Apple Tablet changes the game. Again.

APPLE caught me unawares with the iPhone. Why do you need an iPod to make calls, I first thought? Hmm. I’ll stick with my Nokia.

What an idiot. I failed to see that call-making ability wasn’t central to the iPhone’s appeal. No, it was the other things it could do on the 3G network that mean I now wake up in mental anguish because I don’t own one.

With an iPod, you’re socially networked. You have Facebook, full Twitter, iGoogle, Flickr, YouTube… everything you need so’s not to be tied to a desk.

At the moment, I access many of these through the iMac – great, addictive, brilliant and all that – but very much a one-location activity. I can send basic Tweets from my boggo Nokia, but do not much more than that. Facebook? Window shopping, little more. And there’s not a cat’s hope of doing anything Flickry.

What about WiFi and the MacBook, you may ask? Well, you’re right. It means I can sit anywhere. And doesn’t your iPod have WiFi, plus Safari? Yup, both true.

The MacBook means I can FB away during Corrie, and the iPod means so long as there’s WiFi, there’s some form of connection – Emails too, through MobileMe.

Fine… but it does get a bit, uh, ‘hot’, lugging a hard-working laptop around. And it’s still not fully intuitive, or totally convenient, or… well, detached from work.

To lessen the risk of ‘accidentally’ opening up MSWord and subbing tomorrow’s news, I’ll turn to the iPod. And cuss Apple for being devious. No Bluetooth, you see. So, no remote 3G access. It’s WiFi or nowt. So, short of specific locations, it’s not ‘mobile net either’.

Enter the Tablet. Convenient. Flexible, Highly portable. With, I’d imagine, Bluetooth, for 3G mobily connection. Super hi-res screen. Interface to die for – and that little-demand touch-screen interface that really does make it beguilingly convenient.

Indeed, it’s so ‘easily always on’, I reckon it is a genuine game-changer. It’s come along, just as the possibilities of Real Time Web enter wider acceptance. And, RTW + Tablet = virtual excuseless reasons not to be perma-on.

Will I queue up to buy one, for circa £350? Probably: watch out Birmingham’s Bull Ring, for another tent. Because I know my life will change because of it. Will mean I really can don’t have to be sat here, typing, remote from the motorsport on Sky – I can do both at once.

Can’t at the mo, though. So, you’ll have to excuse me…

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