Hot on the heels of Apple’s blow-out year-end financial statements, which highlighted the Cupertino-based company’s success with the iPhone 3G, rumors are swirling around the various intertubes that have Apple secretly working on some sort of Apple netbook or tablet computer.
Steve Jobs made a rare appearance during Apple’s financial earnings conference call to field analysts’ questions. On the subject of whether Apple would expand its lineup to include a netbook – the fast growing segment of cheap and portable sub-notebooks – Jobs declared that Apple would be taking a wait-and-see approach.
Today we’re hearing that Apple may already have a netbook or some sort of Apple tablet in the works. An unnamed search engine source has revealed that it has seen web-traffic from an unknown Apple device with a display resolution between that of the iPhone and the MacBook. The device in question fits the profile for an Apple netbook or the oft-rumored Apple Tablet computer.
Alternatively, the mysterious device could be a next-generation iPhone. James and I were talking about the future of the iPhone and what we might expect to see from Cupertino in the next 1-1.5 years. An iPhone HD, with higher resolutions than the current iPhone 3G, would be the next logical step for Apple’s iPhone lineup. With the HTC Touch HD already stomping all over Apple’s iPhone-playground, I tend to agree with that line of thought. Apple needs to step up the display resolution to match the VGA and WVGA competition and it wouldn’t surprise us if Apple is already letting its iPhone HD out to play.
Is Apple testing their Apple MacBook Mini, the mythical Apple Tablet, or the next-generation iPhone HD?
[Via: NYT]