I've been a customer of Apple since 1984, when I bought my first Mac. It was a clunky little beast, but they all were at the time. I bought a compiler and bought the documentation and, after three years of self-study, I got a job as a Mac programmer working for a company that did Mac software on contract. I ported games, did some telecom software and, finally, we created some Mac products of our own. I continued to be a Mac programmer until maybe 1995 or so, when I jumped ship to become a Java programmer (I could see the internet was going to be big).

So, I've had a long time to observe Apple. For several years, we were even able to get engineering prototypes before they were publicly announced and got to be "insiders" in a small way (and no, we never, ever once considered leaking anything we knew – it was obvious that, if we did, we'd never see another prototype and we would feel the full weight of Apple's legal department). For the first twenty years or so, from about 1984 to 2004, the media ran the same story over and over again: Apple is Doomed. It was always something. Their latest computer was lacking in some way or Microsoft was surging ahead or whatever. In 2001, when Apple brought out the first iPod, the reaction in the tech press was generally negative (here's a comment thread at the MacRumors site from the time, for example).

It was only after the iPod became a huge success and the iPhone behind it (and I would argue that the implications of the iPhone still haven't sunk in to a lot of people) that the press turned around and started writing positive articles about Apple. Now, of course, they do nearly all of Apple's PR work by breathlessly passing around clueless rumors of the Next Big Thing coming from Apple.

This month, everyone is excitedly waiting to see what Apple is going to announce on the 27th of January. We know it's going to be some sort of tablet computer, but no one knows just how Apple is going to succeed in this challenge that has evaded so many other companies. Since I have the advantage of no insider knowledge, but much observational knowledge, I'm going to take a crack at scooping everyone and predicting just what it's going to be like:

First of all, think about the form factor. Think of an iPhone that is the size of a paperback book. It has slightly less heft than the iPhone, because it isn't so densely packed with components, but it feels solid in your hand. It has "margins" around the screen on left and right (just as the iPhone has them at top and bottom) so that you can hold it in your palm with the fingers curled around to the front. Where you hold an iPhone by the bottom or cradle it in your palm, you hold a slate in your palm and wrap your fingers around the edge (like the picture, although Apple's device is rumored to be smaller than the one in the picture and Apple's device will use a finger, not a stylus – I suspect Apple's device will be thinner, too, around three quarters of an inch thick). The device thus works the same whether you're right or left handed.

What do you do with something like this? You certainly don't do word processing or spreadsheets or run other traditional "desktop" applications. Instead, you surf the web, check your email, consume media (movies, music, books, etc), play games and interact with your other devices. This last item is the one that I think people have underestimated. Imagine that you're at the office and you go to a meeting. Instead of taking your laptop or a notepad, you take your tablet computer. The tablet, however, is linked to your main computer (desktop or laptop) over the network. You can plug it into a projector and show a presentation. You can pull up files from your computer and reference them during the meeting. You might schedule the next meeting (again, in synchronization with your main computer) or take a few notes or other action items that are synched up with your todo list on your main computer. The tablet, in effect, becomes a mobile UI to your computer.

The iPhone just isn't quite big enough or powerful enough to do this. Its screen just can't effectively display a spreadsheet or gantt chart, but the tablet won't have that limitation. Whether it's at home or at the office, the tablet becomes a handy mobile link to your computer (especially in the rumored 10-inch screen version). It also becomes a remote control: if you have a Mac already attached to speakers or a television, the tablet lets you call up media and play it on the big screen or nice speakers (the tablet will also likely have space to store its own media, but I'll bet a shiny nickel it's the remote access that becomes the preferred way to go, since you might even be far away – on vacation – and your tablet still will be able to access your files).

The tablet will not only have room for enough CPU power to handle bigger tasks, but it will have enough battery for a longer time between charges. I'll go out on a limb here and predict at least eight hours of continuous use out of one charge. Recharging will be via a dedicated wall-wart type charger or a USB connection to your computer (when the tablet will synch to your PC) and some sort of stand that lets the tablet become a digital picture frame (or clock) while not in use or charging. The tablet will excel in its ability to communicate with other stuff. It will have G3 network capability (if you buy a contract and enable it), fast WiFi, bluetooth, USB (maybe not firewire) and IR ports (so that it can also be a universal remote to all of your home devices). It will have accelerometers and GPS, just like the iPhone.

The tablet will support existing apps from the Apple store. All of the thousands of apps that aren't G3-phone-related will play in an iPhone-sized window on the tablet. In addition, the existing iPhone APIs will be expanded to allow the programming of apps for the new tablet form factor. Apple will make it possible (probably after an irritating delay) to write apps that work on both the iPhone and the tablet.

While you can use the iPhone as a book reader (I do), it's a bit cramped. The tablet will make a fine book reader. Sure, it won't have the low power, high contrast screen the Kindle has and it's battery life will thus be shorter, but it will be great for many use cases. My use case is reading in bed after my wife is asleep and the tablet will excel at that. About the only use case that the tablet will give up to dedicated book readers is outdoor reading.

Unlike the iPhone, one way the tablet will be used is as a passive display. The tablet sits on a charging stand in the corner of your room or on your bedside table and displays something meant to be read at a distance. It could be a stock ticker, a clock, a twitter feed (or any other social media feed) or a window to a process running on your desktop computer.

The tablet will also have a camera capable of still photographs and video. The camera will be user-facing to enable video conferencing, but will have some way to film while pointing the camera away from yourself. Any tablet connected to a sufficiently fast network will be able to video conference with any other tablet or Mac.

So, the thing to take away from my prediction is this: the tablet isn't going to be a phone and isn't going to be a low-power replacement for a laptop computer. It's a whole new animal. Let me explain a bit why I think this:

Apple learned, around the time that Jobs returned to the helm, that they were never going to beat Microsoft in the generic PC market. It was too late, anyway: the desktop operating system is quickly becoming a commodity (Linux is free, after all). Instead, their research showed that the desktop computer was just one path to the future. In addition to the traditional computer, there were lots of other niches opening up and each of those was ripe for exploitation. One niche was the music player, and the iPod aimed there (and later expanded to video). The next niche was the pocket communicator and the iPhone went there. This next niche is a media player and communicator (sort of an iPhone with a big screen), but much more importantly a link back to your main computer(s). Instead of a laptop, why not carry a proxy to a big, powerful, cheap desktop computer? Eventually, I'll bet it will even work with Windows. The desktop computing operating system is a commodity, the time is fast approaching when there just isn't any money there. Unlike Microsoft, Apple is planning ahead, looking for all the new niches that can be exploited in the future and the tablet is the third major new product in this pattern. Instead of tackling Microsoft directly, they have gone around them to the new markets beyond.

Thus I have spoken. Will I be correct? We'll know in just three weeks.

Update: So, the cat is out of the bag and I was mostly, but not completely, right. First, physical form factor: roughly 8 x 10 x 0.5 inches - a little thinner than I thought, but a larger screen than I expected (I expected they would start with a smaller screen and scale up). Battery life is a bit more than I predicted, 10 hours. Also, they do plan to support word processing, spreadsheets, etc, via new versions of their iWork product – but sold as apps from the app store for $9.99 each. Most importantly, no connection to your Mac desktop (although they do allow synching with iTunes, of course) and no camera.

I'll bet that the lack of camera (and no GPS either, which may not be a big deal with this device) was left for an upgrade path. Six months from now, they have to offer the bigger, better, more expensive model and I suspect that one will be the one with the camera.

So, did Apple hit it out of the park again? I'm not sure, but I think so. The main selling point is that this sucker runs (as I predicted above) all of the apps from the app store, just better/bigger. It's going to be a kick-ass gaming platform for the mass of "casual" gamers like myself (people who wouldn't buy a dedicated game platform and expensive titles, but would buy a multi-function platform that includes lots of interesting, cheap games). It looks like it will be a seriously nice book reader - for indoors, at least. It looks like it will really do a nice job with movies and TV shows and other iTunes content. With a little application development, every newspaper and magazine out there can come up with "an app for that", which is their content, even behind a pay wall (it's not impossible, if this device reaches a large enough audience, that newspapers will offer digital subscriptions to an iPad version of their content - how much better would your newspaper be if it included movies and sound?). At an entry-level cost of $499, it seems like it might just do well.

As for my discussion above about Apple opening a new niche, I was exactly on target. Whether or not they are successful, the new niche this opens up is right between the laptop and the iPhone. It's a bigger, nicer iPod Touch, but with the power to run much more interesting apps. In his presentation, Steve even mentioned netbooks and the fact that they aren't better at anything than a laptop, just cheaper. The iPad will be better than a laptop at lots of things.