But he doesn't think Apple will wait until 2010 to put something in customers' hands.

"This is not a life-and-death matter for Apple," said Gottheil, citing the deferred revenues from already-sold iPhones that Apple has yet to post on its books. "But there's no doubt that netbooks are chewing up a substantial piece of what they'd get if they were playing in the market."

Munster, said Gottheil, may be right on the timeline, but he thinks a touch tablet will come sooner. "I don't think Apple is playing with a new processor," Gottheil said, "and although some upgrade [of the Mac OS] is necessary to support this functionality, I don't see it as a year's worth of work."

Rather than rely on another processor family for the tablet, Gottheil believes that Apple, which has made tighter ties to graphics chip maker Nvidia of late, will instead off-load some of the chores to the graphics processor.

"I don't quite see what will take so long," Gottheil said, referring to Munster's 2010 date. "I think that Apple wants to be out there, if they can. This would take a lot of pressure off the declining Mac sales.