That doesn’t seem like the best example. I’m not sure what the context was for that video, hit it doesn’t look like Steve said that tablets would fail. He said that a tablet made in that era would only be useful to rich people who want an extra device just for content consumption. That’s still most of the market for tablets today.
That's the point. Apple generally doesn't make forward-looking statements about its tech. They say that everything they don't do yet is wrong, and when they get it working they say it's so right. The "right now" part is implied.
