"It's an e-reader, a gaming device, and a music player," the article adds. "You can watch TV and movies on it and surf the Internet (or so we've heard). And it will have thousands of third-party apps available for it ... or maybe it will run Mac OS X. That's all still unknown."

"This will be the next big thing," Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC, told CNN Money. "Apple is going to wow everybody with the tablet. "The tablet will change the game, because Apple will throw down the gauntlet at the competitors, and force them to follow along."

According to DiDio, the tablet will have a 10-inch to 12-inch screen and a high-end graphics card that will enable stunning resolution -- even more so than the iPhone and iPod Touch. She said the device will come in several different models that offer varieties of Internet connections, such as Wi-Fi or 3G, perhaps through a contract with AT&T. DiDio also think it will have a web cam, which business travelers will be able to use for video conferencing on the go.

Some analysts say all of those features will kill other single-function handheld devices, making the Apple tablet the go-to handheld device for computing, Internet browsing, reading, gaming and entertainment.

"Apple will come out with the tablet and blow everyone away," Dan Ackerman, senior editor at CNET, told CNN Money. "Instead of taking along a Kindle and an iPod, that [tablet] could become the device you carry with you."

David Wertheimer, executive director of Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center.
adds: "The Tablet will be awesome, and my guess is that it will be an instant hit for people who loved Kindles and people who want netbooks."

Of course, not everyone thinks the iPad/iTablet (assuming it even exists) will succeed.

"What we've found in the past with these multi-function devices is that they're better for ad-hoc purposes, like quick and dirty tasks," Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with Yankee Group, told CNN Money. "They're not for any prolonged, high-performance use."

(The graphic above -- a mock-up, not a real photo, is courtesy of PC World.)