendors might give up on their plans to release copycat products and that might
hamper any growth of the tablet PC market in 2010. (You say that as if it were a bad thing. sub.ed.)