The guys from iLounge have found a scoop about the iTablet, or better, the iPad. Although they claim that the information came from a reliable source, we’ll file it as a rumor for now and wait for official information. But, in any case, here it is.

According to the rumors, Apple has created three different prototypes for the iPad with different hardware features: the first, for example, had a 7″ display that was considered too small and that prototype was discarded. The second version has a 10.7″ display with 5 to 6 times the iPhone resolution, and a multi-touch surface that is 7 times larger, capable of showing a full newspaper page or a high-resolution video.

The OS seems to be the iPhone OS and also the aspect ressembles the iPhone, including the curved back. Two models should be available, one with 3D connectivity and one without, something similar to a big iPhone or iPod Touch. It’s not aiming to be a competition to laptops, more exactly to be a mix of a telephone and a laptop, becoming a big multimedia device with a touch of communications as well.

The announcement of the iPad should arrive on January 2010 and the actual launch only on May or June, in order to create the same hype that pushed the iPhone so much. And everything should be ready, and waiting for Steve Job’s approval.

We’ll have to wait and see if those rumors confirm themselves.

All the users that recently bought a MacBook Pro might have noticed that every now and then, the process elaboration icon appears for 20 seconds up to a minute, without any apparent reason. In those seconds, the processor temperature rises abruptly and it’s impossible to use the computer.

THe problem seems to be with the EFI 1.7 firmware, and although Apple hasn’t yet announced any fixes, it’s likely that the problem will be solved with an update soon. In the meantime, a thread in the official Apple forums teaches how to downgrade the firmware, going from the 1.7 version to the 1.6, although the procedure could permanently damage the computer, so it’s not recommended.

It might be best to wait for Apple to release an update.

According to Appleinsider, the new iMac models are already been manufactured by the Taiwanese factories that supply Apple with their products. There were already rumors about the launch of the new all-in-one desktop generation, but unfortunately the hardware details are still unknown at this point.

Appleinsider says that the new iMacs should have a lower price and a “thinner” design, probably inspired by the LED-lit Cinema Displays. The rumor site also sustains another rumor that says that the new iMacs should have two new mysterious innovations, one that could be a Blu-Ray drive and another on the audio/video editing field.

The new models would be ready from next week, according to the rumor, or by the second half of October. Another proof of the upcoming launch would come from Apple’s behavior: the company is giving discounts, going from $100 to $200 on the current models for companies that buy computers in bulk or customers on the educational field.

Apple has published three new ads for the iPhone. The three ads show different applications present in the App Store, such as TripCase, New York Subway 09, Epicurious Recipes & Shopping LIst, Zagat to Go ‘09 and others, QuickOfice Mobile office Suit, GAP StyleMixer and others.

Here are the three ads! Enjoy!

The latest iTunes version, the 9.0, has brought a few new things, both in the visual aspect and features present on the program, including the iTunes Store. As it was expected, the version 9.0, announced during the latest Apple Event, presented a few issues and now Apple has released the 9.0.1 version in order to solve some of them.

Some of the issues solved include:

- Navigation problems on the iTunes Store
- Performance issues that were causing iTunes to lock
- Podcast playlist synchronization issues with iPods and iPhones
- Better application synchronization with iPod Touch and iPhone

The iTunes version 9.0.1 is available through the software update, and it has 85.6 Mb.

With the recent update to the 3.1 firmware version of the iPhone OS, an issue that was already common with the device - the battery duration, has become even worse, but Apple seems to have been working in the past few days to find a solution to the problem.

The company has contacted many of the users that complained about the abnormal short battery duration in the American official forums, sending them a profile to be installed on their iPhone so the company can trace the usage of the device, together with this following questionnaire:

1. Do you have Mail auto-fetch enabled?
* If yes, what’s the frequency of checking?
* How many email accounts do you have set up?
2. Are you using Yahoo Push mail? Exchange ActiveSync? MobileMe Push? Google Calendar? CalDAV calendars? Subscribed calendars?
3. How many e-mails do you get pushed to your phone on an average day?
4. What would you say the total size of attachments is in that time period?
5. Do you have WiFi and/or Bluetooth enabled?  About what percentage of the time are you connected to them?
6. When did this start happening?  Any correlations to activity that you’ve noticed?
7. Does your Visual Voicemail work properly / is it set up?
8. Any alarms set?
9. What 3rd party apps do you have installed/use?
10. When you notice a power drop, does it seem to be a legitimate power drop, or rather an issue with the battery icon indicator?
11. What’s the device model?

The questions are centered in many fields: used applications, push notifications, phone usage and so on. From the questionnaire, two things come to mind: one is the good interaction with users in order to try to solve an issue that has been bothering many of them. On the other hand, the questions also leave room to think that perhaps they’re still not even sure from where to start in order to actually solve the issue.

We’ll have to wait and see.

After our brief vacation, here we are with more Apple news for you. And according to a new NPD report, the Mac OS X Snow Leopard is proving to be the most popular Operating System from Apple.

According to the data, Snow Leopard sold more during the first week than the Mac OS X Leopard and Tiger did when they were launched. The exact values are also very interesting: Snow Leopard sold four times better than Tiger, always referring to the first two weeks on the market.

Another interesting fact is that the sales do not seem to slow down too much after the first launch period. NPD claims that the sales only dropped 25% after the first week, nothing compared to the 60% from the two previous OS’s.