Surely this is an open-goal for Apple, and, in effect, the fourth product family that they need in their line up.

They already have the customers (us) ready, and they have all the hardware and software elements in place. Even the iTunes website is all geared-up to deliver TV and radio on demand.

Just do it !!

and will also include some type of Internet connectivity

Well, duh! Who is gonna provide a device that people are going to want and expect to use with the web that doesn’t connect to the web? And I see they expect it to interface with iTunes, as well. Formulaic linkbait.

How many more times will these overwrought rumors be posted here instead of actual reporting? C’mon. When you get a credible, objective, and reliable source, who’s willing to be named publicly, fine. That’s worth our time.

Until then, why all the pointless blather?

Relax you people.

It takes a good while for hundreds of people to develop and assemble prototypes, clear manufacturing space and assemble the robots, order stocks of materials and pre-assemblies. Don’t forget when they have the first batch, they also have to ship or fly the boxes half way around the world, distribute to a thousand shops and wait for the appropriate announcement date.

It takes months.

In that time most companies with a high visibility (car companies for example) release some details to gauge customer reaction, and to fine tune the final release.

This is what is happening here. Companies that release nothing will announce products to a world that is unprepared. And usually indifferent.

Whatever companies do to keep things under wraps is always undermined by the sheer number of sub-contractors employed, each of which give nothing much away, but collectively tell much of the story.

Besides, given the recent output from Apple, couldn’t any one of us sketch out a pretty good approximate specification for the missing link in their product line-up?

Even if its not yet in development, if enough of us say we want that item, they might feel inclined to put some effort into making it.

Relax you people…

MODERATOR! Here’s another one! Are you going to allow this Powell fellow to toss out these flagrant displays of common sense and reason? Are you willing to let him and a very few other cantankerous trolls contaminate our endless blather of joyful rumors and conjecture which have been repeated and twisted and deconstructed to excess over several months now?

What IS this forum coming to? If we don’t stop this immediately, people may soon ignore these rumors (whatever likelihood may lie under them) and instead resort to discussing real issues, relating meaningfully to actual products available, or helping solve problems, or otherwise wasting bandwidth.

It’s the apocalypse, I tell you.

Ha….loved that, DB!

You are clearly from the glory days of the Internet (God Bless Her) when it was the realm of PhDs and comments were punctuated correctly, and drooled with irony.

I’m happy to stand corrected!

So there is definitely a rumour of an Apple Tablet?

So there is definitely a rumour of an Apple Tablet?

(shhh—keep it quiet—I’ll send you one of the prototypes I got on eBay)