There's no iTablet or iPad. Say hi to the new MacBook.

The internet rumor mill is often business senseless. If doctors make the worst businessmen and businesswomen, then technology evangelists might come second.

Case in point: Apple's new tablet device.



It's referred to as the iPad, the iTablet, etc. But it's not being referred to as the next MacBook. Why?

From a technology perspective, it might share more in common with an iPhone. It's likely that the new device will share the same multi-touch technology and a software framework more similar to the iPhone than a Mac Pro. Some of the usability enhancements will likely spread from the iPhone to rest of the product lines, such as the ease of software installation and upgrading. It will likely come subsidized with a cellular contract. It will act more like an iPhone. It will look more like an iPhone. But it won't be the iTablet.

From a business perspective, the new tablet is clearly being positioned as the next MacBook for several reasons.

1. Apple dropped the prices of the MacBook Pro to about the price of the non-pro versions. Why keep the MacBook Pro name if you plan on phasing out the original MacBook namesake? There's a naming hole. Apple pays too close attention to naming to oversee this. Otherwise it might have made sense to introduce a new name with the unibody design, a fairly significant leap in notebook design.



2. From a pricing perspective, Apple will want the new device priced as high as feasibly possible. Calling it an iTablet will make $899 look like a huge premium to the iPhone. Calling it a MacBook might make it attractive at $899 as a low-end notebook. What would you rather have? An expensive gadget or a cheap computer?



3. More abstractly, the new MacBook will push forward the next paradigm shift in computing. Always-on networking, multi-touch interfaces, abstracting traditional computing concepts (the filesystem, software installation/uninstallation, etc.). The innovations from Apple's mobile unit will find a role in the more traditional uses for a computer -- notebooks and desktops -- so it's advantageous for Apple to push the new device as a computer replacement and not a mobile gadget. The new MacBook could redefine the computer.

Say hi to the new MacBook.