When Kassia Krozser referred to the forthcoming Apple tablet as the “Apple Unicorn” I emailed her to ask if she knew something that no civilian outside of Apple knows. Or was it a joke? If it was a joke it was a damn good one.

It’s a joke. Someone started referring to the tablet as a Unicorn because no one had ever seen it but everyone was ascribing magical properties to it.

I fell for it because “Unicorn” happens to be a splendid name for an e-book reader, especially compared to the litany of dumb ones we have been reciting for the last year or two. “The name has, oddly (or not), found traction in all sorts of media,” Kassia writes, “and there’s even a Unicorn hashtag on Twitter.”

Of course, if the name of Apple’s tablet truly turns out to be Unicorn the joke would be on Apple. But right now, Las Vegas money is strongly behind “iSlate”. Forty-eight hours or so from now we’ll all know.

Richard Curtis

Do twenty rumors add up to one truth? Maybe.

Like the blind men in the fable who try to infer the shape of an elephant by touching its body parts, countless Apple-watchers ranging from savvy geeks to clueless crackpots have been speculating on the nature of the iSlate tablet (including, by the way, the name itself). The difference is that the characters in the famous story actually had access to the elephant’s trunk, tail, ear and tusk, whereas the speculators haven’t even glimpsed the iSlate.

But a website called The Green Room has culled all the rumors and assembled them into an iSlate, or at least the tablet equivalent of the elephant. The composite they’ve constructed comes complete with callouts referring to each rumored component. It’s pictured left, but click here to see it full size and legibly. A fun feature is Green Room’s evaluation of the rumors ranging from highly likely to highly unlikely. Here are a few of those callouts with the URLs of the source of the gossip.

• 3D operating system navigation (very unlikely)
• Price around $1,000 (very likely)
• January 27 unveiling (very likely)
• 10” display (likely)
• Called iSlate (likely)
• Pixel Qi screen (very unlikely)
• OLED screen (unlikely)
• Multitouch version of iWork (likely)
• Interact with tablet using palms and fingers (likely)

The observation that interests us most is that the Pixel Qi screen is not a likely possibility. As we wrote recently (See Hybrids Work for Cars. Why Not for Screens?), Pixel Qi is a hybrid that alternates between battery-draining full color for applications like video, to battery-saving black and white for text reading. We had surmised that Pixel Qi might solve the problem of short battery life in the iSlate. But if The Green Room is right and Pixel Qi is a “very unlikely” feature of the iSlate – well, where does it leave us?

With a lot of questions, is where. They’ll be answered on January 27th – unless Apple has simply hired an auditorium to announce it’s installing new toilets in the executive washroom.

Okay, do you think you know the answers? If you do, Gizmodo is offering a free Apple tablet to whoever guesses the most features on the device (including the name). Here are the contest rules:

Fill out the survey before the Apple event, and whoever gets closest to having all the answers right is eligible to win a free Apple tablet—whatever it ends up being called—courtesy of us.

• If the final feature is not exactly like one of the answers we provided, we will pick the closest answer. If the feature is not in the answers, that question will be void, but the rest of the questions will still be valid towards winning.

• There is a reasonable chance that many people will get the correct answers. In the event that there are, all of those who made the cut will go into a drawing, from which we’ll pick a winner at random.

Richard Curtis
iSlate background image created by Fotoboer, graphic © 2010 tgr network.

Is an e-book a physical thing? Or is it virtual and without mass? An object or a file? And is there a different model for selling virtual than there is for selling physical?

We’re about to find out. Jeffrey Trachtenberg of The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has been in discussions, and possible negotiations, with HarperCollins over the terms of e-books to be carried on the soon-to-be released Apple tablet, which everyone is calling the iSlate until the official announcement on January 27th proves otherwise. It would appear however that Apple is discussing a similar agenda with other members of the so-called big six publishers (Simon & Schuster, Random House, Penguin, Hachette, Macmillan and HarperCollins).

Michael Cader, publisher of Publishers Lunch, has written an extensive analysis drawn from the molten news as it leaks out of so-called confidential discussions. “Apple,” writes Cader, “has agreed in principle to do business with publishers under what is called the agency model–as opposed to the wholesaling model currently in place for ebook sales and most physical book sales. In the agency model, the publisher is considered as keeping possession of the actual goods (the ebook files) and it pays a commission to its authorized selling partners. So the publisher sets the retail price of the ebooks, and the commissioned agents have no ability to change that price. Ebooks sold under the agency model would be offered to any established trading partners who agree to the commission and other particulars.”

Cader adds:

“Given that publishers, agents and even retailers have already skirmished over whether ebook sales are a traditional sale or a license, and given the completely different nature of selling access to a digital file versus a physical object, there’s plenty of room to argue that a new selling model is only logical and overdue.”

The implications of this development cannot be overstated, for it means restoration to publishers of control over the timing and pricing of e-books. It also means some pushback against Amazon, whose approach to pricing and simultaneous release of e-books has pretty much put publishers in a corner.

You can read the Wall Street Journal article here.

We’ve come a long way since Apple CEO Steven Jobs, referring to e-books, sneered “People don’t read anymore.” (See Will Steve Jobs Eat His Words with Ketchup, Mustard or Mayo?)

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the Wall Street Journal.

One of the hit tech wonders of the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a schizophrenic screen called the Pixel Qi that may solve some major problems for e-book manufacturers. Foremost among those problems is how to extend battery life in the forthcoming power-gobbling generation of tablets.

The principle is simple enough. “The gray-and-white E Ink displays on devices like the Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook do not have color and cannot show video,” writes the New York Times‘s Brad Stone. “Computers can, but text is difficult to read in full sunlight on laptop displays, which also hog battery power and can strain the eyes when reading for long periods.”

Like a hybrid car that alternates between gas and battery power, the Pixel Qi maximizes energy efficiency. Earlier this week we wondered whether the soon-to-be-announced Apple iSlate might be a battery-drainer. Could Pixel Qi be the remedy?

Read One Screen to Read It All and judge. But if the iSlate doesn’t use Pixel Qi, don’t be surprise if others do. A half-dozen manufacturers “were showing devices with Pixel Qi’s screen behind the scenes at the show and preparing to sell them later this year,” says Stone.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by the New York Times.

We hate to rain on iSlate’s apotheosis, but some of us are wondering about battery life.

A portable computer is only as good as its battery. A blogger with the handle of “Andrew”, writing for TabletPCReview.com, said that “Whenever we review notebooks one of the questions that always needs to be answered is, what’s the battery life like on this tablet? We all know manufacturers overstate the quoted battery life for a system, probably because they test for battery life under ideal conditions for getting a high number. For example, wireless off, processor underclocked, system idle, LCD brightness set to low, no DVD and so on. So when your notebook with a quoted 5 hour battery life actually gets three hours, you’re left wondering what happened to those other two hours the manufacturer got?”

Andrew wrote that in 2007, but the fundamental issues have not changed since then.

A January 26-scheduled announcement by Apple, which few pundits believe could be about anything else than the imminent release of a tablet-sized computer/e-book reader, has created nearly messianic frenzy. A New York Times columnist said that some are calling the device a “Jesus tablet”. But at least one authority, physicist Eric Hellmann, thinks we should look under the hood before declaring January 26th a religious holiday.

Hellman, whose popular blog Go To Hellman covers the e-book scene, has speculated on the device’s power source. “The design problem is the battery,” he recently wrote. “Assuming that the iSlate is a multimedia device implies that it’s not an e-ink device. It’s going to have a screen not so different from an iPhone screen, and that will consume power. That will in turn require a battery proportional to the iPhone battery, and batteries are what cause iPhones to be reasonably heavy for their size. The Kindle works as a book-replacement because it’s light enough; I’m guessing the iSlate will be a more of a tv than a book.”

Apple will undoubtedly imbed a state of the art battery in its tablet, but when you consider the load that a tabet will have to pull – movie and game videos, photo archives, videocam, multitouch screen, full color e-books, magazines, newspapers, music, plus countless juice-draining apps, to say nothing of the demands of the tablet’s own operating and processing system, you have to wonder whether Apple’s battery, or anybody else’s at this moment in history, will be able to do the job without adding an unacceptable weight burden.

Knowledgeable insiders confirm these concerns. When a website named islate.org posted some allegedly leaked specs (you can read them here), one commenter wrote that “for as thin as the device is intended to be, there is no possible way it’ll run a HD, 2Gb RAM, and a Core 2 Duo processor. Factor in the large multitouch screen and you could expect a battery life of about 15-minutes with those specs, AND it’d be too hot to handle AND weigh a few pounds. No way.”

There will undoubtedly be a stampede to snap up the iSlate, but the coolheaded will scrutinize the specs before committing to the hefty – rumored at $1000 – price of a device that, if you believe some iSlate evangelists, embeds nothing less than the spiritual hopes and dreams of humankind within its fragile case.

Richard Curtis

Further to our speculations on the imminent announcement of an Apple tablet (hereinafter called iSlate until we are refuted), a blogger has posted more information, some old (Apple’s announcement will be made on January 26th in San Francisco), some new and slightly bizarre (a ribbed keyboard will materialize when you’re ready to text), and some at variance with our own received wisdom – otherwise known as rumor. TechnoBuffalo says the iSlate’s screen will be 7″, whereas our sources (gossip) suggest something between 10″ and 11″. The larger screen makes more sense for a tablet device that is supposed to carry newspapers, magazines, and illustrated books, but what do we know? When it comes to Apple, we know slightly less than Kremlin-watchers knew at the height of the Cold War. But it’s still fun to guess

RC.

Here’s his video:

All eyes will be on the stage of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on January 26th. That’s where and when Apple is expected to introduce its long-awaited tablet. . We couldn’t get odds in Las Vegas but David Gelles of Financial Times‘s ft.com website reports that at least one analyst rates the likelihood at 50-50. Investors liked the odds a lot better than that, driving Apple shares up by almost $7.00 to an all-time high of over $209.00 at the end of last week’s trading. If you’d bought Apple last January you’d be up about $130.00 a share today.

What will the Apple tablet look and feel like? Since everything at this stage is pure conjecture, the device is literally a tabula rasa. But Jeremy Horwitz, editor in chief of iLounge.com, who has a pretty good track record in the conjecture department, speculated about it in September. Among other features he thinks we will see when the curtain is pulled back are:

• It has a 10.7-inch screen
• It runs on an iPhone OS
• It will come in two different variations: one with 3G networking capabilities, and one without. “Think of the 3G version as a bigscreen iPhone 3GS, and the non-3G version as a bigscreen iPod touch.”
• It will have a 480 x 320-pixel display, enabling easy reading of full-sized book and magazine pages.”Expect something like 5-6 times the resolution of an iPod touch or iPhone screen (720p or thereabouts) and 7 times the touchable surface area.”
• It is designed to be a slate-like replacement for books and magazines, plus all of the media, gaming, app, and web functionality of the iPhone and iPod touch

Gelles in his ft.com article adds that “Apple is working to solidify a new round of content deals with TV studios. Meanwhile, publishers have been working on new versions of digital magazines that would be viewed on touch screen computers.”

We have frequently stated here that as red-hot as the e-book industry’s growth may be, it will not reach its full potential until there’s a tablet under the arm of every student on every campus. There is simply no dedicated reading device available today with screen size adequate to serve the educational community.

So, what’s the name of Apple’s tablet? Typical of Steve Jobs’s secretive style the company is holding it tightly under wraps. However, a little birdie tells us it’s iSlate. “It seems Apple’s name was temporarily exposed as the actual owner of ‘iSlate.com’ for several weeks in late 2007,” explains a website called MacRumors. “It was changed back within a few weeks, but MacRumors has found the historic record proving Apple ownership of the iSlate.com domain.”

You can actually see the document here. But don’t go looking for it online, at least not yet. We tried and got one of these:

PROBLEM LOADING PAGE
Firefox can’t find the server at www.islate.com.

Do we like the name “iSlate”? Well, given the epidemic of dumb names assigned to e-book readers lately, we give a big thumbs-up to iSlate. That is, unless you misread it as “Is Late.” If Apple fails to release its tablet early in the new year (March is the projected date), you can expect no end of plays on an otherwise memorable name.

Richard Curtis