21% of people would buy the Apple Tablet – a device that doesn’t exist

It's always the hipster...

Don’t get us wrong — we think that Apple is working on a tablet and that it will come out next year. This isn’t another case of vaporware (especially with Microsoft throwing the dual-screened gauntlet down last night), but it still seems odd that 21% would buy a product that they know nothing about — outside of who is making it.

A survey funded by RBC Capital Markets, and reported by Apple Insider, asked 3,100 people if they would buy an Apple Tablet if it was priced between $500 to $700 (a little lower than the rumored $700-$900 price range). Approximately 650 of the responders said they would buy the tablet sight unseen. To compare, a similar survey for the prelaunch iPhone done in April of 2007 recorded only 9% willing to buy the now popular phone. In fact, analysts project that the iPhone could make up 35% of the smart phone market worldwide by 2012.

Is this a case of the mysterious Apple Tablet riding its smaller predecessor’s coattails? Perhaps it’s a sign that Apple has done something so right with the iPhone that product trust towards the company has surpassed reasonable expectation. Maybe the survey was taken in an Apple store. Whatever the case 1/5th of people willing to buy an imaginary product is pretty surprising. We’ll be interested to see how much that number jumps once Apple releases some hard details on the device.