Waiting for the other shoe to drop

jkontherun.com is one of my favorite gadget sites not because it's a spec-a-thon like Gizmodo and Engadget can be but because it's written from a user perspective. He talks about gadgets that he actually uses in his day-to-day life and I find that perspective more credible than the 'we used it for a week and here's what we think.'

He has been in Vegas for CES this year and he had an interesting quote re: the iSlate or whatever Apple will announce.

It is clear that the months of rumors about the Apple tablet have gotten a lot of companies concerned. The conversations I had off the record with reps at several companies indicated that it is expected that Apple will bring something unexpected to market with its tablet, and that has many competitors concerned. Thus the race to get slates to market before Apple does is considered important.

I do think being first-to-market is not going to help them. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 device and actually had specs that appeared underpowered when compared to the competition. It was the total package that clinched its' success. I think the iSlate is going to be the same thing. It's not the form factor that people will be talking about; it's going to be the total package.