Apple said to be hoarding touchscreens for tablet
Just to add fuel to the already hotly burning rumors of the imminent announcement of Apple’s tablet computer, a number of sources are reporting that Apple is busily cornering the market on 10-inch touch screens.
Reports from manufacturers of touch screens and from companies that would like to buy them are reporting that the supply of 10-inch screens is drying up. Further, they speculate that it is Apple that is causing this bulge in demand, laying the problems off to the upcoming announcement and launch of the new Apple tablet computer. According to other rumors, the Apple tablet is supposed to be announced late this month and be ready for shipment in March or April of this year.
One of the reports cites a conversation with the employee of a design firm that was trying to find 10-inch screens for a product they were prototyping for a client and were unable to find them in production quantities. The source apparently said, “We were designing a product for a customer and we needed 10-inch screens, but we’ve been trying for months and can’t get one from any of the Asian suppliers. We were told that Apple pre-ordered them all. All 10-inch LCDs, and all 10-inch OLEDs too.†The source is unnamed, according to an article in Eweek.
Please note that these rumors say that Apple is hoarding 10-inch screens made of both LED material and the more expensive OLED display variety. It would not seem to make a great deal of sense for Apple to order, use, and support both material types in the same device, and we have heard no rumors that speculate that there will be two separate tablets divided by touchscreen type. It may be that this particular rumor is less than likely due to simply practicality, unless there is something about this one that does not immediately strike the eye.
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January 14th, 2010
Enough with the apple tablet already. I mean seriously…