Rumors

If you’re one of the few who cannot live without your MS Office app then I have some good news. Rumors are circulating today that Microsoft is planning to release a new Office app for Android and the iPad.

Boy Genius Report claims that they have tips from a reliable source. Microsoft is reportedly planning on a November launch for  both apps. What’s more, their source has seen MS Office running on an iPad. It is supposed to look identical the images that were leaked to The Daily a few months back. Read more

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The Liberty Times, a Taiwanese newspaper, added a rumor to the growing iPad Mini frenzy earlier this week. According to their sources, 2 different screen manufacturers have been tapped to provide displays for Apple’s rumored smaller iPad. Their report also says Radiant is going to supply the backlight module.

Their list of suppliers is quite extensive, more so than this reporter can verify. That gives this rumor the weight of being either true or an elaborate hoax, and I lean towards the former. The iPad Mini is also said to be scheduled to begin shipping by the end of the third quarter of this year, but no retail price has been suggested.

On a related note, there’s new speculation from some quarters that the screen on the iPad Mini will be 7″, not 7.85″. According to the more fanatical believers, that larger dimension is the size of the entire ipad Mini from corner to corner, not the screen. If true it would make the production rumors that much more plausible. It’s not clear that anyone makes a 7.85″ screen, so there’s not much of a chance that it could be used in the iPad Mini.

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If you’re planning to wait for the next Kindle Fire, you might want to be prepared to be overwhelmed with choices. Taiwan Economic News is reporting that the retail giant has 3 different tablets in the works, with 3 different screens and 3 different price points.

Details are scarce on the price and release date, but rumor has it that there will be two 7″ tablets (with 1024×600 and 1024×800 screens) and a high end 8.9″ tablet with a high resolution display (1920×1200). If that last one is true then the larger Kindle Fire would have a pixel density almost as high as the new iPad (255 vs 264).

TEN has reported that “Amazon decided to expand cooperation with Taiwanese suppliers”. Quanta is going to be assembling the two 7″ tablets, and Foxconn is also named as building one of the 7″ models. These tablets are rumored to be coming out later this year.

Taiwan Economic News

 

The rumored 7.85″ iPad went from  rumor to  certainty this week. The Korea Times posted an interview of an unnamed Samsung official, and I think the fellow said more than he intended to.

The focus of the interview was the new Apple-Samsung deal. Over the next 12 months, Apple plans to buy over $11 billion worth of components from Samsung, which is a marked incrse from the $7+ billion deal last year.

But this article also included  few details that I’m sure Apple would rather have kept hidden. Here’s the part that has the blogosphere all abuzz:

“The contract is expected to rise to $11 billion by the end of this year as Apple is planning to release a smaller iPad, probably with a 7.85-inch screen, and to sell more of its MacBook Air PCs using Samsung’s faster solid state drive (SSD) storage,” the official said.

Some of the rumors suggest that the iPadling is coming this fall. Will you buy one?

Apple launched the new iPad last week with no iPad Mini in sight, and that has sent the rumor mills working overtime. Digitimes reported this morning that their sources have told them some new gossip about the upcoming 7.85″ iPad.

The iPad Mini is rumored to have thinner bezels than most tablets, which would give it a more compact form factor. It’s said that Apple is making this design decision so the Mini could compete better against the Kindle Fire and other 7″ Android tablets. If this is true then the iPad Mini (I’m still not sure it exists) would look something like the concept video that Atmel Studios posted last week. That video featured a wishlist of iPad features, including an edge to edge screen.

The 7.85″ iPad is expected to be priced $249 to $299, but the rumor does not include any mention of a release date.

Digitimes

Now that we’ve seen the new iPad it’s time to start speculating about other new gadget. To wit, the Kindle Fire.

Digitimes is inventing more rumors today about the Kindle Fire. According to their sources, Amazon is planning to release a 7″ and 10″ Kindle Fire this year. The ship date hasn’t been named, but it has been vaguely narrowed down to the second half of 2012. They’re also now denying the rumored 8.9″ Kindle Fire, claiming that it has now been replaced by the 10″ model.

So what proof do they have? They have the same strength of evidence that they had for the Kindle with the color E-ink screen. None.

But it is an interesting rumor, isn’t it?

The rumor mongers at Digitimes are back again, and this time they have the inside scoop on next week’s iPad launch. At this point pretty much everyone is assuming that Apple will unveil the iPad 3, but Digitimes’ source is reporting that Apple also has plans for a cheaper iPad 2.

If the rumor is to be believed, Apple is going to start selling an iPad 2 with only 8GB of storage. That’s only half the current iPad 2, and Apple is supposedly releasing it in order to go after a cheaper segment of the tablet market.

Some will take this tale as gospel, but I’m not so sure. In the past Apple has usually retired older models when a new one is launched. For example, the original iPad went on sale shortly after the iPad 2 launched. Also, introducing a cheaper iPad 2 would seem to be a step back, and Apple is usually a step ahead of everyone.

I think Apple would be more likely to release an iPad 3 with only 8Gb of storage. This would let them eliminate the assembly line for the older model.

Digitimes

Metro invented a highly improbable and probably fiscally impossible rumor last month about the Kindle Fire. According to this tabloid rag, there’s a chance that the Kindle Fire, Amazon’s new 7″ Android tablet, will be coming to the UK with a retail of £100.

Needless to say, that simply won’t happen. This rumor doesn’t deserve anything more than a derisive snicker, but for the sake of thoroughness I will endeavor to explain why it’s nonsense. Hopefully this will quell any other pricing rumors.

Read more

The iPad rumors never stop, but every so often the serial numbers are filed off old rumors so they can be reused. One Apple obsessed Japanese tech blog is reporting that all the rumored fall release dates are wrong, becuase Apple’s next killer tablet won’t be coming out until March 2012.

While this rumor has no more real evidence behind it than any of the others, it is the most likely to come true. Apple has picked released the previous iPads early in the year, so a March release date would make sense.

The new iPad is rumored to be the same size as the current model but there’s no word on whether it will have the higher resolution screen that some have been anticipating. It’s also supposed to have a new dock connector. This part is the least likely to be true; the iPad has always used the same 30 pin dock connecter as the one on the iPod Touch and earlier iPods.  Switching now would confuse customers and potentially result in damage to iPads when users tried to plug in the wrong cable.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting on several rumors about the iPad 3. If the rumors turn out to be true then they will dash the hopes of anyone who hoped to get an iPad 3 in time for Christmas.

According to its sources, Apple has placed parts orders for the new iPad, and they won’t be on hand in time for that fall launch. other sources are reporting that Apple actually plans to launch the next iPad in early 2012, about a year after the launch of the iPad 2.

The next iPad is rumored to have a high resolution screen (2048×1536 vs 1024×768). Apple’s suppliers are also supposed to have shipped small quantities of parts for iPad 3 sample units.

While it is very likely that Apple is working on another iPad, there is no real evidence when it will come out or what the specs will be . It’s best to take the rumors with a grain of salt.