Another day, more rumors. Seems like there are a lot of people who are familiar with the matter who are hearing alot from Apple. Good for us I guess.

First Bloomberg and then The Wall Street Journal both reporting that Apple is working on a cheaper and smaller iPhone that might or might not be released in summer, together with the next iPhone.

This comes after news that Nokia loving it up with Microsoft’s Windows 7 OS on their future devices, HP’s upcoming devices with WebOS and of course, the many Android devices that are available in the market. Having a smaller and cheaper iPhone will enable Apple to tap into developing market that might not have been accessible with the current or upcoming iPhone 5.

Another piece of rumor that comes out is the updating of MobileMe to provide more services than the ones currently provided, at US$99.

Apple is considering making MobileMe a free service that would serve as a “locker” for personal memorabilia such as photos, music and videos, eliminating the need for devices to carry a lot of memory

This will be useful together with a miniature iPhone as it sacrifice size and price with smaller capacity. Imagine every piece of music that you purchase, will automatically be available online via MobileMe. Many people have speculated on when Apple will bring more cloud to their MobileMe services, especially with a huge data center that has been operating in North Carolina, 2011 might just be the time to see that happening.

We will update and see if there are people who are familiar with the matter will start leaking images, especially those badly-lit and out-of-focused photos.

We all are aware that we will be getting new iPads in the months, or even weeks ahead, especially when these people familiar with the matter are sharing all the specs that might or might not appear on them. But today, word is that we might not just see one, but TWO new iPads in 2011.

John Gruber, touched on this when he first reflected on the announcement on HP’s new tablet – the TouchPad, which is coming out this summer:

Summer feels like a long time away. If my theory is right, they’re not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3.

He further clarified this statement with another post – The Next Six Months – that describe why he guess that there will be two iPad launch:

· An iPad 2, fairly soon. Say, a March announcement, shipping in the first week of April. Faster, more RAM, maybe more storage, thinner and lighter, a front-facing camera.1 Running iOS 4.3.
· iOS 5, announced at a developer event in March, shipping in June.

· iPad 3, shipping in September, announced at the annual iPod event. Running iOS 5.1, same as the next-generation iPod Touch.

TechCrunch meanwhile also added more yummy bits to the mix with what their own people familiar with the matter:

A few days ago, we heard from a very good source that Apple was assembling the pieces for a “big fall surprise”. While intriguing, that could obviously mean anything. … Well, until today. We’ve now heard that this “fall surprise” is related to this would-be iPad 3. We don’t have any more concrete information beyond that. But, as of right now, the plan is apparently to release one iteration of the iPad in the next few weeks. And then blow the doors open with another new version in the fall.

So, with so many people familiar with the matter coming out with their own angles to this – what do you think? Do you know any people familiar with the matter who can contribute? Will you wait for iPad 2…or iPad 2.1/3 …?

update more speculation on iPad 3 from Jim Dalrymple

At some point, the iPad has to become a product family instead of just a product. The September timeframe makes sense for this to happen for a couple of reasons…Remember the iPod mini? It was Apple’s most successful iPod outselling all other models of its time. And Apple discontinued it. Just as the competition could say, “we have a music player just like the iPod mini,” Apple canceled it and started over, releasing the iPod nano. This threw the competition into a tailspin. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple do it again, this time with the iPad.

So if there is a product-line for the iPad, it might just be something akin to the MacBook family. Think of the 17″ MacBook Pro as the premium model iPad, and then a smaller size model like the 13″ MBP. What about a smaller, 7″ model of the iPad mini?

A few months back during Apple’s fourth quarter conference call, Steve Jobs was there to dismiss competitors’ 7-inch products. But that doesn’t mean Apple won’t do something like that. I wouldn’t want a “bigger” iPad since the current size is just the right size for me. But there is a market for something smaller, but still has sufficient screen size, like a 7″ iPad. Possible?

I think Mac fans live and feed on rumours to sustain our insatiable appetite to be the first to know about new product launches, features etc. Many times, such rumours originates from factories in China where most of the products are manufactured – like how we knew about cameras appearing in the recently released iPod nanos because some leaks from certain iPod nano case manufacturer.

Another good source is from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filings that regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable – thus companies that produce products that has such features – like say a BlueTooth mouse and keyboard, they need to be submitted and as such filings are available to the public, they will quickly be spotted by the eager eyes from sites like Engadget and AppleInsiders. These two filings are supposedly for the MightyMouse replacement that again will push the boundaries of mouse-technology.

See more details at AppleInsider

Also running through the Interweb are Google ads that supposedly leaked the release of new iMacs, MacBooks and Mac minis. As these are pretty hazy thin in rumour land, do keep a look out for the upcoming festive period if you are planning to make a purchase soon as both the iMacs and MacBooks are nearing the end of their product cycle.

In case you are lost like me with regards to the rumors flying around about the impending revamp of the iPhone at this year’s WWDC, look no further. The folks at The Green Room has done us all a favor by putting up a graphical roundup of almost all the rumors about the revamp.

Here’s a graphical representation I put together of the dozens of rumors that have been circulating over the past few months regarding the third generation iPhone that’s likely to be announced next week at WWDC 2009.

They even listed out the various sources of the rumors all for your reading pleasure. So what do you want most from the new iPhone?

Copy/Cut and Paste is finally coming to iPhone 3.0, according to Kelvin Rose from Digg.

According to him, to activate copy/paste, you double tap on the screen to invoke a pop-up, similar to the Magnifying glass when you zoom in. There will be two double-qoute marks ” ” which you can drag around the sections you want to select, then choose copy, cut or paste. I suppose for pasting, you can choose the point to insert like how you move the cursor when you zoom in.

He revealed this during a live recording of Diggnation #194 which will be released on 17 March (subscribe to Diggnation via iTunes) which incidentally, is when the special preview of iPhone 3.0 will be held at Cupertino.

In that segment, he also mentioned that there will be no MMS, no background apps running and no video, with the last due to constant read/write of the internal memory during video which will screw the iPhone…(beats me). In summary, he said that these changes will match what Palm Pre has.

Whatever it is, we will know in a few days when the iPhone 3.0 Operating System is revealed. Hold your horses.

Watch the video shot by one of the audience. They sounded like a horde with torches and pitch forks…

Image and then a video of a possible look at the rumored new Mac mini that is stacked with 5 USB 2 ports, a Firewire 800 port, mini DVI and Mini DisplayPort. The rumored specs of the new Mac mini is a 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of DDR3 ram and SATA HD…

And a video to go with that…

Whichever it is, many are looking forward to new hardware from Apple in the coming months…keep a look out for them.