"[at Apple] there are no plans to make a tablet. It turns out people want keyboards. When Apple first started out, "People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this."
I've always thought that Steve Jobs is a rare commodity in the technology world: someone who knows how to deliver a new product or feature that will catch fire. Sure, he bombed with the Newton, but he shot the moon with The Macintosh, 3.5 floppies, firewire, Wi-Fi, the iPod, and perhaps with iTunes as well (time will tell).
On the other hand, Bill Gates, who--granted--is not a hardware developer, has always been behind the curve (he admits he didn't get the whole Internet thing until late in the game). So now Gates is behind the Tablet PC. Is the Tablet going to catch on?
I think that the Tablet is a cool idea, but I think Jobs is right too. The reason the Tablet PC is cool is that it has the prospect of drawing in some of the people who can't use keyboards very well. But those are mainly people who are older and have limited life spans. The people who want to use iPods and an online music service like iTunes have significantly longer life spans.
So maybe Jobs is right to factor mortality into his marketing strategy.
