January 27, 2010

All eyes in the technology world are on Apple as it prepares to unveil its latest creation, amid a swirl of speculation it is a tablet computer.

At 1800 GMT on Wednesday the company will hold a news conference in San Francisco to launch the new product. Media and tech blogs have been in overdrive, amid rumours the product will be a keyboard-less tablet device.

For weeks, a flurry of photos and videos purporting to show the new device have been circulating. "One never knows what Apple might or might not do on any given Wednesday in January," said Mike Gartenberg, vice-president of strategy and analysis at research firm Interpret.

"One thing we do know for sure is we are going to see some sort of new device or category of device." The safe money is on the product being a tablet or slate-like computer which traditionally bridges the gap between smartphones and laptops.

"The question here is does Apple have a different take on this category? It has to be something that has a reason to exist all by itself and not something that lives between a phone and a computer," Mr Gartenberg told BBC News. Until now the tablet market has been regarded as a middling one with revenue of around $950m (£597m).

But many industry watchers believe Apple will do for this sector what the iPod did for MP3 players.

Apple said it sold 21m iPods last quarter and, while that represented a drop of 8% on the previous year, the company boasts a 70% market share. "Our base case assumes the new tablet adds four million shipments, $3.2bn (£2.1bn) revenue and 82 cents of earnings per share in 2010, but we see potential upside to six million units," said Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty.

"Apple is not building products for tens of thousands of enthusiasts. They are building products for tens of millions of customers," he said.

Source:-http://news.bbc.co.uk