iSlate or iGuide? Tablet or ebook reader? Apple has many guessing.

Names

The iSlate.com and iGuide.com URLs have reportedly been purchased and registered by Apple-backed corporations, according to reports from Mac Rumors and Tech Crunch. Some are saying that iSlate will be the name of the device, and iGuide the name of a related app store. Wired has a pretty thorough rundown of the how and what of the naming theory, but the URL registration occurred back in 2007 – could Apple just have been snapping up "i" names to cover its bases for future products?

Wrong?

Apple product prognosticating is as risky a tech task as they come. In a lengthy trip down memory lane, PC World's Harry McCracken looks back at the tech press's predictions ahead of the original iPhone's launch. Of the handful of articles he excerpts, none gets the iPhone exactly right, and some, like the one from Digg's Kevin Rose, are so spectacularly off-course that they're laughable to read today. The lesson, McCracken says, is not to assume anything: Don't assume that a new Apple product will be based on its predecessors. Don't assume that pricepoints and distribution channel predictions hold any water. Don't take speculation for fact, even if it comes from some high-priced industry analyst. Above all, allow for the possibility that a new product – from Apple or anyone – packs innovations that no one's guessing at.

What's our take-home message? We appear to have a few pieces to a puzzle, some seemingly well-defined, others a little amorphous, and still others completely stretching plausibility. The thing we definitely don't have, try as the tech press might, is the box the puzzle came in. In other words, we might all be thinking we're making a picture of a bunny – er, tablet – but what we're really getting is a netbook. Or a groundhog.

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