It's either about time or sheer folly, but rumors are percolating that the long-talked-about Apple tablet PC is on the way. The word comes from Asus, delivered to bloggers at Crave in the UK. Asus says it's "helping Apple build" the new device.

Apple's tablet ambitions are actually on record: The company filed a patent for a MacBook-like tablet way back in May 2005. It doesn't look like much from the filing illustrations, just a slate-style tablet that you draw on with a pen instead of a keyboard.

Crave is awfully confident in this rumor, saying, "you can bet your botton dollar it's being built as you read this." I'm reasonably confident Apple's working on the device as well, though for the life of me it still seems like a terrible idea: Tablet PCs, and especially slates, have not gotten far with buyers despite five-plus years of being on the market. Convertible tablets, which can be used like regular laptops with a standard keyboard or have their screens swiveled 180 degrees and used in pen mode, have had far greater acceptance. No doubt Apple will have a creative solution to allow you to use this tablet with a detachable, wireless keyboard, which will cost an extra $189, I'm sure.

So, the $64,000 question now is, can Apple succeed where so many others have failed? It's in a unique place, market-wise. I don't anticipate a lot of first-time Mac buyers will choose a tablet over a regular laptop, and I don't know that many existing Mac users will fork over the two grand or so that the tablet will cost, just so they can have another computer that they can draw on. Apple's had flops before (Apple TV, most recently), but can it do something innovative here, perhaps leveraging its iPhone mojo, to finally get people excited about tablet technology?

Stay tuned.

LINK: Apple Tablet PC is real, says Asus