Following a relatively lacklustre Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas - where, surprisingly, a mere pen became the highlight of our show - we're left looking for a device that can capture our imagination, and we might just see it at an Apple event next week.
The Cupertino, California-based company has a history of usurping CES announcements with headline-grabbing products of its own, and this year all attention is turning to the eagerly-anticipated Apple Tablet.
Although yet to be officially confirmed by Apple itself, the device has been subject to intense speculation and now looks almost certain to be the highlight of the company's "latest creation" event, taking place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California, at 10am PT on Wednesday January 27th.
What can we expect to see from the company whose iPhone set the trend in the last decade? Rumours are rife, with Clayton Morris at Fox News suggesting that "the tablet device, iPhone 4, and a new round of iLife 2010 software" will be on the menu.
Don't get your hopes up for a new iPhone device, however, as Morris suggests that the event "won't see new iPhone hardware" and will instead focus on "next-generation software".
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Trachtenberg at The Wall Street Journal has stoked the fires by stating that Apple is in negotiations with HarperCollins Publishers to bring a catalogue of ebooks to the rumoured Tablet device, which in recent weeks has been dubbed a variety of names including the Maclet, the Applet and the iPad.
Make what you will of the hyperbole surrounding Apple's fabled tablet, but with the industry generally failing to capitalise on a form factor that has witnessed the birth of faltering devices such as UMPCs, MIDs, Tablets and Slates, it might be Apple who ultimately demonstrates how it's done.
