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Apple "half-tablet sized" iPod rumour

"I know that you are an aspiring technoblogger, so I want to give you a scoop."

"What is it?"

"Apple is satisfied with the iPod touch's basic platform, and will be making a 'half-tablet' sized connected device."

"Half Tablet, WTF is that?", I said.

He replied, "it's sorta kinda like the Nokia sized devices, like half a sheet of 8x11 paper. Thin, like a Touch, and may come with stylus. Wifi, optional 3g, memcard slot."

It's Alan Wilensky [picture, right] guessing: it's easily the most fun of the speculations offered for why Apple has forecast a huge drop in margins. As Joe Wilcox blogged:

CFO Peter Oppenheimer warned of falling margins for the next quarter and fiscal 2009. He gave three reasons, but one really stood out: a future product transition that "I can't discuss today."

Apple margins would fall from 34.8 percent during the fiscal third quarter to an estimated 31.5 percent and 30 percent for fiscal 2009. The two other reasons—one a short-time sales promotion—aren't enough to explain fiscal 2009 impact, which leaves the new product transition as the most plausible explanation... Mischievously, Wilcox asked readers to guess. So they did: dozens of them...

It's true: NewsWireless doesn't normally find the comment sections of people's blogs any use. Most are idiotic "look-at-me!" posturings by the utterly ignorant. And there are enough on this page to satisfy the most cynical. But Bizcast's is, at least, consistent with known background developments.

At least.. well, Wilensky says he's blogged it. As far as I can tell, he hasn't: just scooped himself on eWeek's pages.

Alan: if you believed the story, you'd have posted it, I bet...