It’s official! 27JAN10 Apple Computers will introduce the iPhone Gen4 and the theorized, much talked about Apple Tablet. While tablets have been around for just short of a decade, so too were cell phones before Apple put out the iPhone. So will tablet makers like HP and Asus finally be given a stylistic blue print for a form factor that the public buys uncontrolably?

The Wall Street Journal reports that HarperCollins is already in talks with Apple to release special eBooks that specifically target the tablet. Did HarperCollins miss the boat with Barnes & Noble’s nook and its very impressive first-generation eInk renders? Will Apple’s work with eBooks sound a death knell for Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader?

“Come see out latest creation,” is what the invitation to reporters from Apple says. The Apple logo is white above splatters of colorful paint. While no one really knows what the tablet looks like or what functionality it has, HarperCollins is speculating about increased interaction and functionality between readers and their eBooks. They imagine links to author interviews, on demand video tied in to the publication and while it’s still uncertain if Apple will distribute through iTunes or HarperCollins’s own e-book store, the publisher anticipates greater value and prices for familiar titles.

With Apple’s multitouch technology well established in the user base and gadgets at Apple, the excitment of gesture navigation from HP’s touch wall to early Gateway tablets (stylus required then), the tablet promises nothing short of portable magic. As the iPhone and iMac have done, other tablet makers, whose enthusiasm for their own tablet products has waned, will be back in full force and faster than they were for the iPhone-competition devices. I fully expect Asus to be first to market with something first-rate by 2010’s end.