Art and Chris Have a Totally Legitimate Review of Apple’s New Tablet, by Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia – Pop Art… and Chris #60

Dear Art & Chris,

Apple has an event scheduled Wednesday to unveil a mysterious new product widely believed to be a tablet computer.  Our business is clamoring to get even the smallest morsels of concrete information.  We’ve heard through the grapevine that you guys have obtained an early copy of the device.  Is there any chance you could answer the attached sheet of questions?

Scott Ard, Editor-in-Chief, CNET

Scott,

As media trendsetters beyond compare of course we were given an early version of Apple’s new device and of course we can tell answer your questions.  You have to understand we are bound by a very complicated non-disclosure agreement and have to be careful about what we say.  That out of the way, let’s get to those questions.

Is it a tablet?

That depends on your definition of a tablet really.  It’s certainly not a pill.  But it isn’t really a tablet in that it isn’t made of stone, clay or wood as specified by the dictionary.  We can tell you that it sinks if dropped into a pool of water so it is not a witch.

Does it have a front-facing camera?

Is there another kind of camera?  Why would we want a picture of the inside of a camera?  Come on Scott, we thought you knew stuff about technology and could ask us some intelligent questions.

Is it always connected to the Internet?

We can confirm that it does have an on/off switch and that it definitely is not connected to the Internet.  Therefore it is certainly not always connected.  It is often connected other times.

Does it allow you to read magazines or books on it?

This is an odd question.  We thought these would be technical questions.  You can certainly put books and magazines on top of the device and they more or less read like normal.  Having tested it to respond to this question we can tell you it really adds an extra heft to your magazine and is probably sub-optimal.

What kind of OS does it run on?

We can answer that definitively.  It runs on a modified version of an Apple OS.  It uses icons and runs applications.  We are unaware how many letters they’ll use to describe the applications but considering it’s midway between and iPhone and a computer we assume they’ll be called applis.

What is the target audience for this device?

People who have tasks that could be better accomplished with a mobile computing device such as calculation or retrieval of data.  Also people who want to use media in a situation where they don’t have access to their home theatre.  You really didn’t know this already?  Oh yeah, and nerds.

The bottom line is that when Apple unveils this device tomorrow it won’t be life changing by any means.  The world will be exactly the same and the obsessing over tech gadgets will seem remarkably petty next to the giant weight of the world’s problems.  Your life will not be changed until the item ships.  Then it will solve all your problems.