Hasta La Gadget!

Here’s the skinny from The Wall Street Journal: major publishing company HarperCollins is in talks with Apple about bringing e-books to the oft-rumored, still-unconfirmed tablet that’s expected to be the focus of its January 27th event. The article also states that other publishing companies have been in talks with Cupertino HQ. That jibes with what we’ve heard through the grapevine, specifically with Time Inc. property Sports Illustrated, and fits comfortably well with the New York Times conjecture from earlier today. E-book readers are all the rage these days, but like we said just after CES, we’d wager the future of the medium integrated into slates to provide rich, color multimedia presentations. Seems someone might be sharing in our perspective, but of course, this is just one of many, many, many Apple rumors we expect to see in the buildup to next week.

WSJ: Apple and HarperCollins negotiating e-book deal for tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re realistically no closer to knowing the outcome of next week’s Apple event than we were a week, a year, or a decade ago, but rumors are obviously congealing around the mythical tablet that users, fans, and media have all but willed into existence recently — and our buddy Clayton Morris says that’s indeed a part of the story. Morris reports having spoken with a source at Apple this morning — prior to the company’s invites going out, interestingly — who said that the event would focus on a new version of iLife, iPhone OS 4.0, and naturally, the tablet.

Loosely speaking, you can see how these would all tie together pretty nicely: the seemingly “creative” theme of Apple’s invite rolls into a new version of iLife, and the announcement of a tablet could have implications for how a suite of artsy tools gets used. Rumblings that the tablet is underpinned by a new version of iPhone OS have gone back months, so that would give Apple impetus to tease it at the same time the tablet’s shown off — sans new iPhone hardware, possibly, which the company has done before. It’s also possible that Apple will open source its entire catalog of software and shut down, buy an island nation, or do nothing at all — but in fairness, there’s an awful lot of logic to what Clayton’s saying here. We’ll know soon enough.

Next week’s Apple event to be iLife / iPhone OS 4.0 / tablet trifecta? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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And now, for the hopelessly devoted HP homeboy, we present a trio of lust items. The new hotness on the converitble tablet front — the TouchSmart tm2 — is ready for shipping in exchange for nearly $950, and will endow your life with a 12-inch capacitive multitouch display, a somewhat senescent SU7300 1.3GHz ULV processor, and 3GB of DDR3 memory. Should you dare to stray into higher price ranges, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4550 discrete graphics and an SU9600 CPU are also available. Alternatively, you can splash $929 on the 15.6-inch dv6t, which now comes with a 2.4GHz Core i5-520M as standard, as well as free upgrades to 3GB of RAM and 320GB in storage. Graphics options here range up to an NVIDIA GeForce GT 320M with 1GB of onboard memory. Finally, the dv7t matches its smaller sibling’s upgrades but asks for $999 for the base spec, which includes a 17.3-inch display with a 1600 x 900 resolution. So there you have it, something for pretty much everyone.

HP brings out TouchSmart tm2 tablet, upgrades dv6t and dv7t with Core i5 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, isn’t this a doozy. ASUS was a bit of a no-show in the e-reader arena at CES, but has dropped some knowledge on the Times Online’s InGear: it’s building a 6-inch color OLED e-reader, which flies in the face of previous rumors about an ASUS e-reader entry. The device, currently dubbed the DR-570 and pictured to the left, will play back Flash video, includes WiFi and 3G, and supposedly can last for 122 hours on one charge under “real world conditions.” It’s supposed to be released by the end of the year, and while from anybody else we’d assume this would cost an arm and a leg, the ASUS brand gives us some hope that we might actually be able to afford one when it hits.

[Thanks, Ian S.]

ASUS DR-570 e-reader to sport 6-inch OLED color screen, 122 hours of battery life originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On today’s edition of the never-ending Apple rumor roundup, we take a quick detour into the murky realm of the United States patent database, topped off with a charming unsourced tip and some delightful analyst conjecture. Let’s blaze.

The rumor: A recent Apple patent application for a capacitive touchscreen-specific stylus may or may not mean The Tablet uses a stylus for input.
Our take: We’ve already promised to eat our hat if Apple puts a removable battery in the iPhone, so what’s next? A shoe? We will eat a shoe if Steve Jobs introduces a product that requires the use of a stylus. Besides, this product already exists: it’s called the Pogo Stylus, and it’s not exactly rocking minds (although we are intrigued by Inklet). Apple likes to file silly broad patent applications and see what it can get away with — it’s never been wise to read too much into them.

Our take: This would be like a dream come true for the consumer, and a crazy heroin nightmare for Apple to actually implement — can you imagine an iPod with a freaking CableCARD slot? Neither can we. Besides, it’s not like Apple to push content sales from anything other than the iTunes Store, and it’s especially not like Apple to extend functionality to older iPods when it can just release a newer one in a slightly different metallic finish. Next!

Continue reading Apple rumor roundup: iPhone patent 4.0 edition

Apple rumor roundup: iPhone patent 4.0 edition originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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