First Mac Tablet. Guess What? It’s Not From Apple.

Steve Jobs hasn’t responded to my request for an Apple tablet Mac. Now I find one available on eBay. Except it’s not from Apple. Think iBook with a touch screen. And a lot more money.

I’m on record as saying I’ll buy a tablet Mac that fits my basic specifications. Hey, if Apple can Think Different, then I can dream different.

The near-perfect form factor iBook is the start. Make it a little thinner, cut it in half, make it wireless but with a built in iSight camera, touch screen, Mac OS X and a hefty (though small) hard drive, and I’m in Gadget Heaven.

Guess what? Something close to those specs (well, not that close, but aiming in the right direction with the touch screen) is available to the highest bidder on eBay.

It’s an iBook with a touch screen. This one is called iTab, cute for iTablet, iGuess.

Simply put, the iTab is an iBook, the 12-inch model. The screen is removed, a touch screen is attached, then the screen is flipped around so the iTab becomes a tablet Mac. Or, iBook.

If you just gotta have a tablet Mac, this is the place to start.

If you just gotta have a lobotomy and need an excuse for someone to probe sharp devices into your brain, iTab is the place to start.

Why? You’re a bleeding edge person at heart if you get one of these cute little devices.

There’s no Apple iBook warranty. That’s voided as soon as the iTab people behead the iBook. Literally.

The folks who make, uh, rather, disfigure and then cosmetically repair said iBook via plastic surgery, will guarantee you that they check the iBook, uh, iTab, before they send it to you.

After that, any required repairs are up to you. As the iTab folks say, ”We will not fix any broken iTabs.” That’s thinking different.

Why do you want a tablet Mac? Handwriting recognition, right? After all, Mac OS X comes with built in handwriting recognition which works great on graphics tablets connected to Macs.

Uh oh. No handwriting recognition with the iTab. The proprietary touch screen technology used in iTab is not compatible with InkWell, which is Apple’s recognition technology.

How about another dose of Caveat Emptor before bedtime? Other tablet input options are available for iTab, including Keystrokes and the less expensive TouchStrokes.

As the iTab folks are fond of saying, ”Neither TouchStrokes nor KeyStrokes are included with iTab.” That’s nice to know. What is included, you ask?

Wireless. Airport Extreme is standard on the iTab. From there on, iTab highlights all the features of the iBook. Mac OS X Tiger is built in.

Apple’s Sudden Motion Sensor technology comes with each iBook. Uh, each iTab. Even more stunning is that each iTab also comes with a 1.33Ghz PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine and 512k of Level 2 Cache.

RAM is important and the iTab doesn’t skimp. You can put in as much as 1.5GB of RAM to go along with the 40GB hard drive and the iTab’s slot-loading Combo Drive which lets you burn CDs and view DVDs while you’re burning your money watching movies on a table touch screen display.

Why, the iTab even comes with the same video capability as the iBook; 1024 by 758 screen resolution, and dazzling 3D graphics with 32MB of dedicated video RAM.

You’ll also need a sheeet of plywood to cover the iTab’s touch screen to protect it from scratches, dents, nicks, sneezes, and vomit from how sick you’ll feel when you realize what you’ve really had done to a worthy iBook.

What is this luxurious opportunity to own a piece of computing history going to cost you?

Well, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is, you get to name your price.

The iTab folks are putting up 100 iTabs on eBay and you can bid your way to ownership.

The bad news is ownership has its privileges, and one of the privileges is you get to depart your money from your life in exchange for an iTab.

The starting bid is $1,500. That doesn’t even include shipping, though wholly inluded is an iBook box full of worry about that whole warranty thing.

If you’ve absolutely, postively got to have an iBook that no one else in the neighborhood has, and you have $1,520 that you were planning to burn to start a fire in the fireplace, iTab is just what you need.

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