• Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Wednesday, March 11, 2009 11 AM

Speculation is swirling that Apple is developing a device with a touch screen that could be as big as 10 inches that will be released in the second half of the year, Yukari Iwatani Kane reports. But speculators are divided over exactly what its function will be.

One camp says the device is a netbook, but Peter Burrows, writing in Business Week, is not among them. "I find it hard to believe that the company will offer the same kind of lower-powered, margin-crushing $300 or even $500 netbooks that are now shaking up the Windows PC industry," he says. "Everything about Apple's history would suggest that Steve Jobs ... [will not] dive into the muck of a nearly profitless business just to maintain share."

Others say the device will be more like an iPod Touch on steroids, making it easier to watch movies, play videogames, read electronic books and surf the Internet. It would challenge devices like Sony Corp.'s PlayStation Portable videogame player and Amazon 's Kindle e-book reader, they say, though all this prognostication is filled with the usual caveats that accompany any rumor about the notoriously close-lipped company.

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