According to Retrevo, 68% of Mac owners said they would pay more than US$600 for a tablet. However, only 36% of PC owners saying they d be willing to pay more than $600. To convert PC owners to Apple owners, Apple needs to consider a (close to) $600 price point for the tablet, and "they should not delay bringing it to market," according to Retrevo.

It’s possible that iTunes will add the iBook store and Apple will enter the e-Book market putting the tablet up against Amazon’s Kindle. It’s also possible they’ll position it more as a mobile media player and computer and treat it more as a netbook to compete with all the other netbook vendors currently grabbing laptop market share. If they go the netbook route they will have some catching up to do. The Gadgetology study indicated that 37% of Mac owners already own or plan to buy a netbook this year. Even worse for Apple is the fact that Apple has already lost the early adopters like the 59% of the iPhone owners who responded to the survey saying they already own or plan to buy a netbook this year, according to Retrevo.

The data for this report came from a study of online individuals conducted by an independent panel. The sample size was 753 distributed across gender, age, income and location in the United States. Most responses have a confidence interval of 4% at a 95% confidence level, according to Retrevo. (The graphic above -- a mock-up, not a real photo, is courtesy of PC World.)