Apple Readying 400,000 Tablet PCs For Q1 2010

If there’s daylight somewhere in the world, there’s sure to be another Apple (NSDQ:AAPL) tablet rumor floating around. For Wednesday’s round of gossip, we turn to DigiTimes, which reports that component maker Foxconn is preparing parts for 300,000 to 400,000 Apple tablet PCs that will ship in early 2010.

“[T]he tablet PC features will focus more on e-book functionality rather than music, and … based on Apple’s marketing strategy, long battery life, quick Internet connectivity and an easy-to-use user interface will be key features of the device,” the Taipei, Taiwan-based industry publication reported Wednesday.

This anonymously sourced report comes on the heels of several recent hints that a long-awaited tablet PC from Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple may just become a reality very soon — including Apple’s rehiring of Michael Tchao, a developer of the discontinued Newton personal digital assistant, a tablet PC progenitor.

Foxconn, a Taiwanese manufacturer of electronics and computer parts, could tap its subsidiary Innolux Display for 10.6-inch displays for the rumored Apple tablet, according to DigiTimes. Sources also told the publication that Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) had a similar product in the works for the second quarter of 2010, and Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) is rumored to be developing its own tablet PC called the Courier.

DigiTimes has been a source for many of the Apple tablet rumors that have cropped up in the past year. The publication speculated several months ago that Apple would deliver tablet PCs before the end of 2009, at that time reporting that touch-screen displays for the devices would be supplied by Taiwan’s Wintek.

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