Apple is long rumored to be working on a tablet-like device that’s bigger than iPod Touch, but smaller than its MacBook. Most likely, Apple has observed the success Amazon had with its Kindle device that it decided to jump in. There is clearly a market for these mid-size PCs as some projected 20 million devices will be shipped this year, doubling last year’s output.

Let’s say if Apple is indeed working on such device, its dream features would be

Thin and Light - It must be comparable to the Kindle in terms of its weight and size.
Built-in wireless 3G - This was a critical feature in the Kindle which allows its users to download new books from anywhere. Better yet, the new Apple tablet should also have WiFi capabilities when such connection is available.
Clear Display - The display quality must match other Apple devices. After all, the Apple tablet should be used for viewing pictures, browsing the internet, and watching movies. Furthermore, the device should have Kindle-like fonts that functions as an e-book reader.
Innovative Keyboard - Please, get rid of the virtual keyboard used in iPhones. I never liked them, and hopefully Apple will come out with something new.
Cool Factor - Just like all Apple devices, it must appear cool to be carrying one.
Price - The Kindle sells for $359. I can see the prices goes somewhere between the Kindle and the cheapest MacBook. Anything over $1000 is too expensive.

Most likely such a device won’t be unveiled until 2010. But, maybe a prototype will be presented upon Steve Job’s return.

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One might say the Internet is anything you want it to be—a truth machine or spreader of lies—maybe it’s both. In light of recent events Apple would say it’s the latter. Twice over the past month, a blogger has sunk their stock.

It’s not so much the lie that matters, sometimes it’s who repeats it. That one blogger posted about Apple’s fictional $800 laptop was inconsequential. That the New York Times dropped it into their vast echo chamber was catastrophic. Investors thinking Apple, during turbulent economic times, had finally decided to tap a hugely untapped market—the low price laptop market—drove the price up, and upon discovery of the fiction stocks subsequently tanked.

Sounds like people lost some money there.

A couple of weeks later, an 18-year-old blogger said Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a attack. Out there somewhere in the blogosphere, this lie wouldn’t have mattered. Repeated on a CNN website and by Henry Blodget, and again you’ve got a plummeting stock. This time there were investigations into whether the blogger was trying to manipulate the market to make a little money. Authorities haven’t yet discovered that link, yet.

These two events come at an interesting time in the evolution of blogging. At blogging’s peak, it was seen as the purest exercise of free speech, as spackling on the crumbling walls of journalism—no corporate or legal overseers, no hidden political agendas, real raw, campy, honest, and prone to be wrong on occasion in the most harmless of ways, usually, except during election seasons maybe.

These days, the elite audience that has been discussing blogs since their inception (i.e., not politicians or journalists or “regular” folk) seem very split on the next frontier. Tim Berners-Lee, warning about the potential impact of misinformation on society, has called for a system for vetting websites and labeling them trustworthy or not so that “the thinking of cults” can be suppressed.

Wired’s Paul Boutin this week told the blogging were waters were not just tested, but getting crummy from all the toe-dipping by “cut-rate journalists” and “underground marketing campaigns.” Therefore, bloggers concerned with authenticity are wasting their time trying to get noticed, and should just stop.

Yes, you’re right, authenticity and need for attention don’t always go together.

But then there’s the more Pollyanna ilk that says, despite all the crap out there, what we’ve seen this election season is that the Internet may have effectively taken the wind out of dirty politics’ sails. Well, maybe it’s still worth something after all.

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Apple has announced today with their fiscal Q4 financial statements that the recent economic downturn is not effecting them as badly as other mobile phone vendors and that smartphone sales continue to flourish.

The company has so far sold 6.9 million iPhone 3G units, eclipsing the 6.1 BlackBerry sales pushed by RIM in the same quarter.

“Apple outsold RIM last quarter, and this is a milestone for us. RIM is a good company that makes good products, and so it is surprising that we could outsell them in any quarter after only 15 months in the market,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

iPhone revenue hit $4.6 billion for the Q3 2008 making Apple the third largest mobile phone vendor in terms of revenue behind Nokia and Samsung. Behind Apple are such big names as Sony, LG, Motorola and RIM.

With the high iPhone 3G sales, Apple has surpassed its goal of selling 10 million iPhone (1st gen and 3G) units for 2008, and there is still the holiday season to come.

“Not bad for being in the market for only 15 months,” added Jobs.

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Apple and Microsoft have been having this bizarre pissing match for a few years now, but this new set of ads marks confirms what previous volleys seemed to imply: these companies have no intention of actually talking about their products. Microsoft’s feel-good “I’m Joe the Plumber and I’m a PC” campaign was about as substantive as Apple’s disingenuous and outdated attacks on its opponent’s software, but this new set of ads is really nothing more than a vague indictment of Microsoft’s marketing strategy. Maybe that’ll fly with tech news hounds, but most people who see these on TV won’t even know what they’re talking about, much less care.

There’s also the minor matter of Apple accusing Microsoft of spending money on advertising that would be better allocated to fixing Vista. The message, of course, is delivered in an expensive advertising campaign, the week after Apple released brand new, prohibitively expensive laptops. Justin Long’s Mac moves on to criticize Microsoft’s ‘reluctance’ to call Vista by its real name, which is either a misguided dig at the Mojave campaign or some kind of odd jab at the logical dropping of the ‘Vista’ name for Windows 7.

Everyone expects misinformation and questionable techniques in advertising, but that’s not the issue here. These ads seem directed at Microsoft’s corporate management, not their customers. Redmond and Cupertino are having a useless, protracted argument with each other, unaware of the fact that their shouting is going completely over everyone else’s heads.

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After three months of silence following the release of the Mac clone by Psystar in April, the Cupertino company sued the company over copyright infringement.

The suit was filed July 3 in the US District Court for the district of Northern California, San Francisco. Initial filings for the case are due in October, while a case management conference is scheduled for October 22, court documents indicate. Judge James Larson has been assigned to the case.

Psystar offers a Mac clone for $399, along with a higher-end version for $999. Originally called the OpenMac, the name was later changed to “Open Computer” — likely to avoid trademark infringement.

Shipping of the desktops began in late April, although it is not known how many of the machines have so far been ordered. In addition to Mac OS X, Psystar offers the option to install Windows or Linux onto its high-end model.

Representatives for Apple and Psystar could not be immediately reached for comment.

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One by one on Friday, not individual AT&T stores, but entire cities, reported selling out of the device. By mid-morning, Chicago AT&T stores reported total liquidation. By noon, all of New York City’s had sold out.

Hours-long lines reportedly continued at Apple Stores throughout the weekend in the 21 countries in which it has premiered. Due to the extensive activation time, and the numerous down-times the system experienced, many users were sent home with a voucher instead of an iPhone.Others who actually obtained one, complained that the screens of their 3G iPhones were “too yellow,” wondering if something was wrong with their displays. In answer to the big question mark hovering over these users’ heads, Apple’s senior director of Product Marketing Bob Borchers spoke to Engadget. He said that the screen’s temperature had been deliberately set to a warmer level to produce “more natural” tones, with deeper blacks. Some, however, believed it was a flaw.

Wireless Info used a CS-200 Chroma Meter to analyze the brightness and color of the 3G iPhone’s screen and found that the screens were considerably brighter, and 1,240 degrees K warmer than the previous generation.

Testers then gauged the different firmware versions and found that the newer versions actually shift back toward the cooler end of the spectrum. This change between versions has caused those ultra-critical users to question whether this was an intentional.

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About six months after launching the MacBook Air at Macworld San Francisco in January, Apple has now cut the price of the top-of-the-line edition of its thin and light notebook by $500.

The deluxe model of the MacBook Air — which comes with a miniaturized version of the 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 64 GB solid state drive (SSD) — has now been reduced in price from $3,098 to $2,598. Meanwhile, the price of the base model — which uses a 1.6 GHz flavor of the same processor — is still $1,799.

Apple has also lowered pricing from $300 to $200 on 1.8 GHz processor upgrades and from $999 to $599 on the SSD, an optional feature. The Air ships standard with an 80 GB hard drive.

Apple’s price drops on the Air coincide with price reductions by Intel of $100 on the 1.8 GHz processor and $400 on the SSD.

But could demand for the high-end Air be a factor, too? Some users have been complaining vocally online about a price tag of $3,098 for a notebook that includes no optical drive and only one USB port. As some see it, the Air turns in only mediocre performance.

Weighing in at under 3 pounds, the MacBook Air includes a full-sized keyboard and a 13.3-inch LED display. It also ships standard with 2 GB RAM.

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Apple Inc. said Thursday people have bought more than 5 billion songs from its iTunes online music store.

In addition, Apple said, iTunes customers are now renting or buying more than 50,000 movies daily.

Apple said that based on data from market researcher NPD Group the iTunes store is the largest music retailer in the U.S. based on the amount of music sold during January and February 2008.

More than 8 million songs are available on iTunes, as well as more than 20,000 TV episodes and more than 2,000 movies.

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The mobile phone groups O2 and Carphone Warehouse have announced they have slashed the price of the smallest capacity Apple iPhone in the UK by 100 pounds.

The price cut comes ahead of the launch of the new upcoming 3G model.

The 8GB model will be available for 169 pounds until June 1st while the 16GB model will remain at its now markedly expensive 329 pound price tag. The device remains O2’s fastest selling device and the operator hopes the price cut will create even more momentum before the launch of the new updated model.

Earlier this month T-Mobile reduced the price for the smaller iPhone in Germany in an effort to spur sales.

“More and more this is starting to look like they want to clear stock of an older model, with a looming revision to the iPhone which will likely include 3G,” CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood told Reuters.

“But also we think the iPhone has slowed down during the first quarter and we think this (a 3G launch) should give sales a bit of a lift.”

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Under Apple’s EULA, installation of Leopard onto any computer equipment other than Apple’s own hardware is prohibited. If the past is any precedent, the company should be shortly contacting Psystar with a cease and desist request.

However, Psystar appears ready to fight, suggesting the clause forbidding such installations are a violation of US antitrust laws. Until then, it will continue to sell the OpenMac clone for $399.The $399 OpenMac’s base configuration includes a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of DDR2 RAM, Integrated Intel GMA 950 Graphics, a 20x DVD rewritable drive, and 4 rear USB ports.

A higher-end version, the OpenPro, retails for $999. The base configuration there includes a 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo, GeForce 8600GT graphics card, 600 watts of power, 3 120mm fans, standard FireWire ports and front USB ports.

For both systems, Leopard is available preinstalled for an additional $155. On the Pro, additional systems other than Apple’s can be installed.

“You don’t need to spend an arm and a leg to get the full OS X Leopard experience,” Psystar says on its Web site.

Psystar officials are comparing Cupertino’s restrictions to Microsoft saying Windows could only be installed on Dells, or a car company telling you which roads you could drive on.

Either way, this offer does not look to be targeted to the average consumer. A quick perusal through the company’s FAQ indicates that a user may not be able to always use the upgrades from Apple because some may be “non-safe,” and the Web site seems to target the PC to the “experienced” user.

Apple could not be immediately reached for comment.

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