iRumour mill churns for Apple

Posted by Michael Hainsworth on November 19, 2009

Here's a look at a rumoured delay to a rumoured product from Apple that may or may not exist, depending on who you talk to.

Wired is reporting the magazine sized tablet Apple denies it's working on has been delayed until late next year. The screen isn't good enough for Steve Jobs and friends -- moving from a typical LCD based screen seen in today's iPhones to an OLED screen. The advantage that organic light emitting diode screens have is they're paper thin, flexible and lightweight.

Wired is citing Digitimes -- which reports Apple will release two tablets at launch -- one with the traditional screen at 10.6-inches and the other with the higher quality, lightweight 9.7-inch screen. The devices will reportedly cost as much as $1,700 US at retail. If broken down into a multi-year contract like the iPhone, it'd be closer to $400 for the ability to download books, magazines and websites wirelessly like an oversized smartphone.

Wired Magazine may have a reason to trust quoting Digitimes. Wired is a Conde Nast publication. The France-based publisher is reportedly in the process of revamping all of its publications so they're tablet-compatible.

Since the June 7th 2007 launch of the first iPhone, Apple's shares are up more than 62 percent.

A tablet would be targeted squarely at the digital book market -- the one currently dominated by the Kindle from Amazon.com.

Amazon shares are also up 62 percent since its launch November 19, 2007.

A battle is brewing for your e-book dollar -- and while Amazon.com has a 2-year lead selling digital pages, Apple's iTunes music store already has the infrastructure necessary to sell books and is doing so to a small degree already with the App store division for iPhone.

If you have a comment on this or any other blog, please write to us at blogcomments@BNN.ca We may print your comment and reserve the right to edit.