The new report gets more specific than previous rumors by breaking down which Taiwanese component manufacturers will handle production. They include current iPhone screen-maker, Wintek (display), and Dynapack (said to be gearing up to produce more than 300,000 batteries a month).

The supply chain is expected to start delivery to Apple in December.

Playing hypotheticals: Are you excited enough for a tablet that you'd pay that much money for no keyboard? [Taiwan Economic News via Tabletage via Engadget]

This source claims that the two touchscreen prototypes—made of aluminum, but on the shape of big iPhones—were in a factory in Shenzuen, China. One of them "was running Mac OS X 10.5." When I asked, the source didn't know if these were built for demonstration purposes, or if they were preproduction units. The company has a tight relation with Apple but "it's not FoxConn."

As I said before, with everyone focused on the 10-inch tablet with iPhone OS, this sighting is quite surprising. It is possible that Apple may be just exploring other form factors, and these two models may or may not end being future products.

According to rumors, Apple is in the final stages of developing the Apple wet dream, a 10-inch tablet allegedly running the iPhone OS. Several sources claim that Steve Jobs—back in Campus—is now personally driving this project. However, until now there has been no reliable rumors on 13" and 15" models, much less one running full Mac OS X.

The first time, apparently, he killed it for crummy battery life, and then the second time because it had "insufficient memory." Both of which seem like minor roadbumps, not fatal sins—isn't that the iPhone 3G nowadays to a T? But it actually kind of makes us happy, that Jobs—and Apple—are being that disciplined about it. Death to the weak models. That's promising.

The report also reveals that since Jobs came back from medical leave, he has been incredibly involved not just with the development of the "touch screen gadget," but with the strategy for marketing and advertising as well. Which isn't surprising, since it's the tablet and Steve Jobs, but apparently this involvement has been "jarring for some Apple employees who had grown accustomed to a level of freedom over strategy and products" while he was gone, said the WSJ, basing comments on a source who specifically said, "People have had to readjust" to Jobs' management.

Though the article is ridden with anonymous "people familiar with the situation," Jobs himself was contacted and responded with a curt, "Much of your information is incorrect." Hey, if he didn't specifically deny the existence of an Apple tablet, that's close enough for our dreams. [The Wall Street Journal]

There are a few possible explanations for the inclusion of a phantom, hotly anticipated device on a tangentially related retailer's customer survey. First, Borders, somehow, in some weird alternate universe, has incredibly privileged information from Apple on the most secretive product since the iPhone, and has haphazardly namedropped it in a survey. For reasons I had to state while explaining that option, I don't believe that's too likely.

The more logical explanation is that Borders thinks an Apple tablet or e-reader is possible, and included it on the survey based solely on the extensive rumors that those dastardly blogs have been ranting about. That explains the very un-Apple capitalization of iPAD as well as the paranthetical description. Our best bet? Pure speculation. Like, well, everything else involving the Apple tablet. [Borders via Engadget]

Jim Dalrymple says:

Very reliable sources familiar with the product have said speculation of the tablet being introduced during the September event are flat out wrong. The Apple tablet, they said, would not see the light of day until the first part of 2010.

The event in September will be focused on music, which means we could see new iPods and perhaps some updates to iTunes. The tablet computer will not even be mentioned as part of the event, my sources said.

While in response to Brian's account on the conversation with someone claiming to be in the know, Gruber has this to say:

I'm almost certain there's no tablet coming this year. It's a 2010 thing.

Both seem adamant about it. Unlike the usual rumor sites—who are a random hit-or-miss most of the time—Gruber has an almost perfect track record when it comes to breaking news about upcoming Apple products, usually right before an event.

Still, the truth is that very little is known about Apple's super-secret new products outside of a handful in the Cupertino campus. And while that handful may spill at some point, the information is usually vague until very close the release date. In other words: While the sources pointing to a 2009 Apple tablet release may be wrong, Gruber and Dalrymple may be wrong too.

Heck, for all we know, everyone may be wrong, and this whole tablet thing may end being a just a wet dream. Or maybe everyone is partly right, and there will be a September announcement and the tablet will be available sometime in 2010, similarly to what happened with the iPhone. That will give time to iPhone app developers to prepare their software for the new format.

I don't know. I don't give a damn. I just want someone to give me the damn thing already. In the meantime, we are taking the Apple tablet meter 20% down. [Loop Insight and Daring Fireball]

• Make or find a photo(s) that gives you the proper setting. Optionally, you may include someone using the tablet in the way you imagine it. To help you in the composition later, use a 10-inch long—in diagonal—envelope or paper notebook in the actual shot.

• Create your own Apple tablet mock-up, or use my original Photoshop file.

• Open both the photo and the mock-up in Photoshop.

• Paste the mock-up in the image you took.

• Go to the Edit menu, select "Transform > Warp."

• You will see a square appearing over the mock-up. Move the corners to match the 10-inch fake object, so the perspective is perfect. Then erase the background, clone, and mask as needed.

Of course, the images don't have to be 100% fanboy serious. It's open to everyone, believers or jesters. Just use your imagination, and send the result to contests@gizmodo.com with "Apple tablet in my life" in the subject line.

September is the normal time for new iPods to be released, so the question remains whether it's going to be a purely iPod and iTunes—including iTunes 9—announcement, or if the Apple Tablet will make an appearance. My guess is the former. [All Things D]

I was driving, and swerved a little bit, even though both hands were on the wheel. Someone honked at me.

"What was that?" 

They repeated themselves.

I switched on Bluetooth and pulled over to the side of the road to hear the story. You see, earlier in the day I'd given my phone number out to someone who sent me a cryptic email wanting to talk Apple. This must have been them. (Later on I verified to a high level of certainty that they were in the position to have access to the information and after talking to them for over an hour, I believe them to the same level of certainty.)

"The device, which I've held mock ups of, is going to have a 10 inch screen, and when I saw it looked just like a giant iPhone, with a black back— although that design could change at any time" they said, "with the same black resin back, and the familiar home button." That's obvious.

"But it will come in two editions, one with a webcam and one for educational use."  

Educational use?

They continued to explain the device as something that would sit between an iPod/iPhone and a MacBook, and would cost $700 to $900—"More than twice as much as a netbook," they said.

To make up for that cost and make the device more than just a big iPod there was, this person claimed, there was talk of making the device act as a secondary screen/touchpad for iMacs and MacBooks, much like a few of the USB screens that have come out in recent months from Chinese companies. Very interesting.

They went on to say that although the project has been going on under various names between four and six years, the first prototype was built around the end of 2008. Adding, "The time to market from first prototype is generally 6-9 months." That would place the device's release date in this holiday season, at earliest. (Update: Added, at earliest in light of John Gruber and Jim Dalrymple beliefs that the date is further out, however. Dates are easy to push out.) They then said, "There was a question of what OS the device would run, too." (Other people I've talked to have implied this remains a huge secret. Update: in variation. Obviously, it'll be OS X.)

My call dropped on some windy road off Skyline Drive. Fucking AT&T.

Later, I asked, was there a code name for the project?

"Yes...[redacted]." 

I thought about it for a second, googled the term, and it all made sense. 

"Don't publish that name, please," they requested.

Don't worry, I won't.

Note the strange desktop like environment running iPhone apps floating in independent windows, the safari window that fades in, the neat little iPhone UI elements in each window. Someone on the Macrumors forums claims this is the dev kit. Hate to say it but this is starting to smell good enough to be fresh from an oven in Cupertino. Or at least I want it to be. Some of the things going against this video being anything but a hope are the things people commented on in the earlier, less clear video: a) in the demo of notepad, the iPhone keyboard pops up in only that app's window instead of across the entire screen, taking advantage of none of the existing real estate, and that the entire experience, some said, could have theoretically been recreated by b) using multiple iPhone emulators from the SDK and c) creating dock icons from the iPhone's. That makes sense to me.

Some also believe that this HAS to be fake simply because there is only one way to do a tablet: one app per screen. But the idea that the Tablet is going to be a one app per screen device is not only guess work, but illogical. Why build a bigger screened device only to have it do the exact same thing as a smaller device? You could enrich each app to make use of the extra space , but isn't it easier to allow the Tablet to run multiple instances of mobile apps instead of redesigning gazillions of them for a higher res platform? Otherwise, you're basically talking about a zack morris sized version of the iPhone.

And also, look at how the browser window and the map on the right hand of the desktop are bigger than iPhone sized. Can the emulator do that? I guess someone could have mocked this all up with a bunch of Air apps, though. People can mock up just about anything.

In the end, I am less than even 50% certain here that this is real, but I'm sure as hell not going to dismiss it out of hand. Yet. [Thanks Giz reader MacDaddy901]

Click on the image to enlarge. Yes, this makes me wet.

That, my friends, is what I think we are getting.

The Apple tablet I want will run the same basic hardware as the iPhone, with extended video and system RAM to accommodate larger computing needs, perhaps with some limited multitasking for some applications. System RAM is a big system bottleneck right now, and it won't cost much to add enough to make things flow smoother. The video RAM will be necessary for the higher res of the 10 inch screen. The current iPhone CPU and graphic processor can handle all this well as they are. No need for changes. It will also be very thin. As thin as the iPod touch. Since its guts will be the same, but it will be a device with a larger surface, you also have more space for a larger battery.

Why do I think it will be this way? I believe the hardware will be dictated by economies of scale, which has been the norm since Jobs returned to Apple: Reusable components across each product family to keep costs down. In this case, the product family—which Jobs already alluded to in the past—is the iPhone OS-based product family. Right now, there are two products, as you know: iPhone and iPod touch. My wish is that iTablet or whatever it's called will be the third. That way, Apple would be able to build this cheaper—and keep the cost of the iPhone and iPod touch down if the tablet is successful.

Logically, the iTablet I want will run exactly the same OS as the rest of the product family. The OS will have the same kernel, the same classes, the same subsystems, the same database organization and the same file system. It will also have some new extra apps, and perhaps a few new gestures—which will trickle down the product line—but that's about it.

It will run the same applications, changed to accommodate more information thanks to the higher resolution in the screen. Some Apple and third-party ones will be tailored to the higher res, distributed in a package that will have both iPod-sized and tablet-sized graphic assets. Others—like Safari or games—will just enjoy the instant boost in resolution.

And that will be the beauty of it.

First, people who are afraid of computers—probably not you, the typical Giz reader, but most consumers out there—will love this device as much as they love their iPhones or iPod touches. Apple will keep mining the gold, and offering consumers this extremely easy-to-use interface that doesn't require any mental abstraction. Just click, touch and access the information, media or games you want, mixed with the occasional short mail or chat.

For developers, it's also a win-win situation. Same code, just add new assets. Same store, same distribution, more development opportunities.

The way I see it, the tablet will open the way to a new kind of computing, after the ages of computing for hobbyist, the age of the command line, and the age of the desktop user interface metaphor.

To me, this is where Star Trek starts, and War Games ends.

First, if it finally materializes, I personally don't think the Apple tablet will be modal. That means one application open at a time taking the whole screen, not multiple windows. And certainly, not multiple windows each with its own stupid mini-keyboard attached. That would not only be illogical. It would be absolutely stupid. Let me explain.

The fact is that Apple has discovered a gold mine with the iPhone and the iPod touch. People who usually are not into computers—who actively hate computers—love the iPhone OS because it's so simple. Its modal nature transforms the device in different tools depending on the application that loads, all following the same basic UI conventions. It's a different mentality that some computer users don't understand, but the zillions of consumers out there love it. That's why the iPhone, the iPod touch, and the application store is such a success.

Apple knows this, and that's why I think their tablet—if it exists—will follow exactly the same user interface model. Otherwise, it's bound to be an inelegant failure, an awkward transvestite of a device. And we know what el Señor Steve thinks about that.

Also, the screen here is not glass, but a regular old LCD.

The logical explanation to this cleverly done video? I think it's just multiple instances of a disguised iPhone emulator. If that. In any case, hopefully everything will be clear in September. Until then, I think this video calls for the:

[ZDnet]

The launch date remains the same: September launch, November release. That's three months. Or three months and almost the whole of August, but you get the idea.

Like always, remember this is just our bet based on the evidence and rumors at hand.

The first model—identified as iProd0,1—has a standardMuxPTP description. Since no other models start with a zero as a first identifier, we can only guess this is a prototype. The second model is the iProd1,1, which indicates a first generation product.

It has the same description as the iPhone: StandardMuxPTPEthernet. This probably means that, like the Jesusphone, it supports high speed network capabilities.

Could this be the tablet that may be coming in September? The strings don't say much else, so we don't know what they may be. However, it is enough to give our tablet probability meter a 5% boost. [Ars Technica]

He also says that what he saw was "close enough now to a final design," and may retail for $700 to $800. Every other manufacturer is waiting now to see what this is, since it's all over the supply chain in Asia." "[Barrons via 9to5Mac]

This from BusinessInsider, whose source eagerly pooped on the idea of an Apple-run book store:

The answer is no, according to a source connected to the e-book business. Based on our conversation with this person, it seems that any Kindle-killing the Apple tablet does will have to come from third-party e-book sellers, like Amazon (AMZN), Barnes & Noble (BKS), etc.

What pushes this over the line that divides quibbling counter-rumors from Real Interesting Things is a little story that's been unfolding over at Amazon as of late:

The device team has the job of making the most remarkable purpose-built reading device in the world. We are going to give the device team competition. We will make Kindle books, at the same $9.99 price points, available on the iPhone, and other mobile devices and other computing devices.

That's Amazon honcho Jeff Bezos, explaining his comfort with the idea of hardware from other companies—including Apple, which already tacitly supports Amazon eBooks by way of a Kindle iPhone app—sending customers to the Kindle store. In the absence of an in-house system, a Kindle app for the tablet just makes sense.

In other words, "Jeff Bezos' worst nightmare" might actually be Jeff Bezos, and not much of a nightmare at all. UPDATE: As commenters have noted, Apple's biggest precedent for something like this is Audible—an Amazon subsidiary. So! [BusinessInsider]

You may remember, Bill Gates was a loyal tablet user for years (and he still uses one). He was such a fan, in fact, that back in 2001 Gates told CNN, "The tablet takes cutting-edge PC technology and makes it available whenever you want it...It's a PC that is virtually without limits — and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America."

Obviously, Gates was wrong—at least about the timeline. It's seven years later and tablets are all but dead while netbooks and touchscreen smartphones thrive. Keep in mind that multitouch wasn't around yet, though the idea of smudging up your computer's screen probably didn't make much sense given that a stylus was the ideal means for navigation.

Microsoft has since dialed back their enthusiasm on the tablet form factor, but you can see its spirit live on in products like the Surface and Windows 7's multitouch support.

To me, the question is not so much whether or not tablets are capable of succeeding in the marketplace but how they've captured the imaginations of Bill Gates, Apple fanboys and Star Trek alike yet still managed to elude mainstream popularity. [CNN and Image]

Think about it: the rumors are of essentially a gigantic iPod Touch with a 3G connection. It's a web tablet, right? But we live in a time where $300 netbooks are the norm. Are people going to really be willing to part with $800 for a gussied-up netbook with a touchscreen and Apple design?

Sure, fanboys will drop money on anything that Apple puts out, but what features are people expecting this to have to make it worth the scratch?

eBook Reader—People are saying Apple is taking aim at the Kindle with this. But this won't deliver anything that a laptop doesn't other than making it easier to hold like a book. But it still has an LCD screen, which people don't like reading books on as much as eInk or paper. And it'll definitely cost way more than the Kindle.

Web Surfing — You can do this on a netbook for a fraction of the price.

iTunes Album Art — This is little more than an added bonus, not a selling point for a piece of hardware.

Gaming — Sure, gaming on the iPhone can be annoying because your fingers get in the way. But do you know what's more annoying? Using a touchscreen for gaming in the first place. Gaming on the iPhone is annoying because it's a touchscreen, not because it's a small touchscreen.

And there are serious issues with the entire idea of a tablet platform.

Typing—How do people envision typing on this thing? Are you going to lie it flat on your desk? Flat on your lap? And how is typing going to work on a flat surface? You won't be using your thumbs like on the iPhone. There's a reason laptops are designed the way they are with the screen at an angle to the keyboard.

Apps—Is this going to run a modified version of the iPod Touch OS or a gimped version of OS X? If it's just a big iPod Touch, we're looking at apps designed for a totally different resolution and control scheme that will then be made to work on this. How is that worth it? Is there going to be a new category in the App Store for this device, making you buy your apps over again for this new format? In what way will it straddle the line between MacBook and iPod Touch?

Performance—The iPhone is not the fastest way to surf the web, but we're OK with that because it's a phone. The tablet will be closer to a laptop, and we'll expect laptop speeds out of it. No dice. It's going to have the power of a netbook, but with less space to stuff components due to its lack of a keyboard. There's no way this will perform at a high level without it costing as much as a MacBook Pro.

There's just nothing to justify what will probably be a $700-$800 device here. Sure, it'll be slick. It looks like something from Star Trek and when it's announced, we'll all want one. The idea of lying on the couch and dicking around on the internet on a beautiful, thin slab is appealing.

But like the MacBook Air when it was first announced, after the lust wears off we'll be looking at a middle-of-the-road computer in fancy packaging that costs twice as much as comparable devices.

And the last time I checked, the economy isn't doing so hot. So really, unless Apple has an ace up their sleeve and is going to either give this some functionality we haven't thought of yet or is going to sell it for under $500, I can't imagine the demand being all that high for it.

But hell, maybe I'm underestimating the value of design. Will this thing be sexy enough to justify spending a whole lot of money on something that, functionally speaking, won't do all that much that's special?

We've covered this before as well, and decided it would be good to revisit with all the new rumors we've heard about the tablet and what it can do.

As far as I'm concerned, I've wanted a son of Newton since Jobs cancelled it, and I've been gagging for it since the iPhone. The latest solid rumor came from the Financial Times, which claimed that the entertainment industry "is hoping that Apple, which revolutionized the markets for music players and phones, can do it again with the new device." Suggesting it will be more giant iPod touch (good—as the iPod touch could scale up into new form factors) than pure Mac OS X Tablet (bad—as pure Mac OS X will be hard to scale down). A project with the music industry—codenamed Cocktail—will be announced in September, according to this source. The same sources point that "the device could be launched alongside the new content deals." The new content will also include books, which will put the device in direct competition against Amazon's Kindle.

The Financial Times article is vague about this, however, mentioning Apple "racing" to have the tablet available for the holiday shopping season. That may mean an announcement in September, followed by availability after Thanksgiving. That's four months away. Another article—this time from the China Times—points at an October release, which puts the thingamajig only three months away. And yet another Chinese paper claims a September or October release. Apple Insider claims that it will be available in 2010.

I'm personally inclined to trust the Financial Times rumor. Not only because of them being so adamant about their multiple sources, but because the timing makes a lot more sense than the other options. It also makes sense to announce it in this entertainment event, which will most probably include announcements for the updated nano and touch—minor updates for already-established products that only add cameras, confirmed by a myriad of new cases from China.

The big bang, however, could be the newest member of the iPod/iPhone family: The Apple Tablet. Like the iPhone—which was originally announced alongside other products during a MacWorld keynote—the Tablet won't cannibalize any existing product sales, so it makes sense to drum up the hype like they did with the iPhone, building excitement for the shopping season.

Matt, on the other hand, thinks that the device could be announced on an event on its own. His rationale is that it's too important to be released alongside other products. To me it makes more sense to tell the public that, while big—literally and metaphorically speaking—this is "another iPod", and the third model of a new family of iPhone OS-based products—a potential family which, incidentally, has been hinted by Jobs and the rest of the Apple executive team.

Whenever it is actually announced, however, the general consensus is that the tablet exists—even John Gruber is certain about it, and he rarely fails. The question now is when. According to our Apple Tablet Probability Meter, you're 80% likely to be able to buy one in four months.

AppleInsider says that Dow Jones carried the report as well, though it comes from a paper less well-known than say, DigiTimes. The September or October launch date Apple Daily reports is slightly more aggressive and definite in its time table than the Financial Times report that came out this weekend, which simply said that Apple "racing to offer a portable, full-featured, tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season."

A morbid thought, but if Foxconn is building the tablet, what if the tablet was the prototype Sun Danyong lost before he was driven to suicide? They wouldn't say he lost the mythical Apple tablet, after all.

AppleInsider still thinks it's coming in 2010, for what it's worth. We still think never trust rumors. [AppleInsider]