It’s elementary my dear Hotson, Apple tablet to be called iSlate
What do you get when you add tablet rumors, an unhealthy sense of curiosity (step away from that Mac and talk to your family) and unlimited access to domain information? Well, you get a compelling narrative on the effort Apple has taken to secure and hide the tradename for their Mac tablet, iPod touch on steroids, nay, iSlate.
TechCrunch has picked up the iSlate story, a device that Steve Jobs purportedly has said he’s “extremely happy” with, and brings us fresh dirt.
Here’s what I think happened, based on the evidence presented above: Apple decided on the name iSlate for a new product it was working on, whether it will ultimately turn out to be for their new tablet computer or not, in November 2006. That same month, they moved to file for a trademark for the name in the United States and Europe under disguise, setting up and using Slate Computing LLC as a shell company, and securing a couple of available domain names through Mark Monitor (islate.co.uk, islate.biz and islate.info).
That’s a believable bit of supposition, but the truly interesting bit is yet to come.
And, back to 1 Infinite Loop
MacRumors, which broke the most recent installment in the iSlate saga, now picks up the scent with by far the most interesting new detail to come to light:
In delving deeper, however, we have discovered evidence that Apple is indeed behind Slate Computing, LLC and the iSlate trademark. The trademark application documents for the iSlate reveal the signatory being one Regina Porter… [who] happens to also be Apple’s Senior Trademark Specialist as shown in her Linkedin profile. While we can’t definitely pinpoint this to be the exact same Regina Porter, it seems beyond the realm of coincidence. So, not only did Apple obtain the iSlate.com domain in late 2006/early 2007, it also seems likely that Apple also filed for an iSlate trademark under a dummy corporation.
Congratulations to MacRumor’s Holmes and TechCrunch’s Watson on bringing these tasty iSlate details to light…
What’s your take?
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