With January 26th getting even closer now that we’ve entered the New Year, Apple fans are going crazy with rumors about the Apple Tablet that many say will be released later this month.

Will it be a Kindle Killer or a large iPhone-MacBook hybrid multimedia machine? Perhaps it will be all of what the legendary Newton should have been at a time when the general population wasn’t quite ready to adopt a personal media device.

Whatever the case, Apple stock is reaching all time highs as speculators buy based on consumer interest in seeing some kind of a table-based computer from the good folks in Cupertino. Apple has indicated in the past that it had no plans to offer such a device but recent reports appear to contradict those early claims suggesting that a tablet is clearly close to being announced.

As a Kindle, iPhone, iMac and MacBook owner, I’m curious about how a tablet would work should it actually be announced. Certainly the potential portability of a table versus a notebook is appealing even though current MacBooks are pretty slim. Having something bigger than an iPhone for remote work would also be ideal; however, I’m not sure there is a perfect device that can offer the right combination of screen space, keyboard input (as good as a virtual keyboard might be, nothing quite compares to a physical keyboard and tactile feedback), memory, and battery life. Let’s see if the mythical Apple tablet–the iSlate–can satisfy our great expectations.