As you know, Apple Inc. has never made its presence known at the Consumer Electronics Show, which took place, as usual this year, in Las Vegas the first week of this month. So if you could take yourself away from the gambling tables for a few hours, you’d get to see some of the latest and greatest examples of consumer technology.

However, once again it didn’t play out quite that way.

Last year, everyone was talking about the possible arrival of a tablet computer from Apple. Never mind that nobody had, up till that point, demonstrated the potential for success of tablets in the mass market. The few that were sold were consigned to vertical markets, such as medical practices.

But it didn’t matter. Sure, a few prototype tablets were on display. Microsoft’s beleaguered CEO, Steve Ballmer, again tried to tell us how tablets featuring Windows 7 were the next great thing, but it still didn’t ring true. Not for a minute.

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This article was posted on Monday, January 17th, 2011 at 12:00 AM and is filed under News and tagged with: Apple Inc., CES, computing, Consumer Electronics Show, Electronics, iPad, Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, tablet, Tablet PC, Windows 7.