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Last week I suggested that based on all the hints from Taiwan screen vendors and others, we could be seeing the long awaited Apple “Giant iPod Netbook Thingie” (I will be copywriting that term later tonight, so hands off Steve Jobs) in September. Well, the rumor now says October, and this one has long legs, being reported far and wide across the internet due to some Chinese language reports in the trade papers. The key bit, translated by MacRumors, goes as follows…

Taiwan’s high-tech supply chain companies said Apple will debut its first Netbook in October; Apple will pose itself to tackle the Christmas shopping season. Three (Taiwanese) corporations–Foxconn, Wintek, Dynapack–have received direct orders from Apple. (Wintek will be producing touch screens and providing relevant technologies for Apple.) In addition, some supply chain companies have privately confirmed deals related to Netbooks.

In addition it says that the device’s screen will be 9.7 inches diagonally, a size chosen based on the success of the Kindle, and will cost around 800 dollars.

No idea yet if this is more wishful thinking on the part of iPhone fanboys or someone in Taipei has drunk a little too much of the Apple koolaid, but I admit this smells like the truth to me. Most of the net would agree, as lots of blogs and websites are still saying we should take the rumors with a grain of salt but are treating it like the real McCoy.

If this does happen, expect the Giant iPod Netbook Thingie to do to the MID/UMPC market (what there is of it)  as well as the Ebook reader community what the iPhone did to the smartphone industry…that is, to change all the rules overnight. Due to the price and the apparent lack of a physical keyboard (unless there is a slider that hasn’t been tipped yet) I don’t think it will have much of an effect on the actual Netbook market, where low price and notebook form factor are very important…but as for everybody else, watch out.

I sort of hate to say this, but this could be the sort of device that pushes the mobile internet to the next level. Seriously, I am not a rabid Apple fan by and large, but if this device really DOES come out and is anything like the rumors I’ll buy one, no question. It just looks that dead sexy.

(Mockup Graphic: A Gizmodo Classic from two rumors ago)

Zealot (473 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).