This just in via The Register. Perhaps a “Location Free” collaboration with Sony via the MacWorld Connection? Love to see any iteration of the Tablet idea coming out of Apple.
Apple has filed for a European design trademark which may provide a tantalising glimpse of the company’s long-awaited tablet computer.
The filing, made in May this year but only published this week, covers a “handheld computer” and contains sketches of what look like an iBook screen minus the body of the computer.
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Hints that Apple might be working on such a product emerged in 2003 when a source close to Taiwanese contract manufacturer Quanta claimed that the company had been hired by Apple to build what was dubbed a “wireless display”.
Jobs has consistently downplayed claims that Apple is working on a PDA, and given the state of the world PDA market, it wouldn’t make much sense for it to do so. Doubly so given how well the iPod works as a portable personal information carrier.
Jobs has similarly poo-poo’d suggestions that the company should offer a video iPod. Again, we agree – video simply isn’t an application as well suited to portable players as music is. However, that doesn’t mean that there’s not room for a larger, house-bound mobile video system, and we’ve mooted a system comprising a wireless display terminal connected to a base iMac via 802.11g before.
Apple’s “handheld computer” design registration sounds more like a PDA, but it looks like the home entertainment tablet system mentioned above. [The Register]
i couldn’t imagine a better compliment to, and way to control an apple media center than a tablet nor could i imagine something sexier than sitting on my couch with one of these puppies in my hands trying to decide which movie to watch. well, maybe i could think of something sexier, but still. yummy.