Ever since my HCI studio class had the chance to play with an entire rack of HP Tablet PCs last fall, I've been smitten with their portability and unobtrusiveness. The angled laptop screen raised to take notes at a meeting or seminar, for all its 12 or 15 or 17 inches, seems to be a mile-high barrier in front of said laptop user's face. Besides, everyone is SO OBVIOUSLY checking email or IMing instead of — or, at the very best, in addition to — taking notes because, after all, typing serially into a laptop is not a very good way to take notes.

Not, of course, enough to resist the allure of OS X. Even if the 15" PowerBook with the requisite power and DVI-to-VGA adapters weighs in at well OVER six pounds, versus the HP Tablet's svelte three-point-one, keyboardless, or four with keyboard.

But with the top billing that Inkwell is getting on Apple's OS X site, could an iTablet be too far off in the future? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.