Following up on rumors of a $800 Apple netbook, MacBook, iTablet, etc. VentureBeat reports that Apple might also use the new platform to introduce their long-rumored custom system-on-a-chip.

This would be the result of Apple purchasing fabless chip design firm Palo Alto Semiconductor (PA Semi) and hiring Papermaster from IBM and graphics processor (GPU) gurus x2 from AMD/ATI (though whether or not it includes the ARM and PowerVR licenses for cores found in the iPhone and iPod touch, or beefier Intel chips found in the Mac line is uncertain).

While Steve Jobs said PA Semi was going to be used for iPods and iPhones, VentureBeat claims the team was actually split in two, half for iPod/iPhone and half for the tablet.

TUAW speculates that, given recent news of problems between Apple and Nvidia, who currently makes the Mac integrated chipsets, perhaps Apple will push the custom work into that line as well.

Either way, we’ve seen the huge benefit shared software technology has provided for the iPhone and Mac (Spotlight, QuickTime X to name but two), Apple going in-house with the chipsets could be just as beneficial…

MacRumors is reporting that, according to sources at InfoTimes, Apple is set to release a a 9.7 inch, (multi?)-touch Wintek screen netbook this October:

Because Apple will adopt touch screen technology on its netbooks, Apple will not target low-end consumers, avoiding direct competition with Acer, Asus, as well as their less-than-500-dollars netbooks. Apple’s netbook (or a “tablet” as many call it,) will probably be sold at around $800 USD each.

Does this mean a new line of MacBooks now that the 13″ has gone Pro? And what does this mean for the long-rumored large iPod/tablet form factor?

Drop one tiny Verizon rumor pebble into the pond, and watch the iRipples spread like crazy. Cases in point:

Business Week (via MacRumors) is reporting that Apple will introduce two (2) new devices on Verizon this year:

1. iPhone “Lite”, which would be thinner and cheaper than the iPhone proper due to the system on a chip technology Apple has been amassing lately (i.e. PA Semi, Arm and PowerVR licenses, etc).
2. “Media Pad”, which would be smaller than an Amazon Kindle but with a larger screen and described as yet another breakthrough device on the scale of iPod or iPhone, with photos, HD movies, music, and Wi-Fi for — presumably browsing and — VoIP calls.

To further the rumor, one of these new toys may come as early as this summer. (WWDC time frame?)

We’re still not sure about any of this. iPhone did begin life as a larger, iTablet-like Safari Pad, and recently developer Craig Hokenberry made an interesting argument for a “Front Row To Go” pad that sounds similar.

Meanwhile, sucking the oxygen out of the lower-cost market is something Apple did with the iPod nano, however Apple has repeatedly said there’d be no iPhone nano (for whatever that’s worth…) but more importantly, unlike the GSM iPhone, a CDMA iPhone Lite or “Media Pad” wouldn’t enjoy the international portability of the iPhone (sure, “world phones” typically do some EDGE, but we’d want ultra-fast HSPA+, right?).

Just 2 years post launch, the GSM iPhone is in over 80 countries. The CDMA Amazon Kindle? Still just 1. Apples to oranges, we know, but it’s something to consider for “Media Pad” class devices.

Commercial Times (via Inquirer/MacRumors) is saying Taiwan’s Foxconn — which manufacturers the iPhone — is set to do similar for Apple’s rumored… iSomething..

iTablet and iNetbook chatter has been growing almost faster than any other Apple rumor lately. While we have no reason to believe Apple will join the race-to-the-bottom, razor-thin netbook market proper, strings in iPhone 3.0 firmware revealing an iProduct to make us think something is coming. Eventually.

Meanwhile, Software Advice has posted up a nice summary of why such a device, especially if it’s an iTablet, would be a compelling offering for verticals like healthcare.

Okay, technically one was on Monday, but following up the story on Apple ordering netbook-class panels, Dow Jones (via MacRumors) is following up with the always popular anonymous sources, said to be two people close to the situation:

The mini laptop computers will likely have monitor screens that are between 9.7-inches and 10-inches, one person, who declined to be named, said.

Will this be the 12″ Powerbook replacement many have been clamoring for? Will Apple really leave iTablet and large-size iPod touch demanders hanging again? Or will they combine the two products and make a netbook-sized device with a detachable multitouch-screen that works like a tablet?

It would have to move components from the keyboard section to the screen, making the top thicker and the bottom thinner (a la HTC Advantage).

Would it run iPhone OS X, however, or would people demand Mac OS X, paving the way for a really small, highly optimized version of Snow Leopard? It is building in multi-touch and CoreLocation… And could it be combined with the next generation MobileMe for online storage and cloud functionality, synced both to the full-sized Mac and even more portable iPhone…

Either way, TiPb predicts a fun, rumor-filled 2009!

MacRumors is reporting on a Digitimes story that says Taiwan-based supplier:

Wintek revealed that it is currently working with Apple to develop some new products, but it said it does not know what applications the new products are for.

Apple has denied interest in producing both a tablet and a netbook in the past, which is what they do both when they really have no interest, and also when they’re about the release something. What with all the new hardware Apple dropped last week, TiPb has speculated that the March 24th date for a rumored Apple Event could be used to debut the iPhone OS 3.0 beta, a higher resolution iPhone HD… or an iTablet form factor.

If Apple does release a new device, would it really be a netbook scale version of Mac OS X or a large-size iPod touch running the iPhone version of OS X? Either way, developers would need time to ramp up (or down) their apps. Either way, could this be more fuel for that fire, or simply more grist for the rumor-mill?

Today Apple dropped new Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro desktops, and Airport Extreme, and Time Capsule routers. Previously, we’d heard rumors about Apple waiting and holding one of their Special Events on March 24th, a “Spotlight Turns to Desktops” to bookend last fall’s “Spotlight Turns to Laptops” event. But none of today’s releases were as new or event-worthy as the unibody MacBooks announced last year, were they?

So, if Apple really is having a March 24th event — and it’s not just some interfanboynet make believe — what’s left for them to announce?

Well, March 2008 was the iPhone SDK Roadmap Event, where Apple began the process that ultimately led us to iPhone OS 2.0 and the App Store.

Could March 2009 give us a similar peek into the beginning of a beta process for iPhone OS 3.0? Could it show off an App Store-level complication on the order of an iPhone HD or iTablet, requiring the months before WWDC and an eventual summer release be spent testing new resolutions or screen sizes, or other hardware changes bound for the iPhone 2,1 model?

As stated explicitly in the title, pure and abject speculation at this point, but Apple does seem to like product cycles and symmetry…

What do you think?

Earlier this month, TiPb threw it’s hat in the ring of next generation handset speculation by predicting Apple would announce an iPhone HD in 2009. It just made sense to us, and apparently it’s beginning to make sense to others as well.

What happened? New York Times writer John Markoff dropped a rumor bomb:

The [unnamed search engine] company spotted Web visits from an unannounced Apple product with a display somewhere between an iPhone and a MacBook. Is it the iPhone 3.0 or the NetMac 1.0?

Jesus Diaz over at Gizmodo seems to be thinking what we’re thinking as well:

here in Gizmodo we are thinking about an iPhone HD with an updated 800 x 480 pixel display, probably coming in 2009.

So, is this just another wunderkind spoofing his or her web browser for lulz and chaos? Or is Steve Jobs already carrying around the prototype iPhone HD in his pocket, practicing the Keynote Boom! for WWDC 2009?

Oh, Apple, you tease! It’s not enough we’ve all heard the iPhone began life as the Safari Pad tablet? That Intel has leaked Atom-powered portable hints? That the rumors start up again every time the blogsphere even thinks you have a “Special Event” coming our way? Do you really have to go and show us your patents?

Apple Insider says:

Much of the 52-page filing describes methods for accurately detecting and deciphering a plurality of simultaneous contacts on a touch screen, which sets the foundation for future tablet-based products that users can manipulate using not only more than one finger, but more than one hand.

Design guru Jonathan Ive, among others, is credited with the innovation, which includes examples of window control, virtual keyboards, and virtual scroll-wheels.

No word, of course, on when or if we’ll ever actually get to hold such awesome mobile power with our own multi-touching hands…

Can’t keep a good iTablet rumor down, can you?

While Windows-based tablets have never successfully penetrated the mainstream market, a vocal contingent have long been clamoring for an Apple Tablet (iTablet, MacBook Touch, Safari Pad, etc.). Modbook rolls their own and Alex Lindsay of PixelCorps/MacBreak Weekly fame contemplated making one himself. Heck, even TechCrunch wants a FrankenLinFox pad!

Will we ever see it? We know Apple has it in the R&D shop. Heck, the iPhone runs software originally conceived of for “Safari Pad”. Steve Jobs has said he’s just as proud of of some things Apple hasn’t released. If it wasn’t right for Apple before, is it now? Only Jobs knows for sure, but MacDailyNews (via Gizmodo) is beating the rumor drum again:

Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at “low” price that will reduce margins. Apple wants to move these babies. And move they will. This is some sick shit. App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too. By October at the latest.In all honesty, we may have passed this story up, but we’ve heard vague reports from reliable sources that Quanta is busy building a touch product for Apple. This latest information seems seems to compliment what we’ve heard.

Sounds like much more of a MacBook Air cannibalizer than over-sized iPod Touch to me, but with Mobile OS X and App Store well on their way to becoming the next great computing platform, who knows how fast and hard Apple wants to seize that high ground?