I am going to suggest Mr. Jobs is up to something that circles around the concept of wanting to introduce what might be called the "21st century version of the notepad". Of course, no analogy is perfect but this best approximates what I believe he is going to deliver.
Simply put, Steve envisions a device that is carried by all and used in both ones personal and professional life and that moves computing beyond an archaic desktop/laptop paradigm to a "notepad" paradigm.
Today, in both business and academia most users of laptops and desktops carry physical notebooks to meetings....I am one of these. And in these notebooks we write down meeting notes, ideas, sketches, etc. What if a small and mobile computing device could replace this core functionality and yet hook into the internet, music, movies, video and the "cloud" as well as sync with existing devices such as an iMac or iPod or Windows PC? This device would become the indispensable thing that we carry with us during work or at school in our "workday" personas and would also serve as an information and entertainment device in our "playtime" personas when we need to access games, news, music, etc.
And what would you call this new category of product? Not a tablet, nor a slate - but something that alludes to the idea of a "notepad" - or the 21st century "CPU meets internet, meets notepaper, meets music, meets video, meets images, meets books, meets newspapers" version of a notepad.
My prediction for the new name, derived from the core vision of Steve Jobs is the "iNote". Stay tuned and see how close I am in either the specific name or the core concept behind the product.
