That high-pitched roaring sound you have been hearing all day is the Apple Rumour Mill starting up again, with the Fanboiz in their Wheels running full tilt due to an apparent slip of the tongue by New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller.

Keller was giving a speech at the Nieman Journalism Lab that was supposed to be confidential and “off the record”. Of course, as soon as those eager young journalists got to their net connection, his remarks were all over the interwebs (which may have been just what he and EL Jobso had intended..sneaky buggers). He was basically nattering on about the future of journalism which is a favorite topic these days, and how to balance paid and free content online…but his most interesting comment was not about content but about devices, especially concerning a certain somewhat flattish device from Apple that many people have been waiting for.

Keller said as follows…

"We need to figure out the right journalistic product to deliver to mobile platforms and devices. I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple Slate, or whatever comes after that."

The Apple Slate? That is not the normal term that is being used. Most of us poor slobs who know nothing about it save for rumours and what other bloggers imagine call it the Apple Tablet or the iTablet, or if you are Daniel Lyons at Newsweek you call it “My Beautiful and Terrible Master, Liberator of all Human Knowledge”…however the Apple Slate sounds like Mr. Keller has been sitting in on some Apple Product Briefings and has been getting the straight dope.

This would make sense, as a lot of rumours have stated that one of Apple’s key goals with a Tablet device would be to present newspaper and magazine content and the NYT has been Apple’s newspaper partner of choice for ages. Personally I think the NYT having a lot of input into an Apple Tablet is a great thing, as the New York Times app on the iPhone is likely the best mobile news application I have ever used. If they create another application like that but even more so for the Giant iPod Netbook Thingie, or the Apple Slate, that would make me even more likely to buy one and use it regularly.