What happens if the Apple tablet doesn’t live up to its hype?

I know these are difficult words to ask for some, but it’s time to be asked:

“What if the Apple tablet doesn’t live up to its hype?”

What if Amazon CTO Werner is correct and sane judgment has been “suspended?”

What if this is all a masterful attempt at getting us to watch an announcement for…for…for…gasp…a new iLife application? Could this be all that’s going to happen?

Might the many dreams of Apple tablets be shattered on the 27th?

Eh.

Probably not.

But let’s play along for a minute. Let’s assume that there’s some bit of new hardware announced at the birth of creation, the 27 of January, 2010.

OK. Let’s even call it a tablet of some sorts. Something bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a MacBook. Let’s say it’s about the X and Y dimensions of a netbook. Now what if that’s about it?

Yeah, there will probably be something unique about this new MacNetic device, but will it attract the numbers of enthusiastic gadget fans that let’s say the iPhone has? Or will it be more on par with the Apple TVish device?

I’m going to take a wildly huge guess (hahaha) and suggest somewhere in between. That’s right, I’m giving myself plenty of leeway so I can call it a #fail (or worse yet ‘niche’ device) if its sales are close to an Apple TV or an outright success if it’s numbers approach sales of the iPhone. Plenty of room in there for the naysayers to call this a failure and a success if you ask me.

And if the device, by chance, is missing some features here and there–which it will–no version one device has everything in it–not a single one–so what? For those expecting nirvana, forget it. For those expecting nothing, forget that too. It’s going to be somewhere inbetween, and whatever it is accept it for what it is and figure out if it’s something you can use or not. If not, so what. If it is useful, then save up and get one.

What’s the big deal if the device is not useful to one person or another? The online pontificators will be trying to figure out if the hype was too great or not, but for the individual, it’s absolutely the wrong question. It’s about individual value.

That’s the situation with Tablet PCs, with eReaders, with MIDs, with smartphones, with just about any gadget I can think of.

My suggestion: Get a good night sleep (or a couple of them), think it over and jump on the Apple unicorn if you do see the value–for yourself. And then, enjoy.