Reuters: Apple Tablet to ship in Q2, enclosure to be brushed aluminum

John Brownlee ()

Reuters: Apple Tablet to ship in Q2, enclosure to be brushed aluminum

As equally tenuous a confirmation of last week’s Wall Street Journal report that the Apple Tablet’s enclosure would be made of a very Mac-conventional material indeed, this Reuters report, which says that the Apple Tablet will be a brushed aluminum unibody affair, and ship in Q2 of 2010.

According to Reuters’ sources, Taiwanese manufacturer AVY Precision Technology will begin producing the aluminum enclosures in February, while fellow Taiwanese display manufacturers TPK Solutions will supply the Tablet’s multi-touch panels.

“Production of the cases will begin in February, so everything points to a second-quarter launch right now,” Reuters’ source speculated. “It doesn’t take that long for the company to assemble the PC together, but a second-quarter shipment date is what we’re looking at now.”

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That Apple would carve their tablet out of a block of aluminum isn’t a very notable prediction. While five years from now, Jon Ives might well scoop out and mold alloys of unobtanium into the geometrically perfect objects of design of the next generation of Apple products, brushed aluminum and monochrome plastic are the only materials Apple’s really bothering with these days. Still, the Reuters’ report show that the various divergent and fractured Apple Tablet rumors are finally unifying into a rumor comprised of specific, soon-to-be-verifiable details. We may not know what exactly it is, but one thing’s for certain: something’s coming.

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in Apple, Apple Tablet, Hardware, News |

  • http://cyxodus.wordpress.com/ Payton (aka – Cyxodus)

    Something is coming. Something big.

  • http://www.talkingfuture.com martin_tf

    Surely it will be anodized aluminium in a satin finish like the MBP. The only metal with a brushed finish is usually stainless steel or titanium. Like the old OSX application windows.

  • iphonerulez

    I’m expecting this tablet to be very sturdy, but sturdy can also mean heavy. I like heft to my devices, but most people probably want some lightweight crap, which would undoubtedly require use of plastic. At the CES there was mention of a company’s tablet that when you lightly pressed on the back of the case, the display would ripple and I damn sure don’t want to see any Apple product like that. I’m looking for MacBook Pro quality in finish and strength. I’m not expecting cheap in finish or price.

    I’m wondering if this tablet is going to have an iPod-type connector or is it going with USB connectivity.

  • mike

    This is the dumbest depiction a apple tablet ever
    People just do not get it I am not saying I know what Apple has planed but I can bet it will not be anything like this.

    Think more like a kindle thin light and wireless. It is not a laptop replacement it is a book replacement a newspaper replacement.
    For those of you still living in the 19th century let me now bring you into the 21st century Ink on paper’s day’s are numbered I know many of you out there are going to say Oh I hope not I love holding a book or I like reading the news paper I say of get over it.

  • fritz gambas

    I like mike’s point of view