What will the Apple tablet do best?

As the days wind down to the introduction of the new Apple tablet, one of the key questions centers around functionality. What will it do, and  in which of those functions will it truly excel?

The new Apple tablet is being pigeonholed by the press even before it has been introduced. Depending on who you listen to, the tablet is imbued with different sorts of “best features.” Some of those are noted below:

Video virtuosity – The bigger screen of the tablet, when compared to the iPod Touch or iPhone, at perhaps a better resolution, should make videos crisp and clean, plus the faster speed should make video streaming a snap.

E-reader excellence – It appears that publishers from books to newspapers are lining up behind the tablet as the device that will straighten out problems in their industry, with just the right size and panache, plus color.

App agility – It has been said that the tablet will be like an iPod Touch on steroids: bigger, faster, and so on. That said, it will have access to the tens of thousands of apps available for the iPhone and Touch, making it a very versatile beast, indeed.

Phone phenomenalism – Either dedicated phone features via wired or Bluetooth headset using VOIP over 3G wireless will give the tablet an extra dimension, though we’re still praying for actual multitasking capabilities.

Musical muscularity – With more storage than the iPod or iPhone, it should hold a lot of music, and even music video. In addition, Apple’s iTunes is being changed to give us more music, even streaming music over the tablet’s Wi-Fi and 3G wireless connections, as well as the video mentioned above.

And surely there is more at which the tablet will excel: Apple Insider says games. The truth, though, is that the biggest thing the tablet will have going for it is versatility. It will be a lot of power in a small package, easily portable (though more difficult than an iPhone) and will combine all of our devices into one. Imagine your GPS software running on a 10-inch screen! Plus music, video, books, magazines, newspapers, and a myriad of applications. The tablet will be the next big thing because it does all of that, plus anything else that a programmer can imagine to take advantage of its perfect size. The internet highway ahead looks open for a new era in portable computing!

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