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Apple prototyping "iPhone lite" and MacBook Mini / media pad for Verizon?
Hot on the heels of yesterday's reports of Apple and Verizon dealings comes some tantalizing, but still unconfirmed, new details from BusinessWeek. According to the publication, the gang in Cupertino has prototyped two devices for the carrier. The first one is a smaller, less expensive device that's been dubbed as "iPhone lite" by someone who's apparently seen it in person. The other is called a "media pad" (Joggler, anyone?) for music, photos, HD video, and placing calls over WiFi. Details are scant beyond that, and while that pad sounds a lot like an iPod touch to us, we can't help but wonder if it has something to do with those 10-inch displays that Quanta's rumored to be manufacturing. Don't put too much stock into this, as the reports could end up being all for naught, but one thing's for sure: you can bet the suits at AT&T are keeping a very, very close eye on this. In other, even sketchier and likely unrelated rumors, a listing for "MacBookMini" has popped up in Adium's statistics. While we wouldn't normally think anything of this -- as TUAW correctly notes, anyone can edit their computer IDs -- it was from these pages that we first heard the name MacBook Air. Chances are this is nothing, but with all this talk of 10-inch screens and media pads, it kind of makes you wonder. [Via TUAW; image courtesy of Frunny]Read - BusinessWeekRead - Adium stats
Dept. of deja vu: MacBookMini found in Adium stats
Reader Josh sent along this little note -- nothing too important, just something for you to file away for future reference. He just wanted us to point out that way, way down in the stats for Adium, the IM client for everyone who's not using iChat, there is one surreptitious listing for a "MacBookMini."Now, I assure you, we're thinking the exact same things you're thinking: these stats are totally bunk, anyone can edit their computer ID to be listed as anything they want, and one stat on Adium's page does not mean that Apple is coming out with some sort of revolutionary miniature laptop. And we agree with you -- it's almost certainly nothing of consequence. Or, that is, we would completely agree with you, except for one thing: it's happened exactly this way before. A little computer called the MacBook Air first showed up in Adium's stats, and people argued those exact same things at the time, and it all turned out to be real.You might say that makes it doubly likely for someone to tweak their computer's settings to show up as some legendary Apple test machine, and again, we'd agree with you. But it's a big world out there -- unless you work at 1 Infinite Loop, you have no idea what Apple is testing and working on right now. Like I said, we just thought we'd let you know. Just in case.
Analyst: new MacBook Pros, "MacBook mini" possible at WWDC
We're always a little more skeptical of Mac-fanboy analysts (fanalists, if you will) that often seem to make this stuff up as they go, but American Technology Research's Shaw Wu -- who doesn't really have the best track record on calling Apple's moves -- is jumping on the bandwagon in the belief that WWDC will break from its typically developer-centric agenda and land some new laptops, including LED-backlit MacBook Pros (which we weren't really expecting this early in the year), and even a "MacBook mini" geek-fantasy ultraportable, complete with power-saving SSD drive. Also on Wu's docket: OS X virtualization, which would enable, say, Windows to run almost as an app in itself (another beaten-to-death rumor; see also: Parallels). Not that we'd put a lot of weight on this one, but you've been warned.
