The Tech Futurologist

The New Apple Rumor Roundup

Now that CES is officially over, it's apparently time for the vague Apple rumor factory to start churning out sketchy reports about tablets, next-gen iPhones, and "vanishing" domain names. Yeah, it's getting silly out there, but judging by our tip box you all can't get enough, so let's do this thing rapid-fire style.

The rumor: The Korea Times, citing unnamed sources at Korea Telecom, says the carrier is planning for a 4G iPhonefeaturing an OLED display, a front-facing video camera, a fast new dual-core CPU, and a removable battery. General launch is expected in June, but corporate clients will be doing a "litmus test" in April.
Our take: We will eat our hats if Apple puts a removable battery in the iPhone. Plus, Apple doesn't do focus group testing, least of all with enterprise customers. This just seems like wishful thinking -- we could have made up a more convincing rumor while eating a hat.

The rumor: 10.1 OLED and LCD display panels are no longer available anywhere, because Apple has "pre-ordered them all" to secure volume discounts and keep the tablet's price down.
Our take: We certainly saw plenty of new 10.1-inch netbooks and slates at CES, including some multitouch LCD units, and no one was complaining. Also, we saw several larger OLED displays at CES, but they were all too expensive and impractical for shipping products, so that's gotta be one hell of a discount.

The rumor: Apple has mysteriously shut down the FingerWorks website, which means something tablet-related because... well, it must mean something, right?
Our take: Apple bought FingerWorks years ago -- we're surprised this hadn't happened sooner. We bet the hosting contract just ran out. Alternatively, Steve Jobs is trying to send us a message by yanking an obscure touch-related domain just weeks before a highly-anticipated product launch, because he is the master of extremely minor hints about nothing.

All in all, a pretty lame set of rumors -- there's barely anything here for pundits and the mass media to conflate and distort into something bigger. At least give us a poorly-translated French telecom executive speaking off the cuff, you know? Have some dignity.