Fox News, which originally predicted a media-focused Jan. 26 event, is back to say Apple’s now-Jan. 27 “Come see our latest creation” will focus on the iTablet, iPhone 4.0 operating system (no hardware), and iLife 2010.

iTablet/iSlate/iWhatever makes the kind of sense that does. The hype is so loud you can hear it in space. What it is remains a mystery, but if Apple wasn’t going to show it off, we’d expect a leak or PR blurb hinting they weren’t to shape expectations.

iPhone 4.0 we would have expected to see in March like iPhone 2.0 and iPhone 3.0, but showing it off in January like iPhone 1.0 could give developers more time to make their apps iTablet — and/or iPhone HD — compatible. Likewise, if there are any other major changes/enhancements under the covers.

iLife 2010 is a bit of a mystery. We’ve heard iWork 2010 might be going multitouch for the iTablet (and hoped for the iPhone as well), but all we’ve heard about iLife is that iDVD might become an iTunes LP/iTunes Extras development interface (DVDs being passe in the Apple-verse, of course). Could they also go multitouch?

So, nothing we didn’t expect, but a lot more to get us excited. What do you want most?

[Thanks everyone who sent this in!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Fox News: iTablet, iPhone 4.0, iLife 2010 Focus of Apple Jan 27 “Come see our latest creation” Event

Slacker Personal Radio [Free - iTunes link] is now available in the Canadian App Store. While our friend’s at CrackBerry.com got to enjoy the news a little sooner, thanks to Apple’s currently speedier App approval process and iLounge’s spot, TiPb didn’t have to wait as long as we feared either.

As far as we know, this is the first streaming internet radio service available to Canadian iPhone users (blame our nightmarish licensing) and it includes some nice local content:

• Canadian Rock
• Canadian Country
• Canadian Today’s Hits

Slacker also tells TiPb that the 2.0 version is coming soon, and will provide station caching for iPhone and iPod touch. Can’t. Wait.

Note: While the app is free for the first 30 days, a $5/month Slacker Plus subscription turns off the ads, turns on unlimited skips, and otherwise makes the service much more enjoyable and functional thereafter. More Plus features, after the break…

Slacker Radio Plus:

• Cache stations to Blac kBerry and Android smartphones; soon on iPhone/iPod touch
• Enjoy Slacker music even without a wireless network on select mobile applications
• Unlimited song skipping
• Ad-free listening
• Complete song lyrics*
• Create custom stations based on artists or songs
• Unlimited song requests for creating perfect custom stations
• High-quality stereo playback
• Over 60 professionally programmed genre stations
• Fine tune stations on-the-fly to play more of the music you like
• View artist biographies and photos
• View album art and reviews
• “Peek Ahead” artist and album preview
• Pause and skip songs
• Rate songs as favorites
• Ban the songs and artists you don't like
• Downloadable “mini” player for your PC

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Slacker Personal Radio for iPhone Now Available in Canada

When last I left Palm they had but the Centro and some HTC Windows Mobile device to offer, now webOS and the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi’s inform Week 6 of the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin. Talk about night and day. Lucky I have the daywalker himself, our illustrious editor-in-chief and PreCentral.net’s own Dieter Bohn to show me how the brand new generation of Palm devices work. And works well.

Remember, every day you post on my PreCentral.net Forums thread, you’re entered for a chance to win a webOS device of your very own. (And there’s a total of 6 smartphones up for grabs — one per SPE site — so check them all out!)

This week also brings mobile powerhouse Matt Miller of Nokia Experts to TiPb’s own iPhone. I’ll update with his TiPb Forum thread asap so you can help him out as well (and get a chance to win an iPhone 3GS for your troubles!)

Video hands-on with Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, after the break!

(And if you’re confused by the intro to this year’s video, you really need to go watch last year’s Treo Pro video NOW!)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Palm Pre, Palm Pixi webOS Hands-on Video — Smartphone Round Robin

Apple has gone and made it official — “Come see our latest creation” and it’s on for January 27, 2010.

iTablet, iPhone 4.0, iPhone HD… or something completely different like iLife ‘10? Any guesses as to what we’ll see?

Too keep up with TiPb’s ongoing coverage of this story as it develops, keep our “Come see our latest creation” tag link handy!

[via Engadget]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Official: Apple Event Jan. 27 — “Come see our latest creation”

Ars made some waves in the iTablet rumor pool this morning, taking a look and determining that a 10″ OLED (organic light emitting diode) or AMOLED (active matrix light emitting diode). Basically, only Samsung and LG are equipped to make the panel, and According to Barry Young, Managing Director of the OLED Association:

“On the Samsung configuration they could produce about fourteen 10.1-inch panels per substrate,” he told Ars. “With a 70 percent yield, if all their capacity was dedicated to 10.1-inch, they could produce about 150,000 per month. Given that Samsung cannot meet its current order backlog, they are unlikely to build that many 10.1-inch displays.”

“LG has 10 to 15 percent of Samsung’s capacity,” Young said.

So that means 1) Apple wouldn’t be able to make very many 10″ OLED/AMOLED iTablets and 2) the ones they did make would be very expensive.

Another complication? If Apple switches to OLED/AMOLED for the 4th generation iPhone (like the display on the new Google Android Nexus One), that would mean an even greater constrains on the supply for any iTablet use.

All things considered, given the costs and constraints, I’d rather of OLED on my iPhone. What about you?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

OLED/AMOLED Not Realistic for iTablet, How About for 4th Gen iPhone?

After a bit of a delay, GTA has finally made it’s way into the App Store with it’s guns blazing. Back in September we told you Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [iTunes Link - $9.99] was coming to the iPhone and now it is finally here. While we have not had a chance to give it a try just yet, Touch Arcade has taken a spin in Liberty City and they have come away quite impressed.

• PSP and Nintendo DS graphics quality
• Gameplay and storyline are classic GTA, profanity included.
• Minigames
• Hours of gameplay
• Gives you the full GTA experience

General consensus is that this game is a must have for any GTA fan. Check out the video after the break!

[Via Touch Arcade]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

‘Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars’ for iPhone Now Available in U.S. App Store

China, like France and Korea wants in on the larger screen iRumors, and is certainly willing to raised the stakes — in addition to a 9.7″ iTablet, Commercial Times is also saying Apple plans a 22″ multi-touch iMac.

Apple will outsource production of the 22-inch model to Quanta, with Taiwan-based Sintek Photronic supplying the touchscreen panels

There have been touch-enabled Windows displays for a while. The thrill of the interactivity, however, has been tempered by the simple fact that it’s tiring to hold your arms up and gesture a lot on a giant display. This is presumably why Apple has so far integrated multi-touch into their MacBook trackpads rather than their screens, and into the Magic Mouse rather than into the iMac display (don’t get us started on why they haven’t simply offered an iMac trackpad peripheral or better yet — a Magic Mouse app for the iPhone!)

It’s hard enough imagining a consistently comfortable usage paradigm for an iTablet (how do you hold it to type, to watch a long movie, to read a long novel, etc.), harder still to riddle it out for an iMac display — unless Apple plans for it to be an occasional-use method, a bonus for of interactivity.

Of course, Apple hasn’t announced any of this yet, but speculating about rumors is fun, especially when it involves technology from the iPhone, that could expand or be returned to the 4th gen iPhone. So let us know what you think.

[DigiTimes via MacRumors]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

China Times: Apple Planning 9.7″ iTablet, 22″ Multi-touch iMac

The iPhone is more than the sum of its many parts, but when the part in question is the touch-screen itself, and workers at the manufacturer’s Suzhou, China facility go on strike, we have to wonder what that will do for supplies in the medium term?

More than 2,000 workers gathered and damaged facilities and vehicles after rumors that the factory may not pay a planned bonus for 2009, the [21st Century Business Herald] said, citing the statement. The plant belongs to Taiwan-based Wintek Corp., the world's biggest touch-screen maker for mobile phones.

Wintek is a name we’ve also heard in conjunction with rumored iTablet and iPhone HD panels, so what if any impact this has on availability for both existing and potential future devices is hard to assess.

[Bloomberg via 9to5mac]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Workers on Strike at Apple iPhone Touch-screen Supplier

If in previous years you found yourself thinking Otterbox’s tank-style Defender was too much armor, and their Impact just not quite tank-like enough, at CES 2010 they showed TiPb a middle-ground that some of you might find just right — the Commuter series.

In both regular and TL (translucent, a reference to the clear strip across the back) versions, they’re aiming it squarely at the urban warrior who wants as much protection as possible while still maintaining a slim, pocketable profile.

Check it out on video, after the break!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Otterbox Commuter, Commuter TL for iPhone — TiPb @ CES 2010

Do you have dreams of being the next Spielberg but the only video camera you own is your trusty iPhone 3GS? If this is the case you can now rest easy as Tiffen recently introduced the Smoothee Steadicam. The Smoothee utilizes a counterweight construction in the same fashion all other professional models work, just expect this to be a whole lot cheaper.

This accessory is not going to fit in your pocket or purse but we are positive some of our creative readers could put it to good use. No release date or price are available at the moment but you can see it in action after the break!

[Via Engadget]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Tiffen Introduces Smoothee Steadicam for iPhone 3GS