January 27th is the day that Apple will share its “latest creation”.  The event starts at 9am PST (17.00 GMT).

Hold your breath!

Meanwhile,  the CEO of publishing house McGraw Hill commented on the Apple Tablet:

“[The] Tablet is going to be based on the iPhone operating system and so it will be transferable. So what you are going to be able to do now is we have a consortium of e-books. And we have 95% of all our materials that are in e-book format on that one. So now with the tablet you’re going to open up the higher education market, the professional market. The tablet is going to be just really terrific.”

And blogger Jason Calacanis went completely loco on Twitter, saying:

“Apple Tablet has thumbpads on each side for mouse guestures, reads fingerprint for security. Up to 5 profiles by finerprint for family.”

“Yes, apple tablet is oled + back has solar pad for recharging, but it really doesn’t work quickly. More a gimmic. Verizon+att,wifi yes!”

Today we shall see. We just hope that Apple is not going to announce a multi color iPhone.

Flurry, a mobile app analytics company, has noticed approximately 50 devices in the Cupertino that match the characteristics of Apple’s tablet device. Flurry claims to have reliably placed these devices on Apple’s Cupertino campus, and are confident that they are “observing a group of pre-release tablets in testing.”

They’ve noticed that a large number of the apps downloaded were Games (140 total downloads or launches) and the next group was Entertainment, followed by News and Books. Flurry also noticed that the Apple device was running on OS 3.2, which has not been announced. This confirms suspicions that the Apple Tablet will be accompanied by an announcement of a new iPhone OS.

According to MacRumors, Apple has filed a trademark for the word iPad in the Canadian trademark database under the categories of handheld mobile digital electronic devices. The blog points out that while the original iSlate trademarks dates back to 2006-2007, iPad was filed in July 2009.

Very similar trademarks were also filed in Europe and Hong Kong in July. Furthermore, iPad trademark applications have showed up in New Zealand and Australia this month.

Despite iPad currently being trademarked by Fujitsu in the U.S., MacRumors believes that Apple iPad will be the name of Apple’s new tablet.

Not just that we run we run this blog as “iSlate blog” – we think iPad sounds as sexy as dishwasher pads!

Apple’s January 27 event has just been announced to tech journos all over the world with a new invite reading “Come see our latest creation” hitting inboxes left and right. The event will happen on January 27 at 10am PST.

Apple iSlate Invite?

This is it!

OK, your guess is as good as ours. What’s will the Apple Tablet be called?

Geek.com speculates about the multitouch abilities of the iSlate.

“[The] iSlate will sport cool FingerWorks’ stuff not found on the iPhone, including a somewhat complex new vocabulary of finger gestures that will enable “unique multitouch experiences,” like launching apps by putting three fingers down and performing rotate gesture. The tablet will also run a multitouch-optimized iWork version, a source said, meaning the iSlate could be a portable content creation device rather than a dumb media player with a flashy interface.

Apple acquired Fireworks in 2005, and most of the current Multitouch implementation is based on their technology. Fingerworks’ founders John Elias and Wayne Westerman became Apple engineers tasked with researching and perfecting multitouch technology and have been listed as inventors on many of Apple’s touch patents.

Firework’s products originally took Multitouch much further, with more complex gestures. In an interview, a Fireworks product manager said back in 2004:

“Our TouchStream gesture keyboards pack a lot of power. People are amazed by all the things a hand gesture user interface provides. We have a large number of easy- to-use gestures that cover just about every common computer operation. Users don’t have to reach for hot-keys because gestures are faster and easier to do. Reaches for the touchpad are also eliminated because the pointing function always stays with the fingers. “

This certainly would indicate that the iSlate is more of a portable content creation device than a passive reader.

MacRumors ran an article today that the iSlate could be operating on an ARM Cortex A9 processor. This seems not to be based on leaks or any verified facts, but it certainly is an interesting speculation.

The A9 is a new successor to the A8 range of processors that for example power the iPhones. In fact around 98 percent of the more than a billion mobile phones sold each year use at least one ARM processor. The Cortex A9 represents the next generation which supports multi-core designs. The Cortex A9 multi-core processors are expected to scale beyond 2 GHz while drawing less than 0.25 W of power per CPU.

The biggest implication of this would be that the iSlate would not be able to run standard OSX or Windows (and its applications). However, several Linux distributions, including the Chrome OS, have been ported to the ARM platform. Also, the iPhone uses a ported OSX version.

Apple is believed to be one of a few unnamed large licensors that ARM mentioned in their Q3 2009 earnings.

Coincidentally, ARM showed earlier several protoypes of multi touch tablets. Here’s is a YouTube video of them:

Today the WSJ reported that the iSlate is indeed to launch in March 2010. The story has been written by the same journalist who broke the news about Steve Jobs’ liver transplant, so the WSJ’s sources seem to be credible.

The WSJ says:

“A tablet-like device from Apple has been in the works for many years, with its development coming in fits and starts, according to people familiar with the matter. As The Wall Street Journal previously reported, the tablet has been the biggest focus for Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs since he returned to work in June after taking a nearly six-month medical leave to undergo a liver transplant.”

The WSJ references the already known booked dates at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (January 25 to Jan27) as launch date, with shipping to commence in March.

The rumours about Apple creating a tablet computer have been going on since the release of the iPhone. However, in December 2009 they found new popularity when the Financial Times reported that Apple had booked the Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Franscisco for a significant product announcement on January 26, 2010. Only a couple of days later,  Google China’s ex-chief Kaifu Lee wrote on his blog that an informed friend told him that an Apple Tablet appearance was likely. The details he gave were: 10.1-inch screen with awesome UI. Of course

Earlier, MacRumors stated that the Apple Tablet would most likely be called iSlate, because the domain iSlate.com was acquired by Apple.

Expect additional rumors until the upcoming launch of the iSlate or whatever it will be called. Always secretive and tight-lipped, Apple is playing silent observer at the moment and will – hopefully – speak on January 26, 2010.