The Tablet: What do we know? « The BEST Apple Hardware and Software Reviews

Written By Editor December 28th, 2009

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There is what can only be called a boat-load of Tablet related news swirling around the web. There always has been, ever since we can remember. Recently however, with the heightened speculation Apple are holding an event on the 26th of January at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts – speculation and rumours have exploded! We’ve rounded them all up, into a concise repository of ’slate’ related news.

Event

Let’s start with the event. This seems pretty genuine and likely to go ahead. The 26th is a Tuesday, but over the last year or so Apple have seemingly favoured the YBCA. This has been place to the recent music focused events, the most recent seeing the launch of slightly-updated iPods, Steve Jobs returning and iTunes extra.

Here’s what the Financial Times had to say:

The company has rented a stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for several days in late January, according to people familiar with the plans.

Apple is expected to use the venue to make a major product announcement on Tuesday, January 26th. Both YBCA and Apple declined to comment.

So the event could very well be happening. The date doesn’t seem entirely out of sync with previous Macworld events, and the location has been used previously by Apple. This part seems genuine. Other sources report that the Event will be held sooner, around the 19th of January if not before. Manufacturing is expected to follow in February for a May or June ship.

Content

We’ve heard reports over the last few months of Apple execs visiting big publishing and media companies to secure content for the new Tablet. As far as we know, these are mostly unconfirmed, but wide-spread so likely something is brewing in this department. Just recently the Financial Times that Apple will be launching a subscription TV service based upon the tablet. Companies said to be sniffing around this avenue are CBS and maybe Disney. This would appear to form only a part of a Tablet focused App/itunes store, possibly even one category of “Entertainment and News”.

Possibly genuine.

App Developers asked to super-size apps

MacRumors has reported the following:

that Apple has approached certain app developers to ask them to prepare for a demo scheduled for next month. Notably, Apple has requested that the developers prepare their applications to run in “full screen” mode rather than limiting display to the iPhone and iPod touch’s 320 x 480 pixels.

They followed this up by suggesting a March or even April release. MR also state that there could be one or more models of the tablet, such as a 7″ and the favoured 10″ lines.

Steve

We know the kind of fierce perfectionism Steve Jobs has. Every Apple product must be the absolute best possible without compromise.

The NYTimes has this to say:

A former Apple employee, whose name appears on numerous Apple patents, worked on an Apple tablet five years ago and recently told me when the first version of the tablet was shelved by Steve Jobs, a lot of the technology made it into other devices. He explained that components of these early stage concepts are already out in the marketplace. If you have an iPhone, for example, you’re carrying around a mini version of an early Apple tablet. He also says that one of the barriers to producing the early tablets was the lack of software. The success of the App Store and the eagerness of the publishers show that this won’t be a problem for any new devices.

This would appear to confirm some form of Apple tablet has or does exist. Perhaps one of the more reassuring notes from this article is the following statement:

But the icing on the cake comes from a current senior employee inside Apple. When one of my colleagues here asked if the rumors of the Apple tablet were true, and when we could expect such a device, the response from his source was, “I can’t really say anything, but, let’s just say Steve is extremely happy with the new tablet.”

Islate.com and the Magic Slate trademarks

If you run a WHOIS on islate.com (yes, it sure is late) who’s the owner? Why it’s none other than Apple, and has been since 2007. Ok so, it doesn’t say now, but Mark Monitor is believed to handle domain registration and trademarking stuff for many companies including Apple. A screenshot is circulating showing some sort of exposure during 2007 showing Apple as the registrant and administrative contact, including an Apple.com domain email address.

There’s also the matter of the trademark, held by unknown Delaware company Slate Computing LLC. The trademark signatory is a Regina Porter - Apple’s Senior Trademark Specialist (with a linkedin profile). This indicates Apple have owned the domain for several years and the trademark since the 14th of August 2009.

Components

Finally, it appears as though Innolux, a panel-making subsidiary of FoxConn, will be supplying the first touch panels to Apple.

DigiTimes said:

Apple has been seeking solutions to strengthen the glass of the 10-inch panel for the device and was forced to delay the launch until first-quarter 2010, the sources noted.

They also suggest that another FoxConn subsidiary had to work on a glass strengthening process for the tablet.

Conclusion

Based upon the above, we think the evidence is really stacking up now. There’s trademarks, a website, manufacturers and an event that nobody can (or wants to) fit to any other new or updated Apple product. Fingers crossed people. Fingers crossed.

Photo by: Fotoboer.nl