Orange exec busts opens iSlate kimono
Definitely maybe
Apple’s long rumoured iSlate will launch within days, an Orange France exec says.
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In an interview with Europe 1 Stephane Richard, deputy CEO at Orange France, suggests he knows a fair bit about the gadget’s features and due date.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, the "French equivalent of David Dimbleby or Jeremy Paxman", asks: “According to weekly Le Point, in a couple of days Apple will be launching a tablet computer with a webcam."
Richard: “Yes.”
Elkabbach: “Are Orange customers going to be able to enjoy it?”
Richard: “Of course!”
The translation is accurate enough, but don't read too much into it: Richard's answers are terse, to say the least.
Apple has never confirmed the existence of a tablet Mac, but it is expected to announce the device in San Francisco on January 27.
Bootnote
Props to the French blog Nowhere Else for alerting us to this story.
COMMENTS
Maybe everybody will be wrong
I so much want Apple NOT to come out with a tablet after all the speculation.
...actually
Apparently all other consumer electronics people like Samsung and Sony etc have pretty much put their R&D teams on a sabbatical until the iPad / iSlab / iWhatever turns up and they can see what the next iWant kit can do and replicate as necessary.
It must be true, I read it on El Reg!
iSlab?
iNook
iPodX
iPodY
iPodT
iMacT
what does it really matter what it's called? it'll still be an overpriced piece of kit.
(I wonder if the Mac-in-fans will flame up now)
Here is my take.
I really doubt Apple will be releasing an iSlate. I think they have made the rumour mill work so well, for them that MS and all the major PC manufacturers have gone ahead and wasted huge amounts of resources producing a product that almost no one will actually buy.
I hope it ...
... can operate in at least two modes.
Mode the first
A tethered device acting subjugate to the host operating system.
Mode the second
As a parallel device with it's own independent OS when tethered
Mode the third
A standalone device with wholesome web 2.0-ness.
(Okay, I can't count?)
