As speculation regarding Wednesday’s Apple announcement reaches fever pitch, technology blog Engadget is asking the question “is this the Apple tablet?“.
Tipsters have sent two images to Engadget that appear to show the latest Apple gadget running with a maps application. Seperately the gadget blog also received a tip indicating the device will be available in March equipped with a 10″ screen, MacBook like alliminium back and will be priced at $800 with a Verizon contract or $1000 without. The tablet still has no official name and insiders simply refer to it as codename “K48″.
Apple is due to hold a press conference on Wednesday to unveil a new “creative” product. On Monday the company announced their profits for its fiscal 2010 first quarter. During an investor call Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, hinted at future products: “the new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”
On Tuesday BlogoFlux wrote his own predictions on what to expect from Apple this week. A Tablet, new iPhone OS and iLife are all expected to be part of the announcements. According to our own sources Verizon will also announce the availability of the iPhone on their network and the end of AT&T’s exclusive iPhone agreement with Apple.
Image Credit: Engadget
Bloomberg is reporting that Apple’s upcoming fourth-generation iPhone may have a “touch-sensitive casing.” Much like Apple’s Magic Mouse, the phone’s body may support finger movements for actions such as scrolling, zooming, and other useful navigation. “‘Apple’s going to put a lot of innovation, not just on the hardware, but also on the software of the new iPhone,’ said Taipei-based Chen, a member of Asia’s top-ranked technology hardware research team. The handset will feature a new plastic casing similar to that used for Apple’s touch-panel Magic Mouse released last year, he said.”
Chen also re-affirmed the public that the next iPhone will go into production as early as April, and be available to the general public in June or July. He also hinted at an updated version of the iPhone OS and an overhauled App Store. However, no further details were given.
Assuming Chen is right, Apple has sure held back a lot of juicy details from the public (and we expect nothing less). If the next iPhone does, indeed, have this new body, it would not only make sense, but it would also allude to the fact that AT&T is still a big part of the picture. Just this past week, AT&T announced their upcoming, Android based, Motorola Backflip phone. This is the first phone to have a touch sensitive gesture area built into the body. This would make AT&T the only carrier with, not one, but two gesture body enabled phones. Perhaps this means that the new gesture body was AT&T’s idea. This would further add creditability to Chen’s iPhone claims.
