I usually don’t like touch screen interfaces.  They always seem clunky, unresponsive, and less useful than their equally priced non-touch counterparts.  Enter the iPhone and iPod Touch, and Apple introduced something that wasn’t perfect, but was dramatically better than any other touch based platform that came before it.  It has an operating system that makes sense for its capabilities, rapid response times, and a usable keyboard instead of a horrid handwriting to text converter.  It has been developed to the point where an iPhone can replace a computer for light tasks.

Just a while back, Barron’s claimed an analyst had used a new Apple tablet that features a 10 inch screen.  Details are scarce, but evidence is mounting.  Several other news agencies have reported similar stories, there are unknown devices supported in the new iPhone OS, and it appears that Apple’s Taiwan factory is gearing up for increased production of something.  The most popular theory suggests an announcement sometime in September. Pictured below is an unofficial mock-up (via Kotaku).

To say that I’m excited would be an understatement.  The rumored price of the tablet is $800, and it will have everything I need in a computing device.  I’m a console gamer, so I don’t care about it’s almost guaranteed lack of muscle, I watch my blu-rays on a real TV, so I don’t care about HD support, and I don’t do anything ultra intensive with my PC currently.  I browse the internet, play music, edit photos, write papers and make excel charts.  Really that’s all I (and most users) need, and this will have a similar ultra-friendly interface that we’ve grown accustomed to from the iPhone.  Who wants a netbook when you can have a net tablet that actually works like it’s supposed to? Keep your eyes and ears open come September, I suspect something very exciting is going to happen.