Okay, so this topic isn't so much a rehash as it is a followup, but it's still about mining the past, so cut us a little slack on the whole "theme show" concept, willya? It's both unrealistic and inhumane to expect a perfectly consistent unifying theme woven throughout three separate scenes by a production staff with a combined attention span whose length is usually recorded in nanoseconds. In fact, our lack of focus is such a problem that we frequently change trains of thought in mid-sentence, leading people to think that we're making non sequiturs, when in reality we're just having burritos for lunch, which only take a few minutes to nuke in the microwave because we always thought that "built-in sharpener" in the Crayola 64-pack seemed a little useless.

Now that that's cleared up, let's get back to the topic at hand: the Tablet PC. You remember these things, right? They were first shown in 2000 and finally shipped last year from several Wintel manufacturers; they're sort of like laptops (indeed, they can be laptops), but you draw on the screen with a stylus. It's kinda like Microsoft took a Newton and shot it full of steroids and gamma radiation. Does any of this ring any bells? No? Well, don't feel bad: you're not alone. At least, not nearly as alone as the six people who actually bought one of these things. According to MacUser, fewer than 100,000 Tablet PCs have shipped since the product's launch last November, which certainly sounds to us like buyers are staying away in droves.

Let's put that number into a little perspective. November was eight months ago, but let's be generous and call it "two quarters." Now, Apple had a measly 2.3% market share last quarter, which analysts are fond of describing as a relatively insignificant sliver of the global computer market. And in that quarter, as we all know, Power Mac sales were in the proverbial toilet, because QuarkXPress still hadn't shipped and even the top-end G4 processor was looking oh-so-tired for high-end desktop use; people sat on their wallets awaiting the G5. And yet, even in a quarter in which Power Mac sales fell 20% and those Power Macs represented just 17% of Apple's piddling little 2.3% slice of the pie, Apple shipped 133,000 of them in a three-month period. Compare that to the 100,000 Tablet PCs shipped in over twice the amount of time, factor in how that 100,000 lumps together multiple Tablet PC products made by several different manufacturers (all of whom are probably cursing up a storm right now), and you'll probably arrive at the conclusion that the Tablet PC is, thus far, a flop. ("But how?! It includes the most significant innovation in Wintel history: the one-finger salute!")

What this means, of course, is that any hand-wringing about how Apple didn't have a tablet to counter Microsoft's version turned out to be unfounded at best. Our math's not terrific, but we figure that even if all 100,000 of those Tablet PCs sold were sold in the past three months, combined they'd still only account for 0.3% of the global computer market. Let's say that Apple had shipped its own tablet, and its sales comprised roughly the same percentage of Apple's quarterly unit sales as the Microsoft version comprises all non-Apple computer sales; at the last earnings conference call, Fred Anderson would have had to admit that Apple had sold only one or two thousand tablets all quarter. Eeek!

Okay, that reasoning's a little specious, because if Apple had done a tablet, it'd probably have been good. But you get the point: the Tablet PC hasn't lived up to its hype-- and it certainly isn't revitalizing the global PC market, as one or two of the most enthusiastic Microsoft lap dog analysts originally predicted. Between this development and the cratering of the PDA market in the past few years, it looks to us like Apple's instincts about what product segments not to pursue are spot on, whereas mosquito bites are occasionally fatal because Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day.