Keeping tabs on Apple's billion dollar tablet

Today, Piper's Gene Munster came out with his latest Apple Tablet predictions. His information is only the latest that's been spilling out over the past months and even years. Here's a rundown of what's been revealed:

Gene Munster, checking with Asian channel partners, said that he expects the Apple tablet to be out in late 2009/Early 2010 and will account for $1.2 billion in revenue over the next year. Munster's timing and accuracy have been off for some time, however. His latest prediction was that there wouldn't be any iPhone hardware at the WWDC, which everyone knew would be flat out wrong (and was).

The screen size seems to be a lock at 10-inches because multiple parties have confirmed Apple as ordering screens from Wintek. That goes along with a 10.4-inch capacitive touch screen part number EE-1044-IN-W5C.

The Financial Times, a much more reliable source than Munster thinks the tablet will be announced next month (September) at the iPod event, and ship possibly in November in time for holiday shopping. I tend to believe this prediction a bit more. They also say that it will have a new "Cocktail" music feature that will sell music in album form.

A device called the "iProd" has turned up in recent builds of the iPhone OS. This device appears to have similar networking specs as an iPhone rather than an iPod, so a broad assumption could be made that it has 3G wireless capabilities. Since both prototype and now production models have appeared in the software, it seems that release is coming soon.

Businessweek a few months ago said that the "MediaPad" that Apple would be releasing has been shopped to Verizon as a device "that would let users listen to music, view photos, and watch high-definition videos... It would place calls over a Wi-Fi connection." That sounds like the Apple tablet.

The chip inside will likely be an ARM chip at the same speed or faster than the iPhone 3GS. The current chip can be cranked to 800MHz and Samsung has a 1GHz version of the chip in the pipeline - but that's only if Apple doesn't use their own chips. Venturebeat last month said Apple had split the processor building company they bought, PA Semi, in half so some could work on the iPhone processors, while others worked on the Tablet.

The anticipated cost of this thing has been all over the place. The consensus is that it will obviously be between an iPod and a MacBook with room to spare. $600-700 seems about right with a few different configurations to choose from.

With likely only a month to go, perhaps Apple will accidentally spill some more information. I'll be on the lookout.