An analyst claims to have seen Apple’s rumoured touch-screen tablet computer and says it will fulfil a variety of multimedia functions.

The source said: “It’s close enough now to a final design that in Asia, there’s no other product in the waiting room or in the bullpen. There are dozens of [original device makers] making products for Lenovo and other PC makers that are all waiting to see what the Apple product is.”

The touch-screen tablet, is expected to have a 10in touch-screen and be similar in look and feel to a large iPod touch. Experts expect it to be positioned as a home media hub, capable of streaming content and services in much the same way as Apple TV does, and doubling as a games console.

Apple has however refused to comment on the rumour and speculation surrounding the launch of a possible touch-screen tablet, but it has hinted that it is exploring new product lines.

Apple’s chief operating officer, Tim Cook said on a recent earnings call that Apple was working on something “very innovative”.

Analysts believe the machine may even compete directly with Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader by allowing users to download books, music and movies directly to the device over the Wi-Fi network.

And it is rumoured to be available in November following an official September launch.

Well we hope the rumour is true because this new device looks very exciting… But until we find out we will just have to make do with Apple’s already brilliant Macbook and iPod Touch, both of which are available here at AJ Electronics.

Apple have been rumored to be producing a tablet pc for several years now and this year looks like it is finally the year that Apple will launch a tablet PC. The FT has a story which confirms that Apple will be launching according to the FT:

A portable tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season, in what the entertainment industry hopes will be a new revolution.

The New Apple tablet computer will have a 10 inch screen and be positioned between the iPod Touch and an entry level Mac Book. The system will run the same operating system as the iPhone and will also offer a book market place offering a colour alternative to the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.

Apple is hoping that it can succeed with a tablet PC where everyone else has flopped, including Microsoft, which has had a tablet-ready version of its Windows operating system – a favorite of founder Bill Gates -  for a number of years.

One leading online store has said that the market for mobile applications, will become “as big as the internet”, reaching its peak at 10 million apps in 2020.

According to the chief executive of GetJar, a leading independent application store:

“Apps will be as big if not bigger than the internet.

They will peak at around 100,000 by the end of the year. That will be a tipping point and after that there will be a gradual fall in the rate of development.”

They add: “The full blossom will come in ten years and mobile apps will become as popular as websites are today with consumers.”

Apple currently runs the most popular application store with over 65,000 applications. Just last week it notched up another milestone with 1.5 billion downloads.

Its success was a shock both to Apple and the industry. And now every smartphone company is trying to do the same thing, from BlackBerry makers Research in Motion to Nokia.

All of these Apple app’s are on the iPod touch available here at AJ Electronics, for a full specification please click here.

Prestigious newspaper The Telegraph has named its top ten summer gadgets and the iPod touch is one of them.

The Apple iPod touch is certainly an all rounder for summer, providing most of the functions need for a long journey and lazy summer days.

The gadget enables you to download applications from the Apple’s iTunes App Store, so you can load Lonely Planet guides for your destination, for example, as well as currency converters and phrase books.

It also doubles as an iPod, so you can store thousands of songs; plus games, television shows and films from the iTunes store.

The iPod touch uses a Wi-Fi connection to log on to the internet, and boasts a full web browser, so surfing the net whilst on the go is quick and easy.

If this article has got you lusting after an iPod touch then you’re in luck, as here at AJ Electronics we retail the brilliant little gadget. For a full price and specification please click here.

The Telegraph have announced that The Pirate Bay an illegal file sharing website has been sold to Global Gaming Factory X for £4.7m.

The four Swedish men who are behind the website are currently carrying out a year’s sentence in jail, and have been ordered to pay $3.6m after they were found guilty of providing a conduit for consumers to breach copyright on hundreds of millions of songs and movies.

The buyer, Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X, said it recognised that The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s largest file-sharing websites, must comply with international copyright laws.

Chief executive, Hans Pandeya said: “We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.”

The founders of Pirate Bay said the site was being sold for a “great bit underneath its value” but the sale is essential to secure the website’s future.

They said in a statement: “On the internet, stuff dies if it doesn’t evolve. We don’t want that to happen.”

The Pirate Bay have also announced plans to launch a video streaming service that is billed as a rival to YouTube.

This is very interesting, it may have been illegal but the creators of the site have maintained a very successful and valuable product.

The new “legal” Pirate Bay will be available to view on one of AJ Electronics many computers and laptops that we retail.

In particular one of our Apple MacBooks, for more details of these please click here.

With the sun out and Glastonbury at the weekend, festival season is officially here. So are you packed and ready to go? If not we have put together our top 5 essential gadgets you’ll need to have a great time this Summer!

1. Despite having plenty of bands to listen to it is important to have some music for the journey and during the intervals. So why not invest in an Apple iPod, you will be able to store all your music in one place and listen to it at your leisure.

2. Now you’ve got your iPod you’ll need a speaker system to listen to it on, the Logic3 IP102B – i-Station Traveller is perfect for this. You will be able to share your music and have your own little disco inbetween the music.

3. Seeing all your favourite bands and spending quality time with your friends are memories you’ll want to keep forever. So a digital camera is an essential item, the Canon IXUS95 IS ideal but here at AJ Electronics we offer a wide variety to cater to all tastes.

4. As well as capturing still images of all the action why not also take along a Video camera to capture all your funny moments on film, like this Samsung HMX-H104BP Full HD SSD Camcorder.

5. Another good way to keep entertained when the rain comes, or when you’ve had enough raving is to watch DVDs on a Sony DVPFX875B Portable Player. Just make sure you remember some DVDs to watch!

All of these products are available at AJ Electronics, so why not order yours today ready for Glastonbury.

Apple has put up a new warning notice on their support pages to companies who are hoping to use its iTunes music software as a selling point.

The statement says: “Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players”.

This notice is clearly aimed at Palm’s recent public push to let new users know that they can use iTunes to sync their music to the new Palm Pre. Apple could affect future syncing if they decide to make a more aggressive move to block such third-party digital media players.

Both BlackBerry and MP3 player maker Creative have used the power and appeal of Apple’s iTunes to sell their multimedia and allow people to switch away from Apple.

It is not clear at this stage if Apple is planning to take any further action than just this warning, but watch this space!

Here at AJ Electronics we offer a full range of Apple iPods that do work legally with iTunes, for the full product range please click here.

Apple’s new web browser, Safafi 4 is claimed to be 4.5 times faster than Safari 3 and packed with a host of new features to making websites more accessible.

Safari 4 can load HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3. It also includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies, support for advanced CSS Effects and is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test, a test to see if it renders pages properly on your screen.

As well as all this, Safari 4 also packs Top Sites for a ‘visual preview’ of frequently visited and favorite pages, a full history search, Cover Flow-style browsing of bookmarks, Smart Address Fields to help with searches and Search Fields for fine tuning the very same and Full Page Zoom.

The browser is available to download now for both Mac and Windows, with a 64-bit version offered with Snow Leopard later this year, bumping up performance by up to 50% more.

Safari 4 is accessible on the ipod touch, for AJ Electronics full Apple range, please click here.

Apple is upgrading its iPod shuffle with a new 4GB version that includes software that speaks the name of the tracks being played.

The new iPod shuffle is similar to the older model in that it has no screen but is around half the size of previous models.

The device includes software that will not only tell the user verbally what track is playing but will also vocalise playlists and the amount of battery life remaining.

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Product Marketing said:

‘Imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names.’

‘The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists.’

The vioce software is installed on the user’s computer and downloaded to the device so that it can speak in 14 languages, including English, Czech, Dutch, and French.

The Apple device will be available in silver and black and is $10 more than the older 2GB shuffle it replaces.

For our full range of Apple products please click here.

It’s hard to believe that a quarter of a century has passed since the first Apple Mac computer was launched. The highs and lows that Apple have faced in the past 25 years have been well documented but they are still a very strong contender in the industry and in the last three months alone 2.5 million Macs were sold worldwide. Here are some interesting facts:

The first Apple MacIntosh went on sale on January 24th 1984. This was the first commercially successful home computer to feature both a mouse based input system and a graphical user interface. It came with two applications; MacWrite and MacPaint – signalling the birth of desktop publishing and word processing. Although it only had 128 kb of memory and a 8mhz processor, it was still revolutionary in its time.

The second version of the Apple Mac met with stiff competition with the release of Windows ‘95 and the company suffered as a whole when Steve Jobs, a co-founder, left the company after a series of disputes.

in 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple and used his vision, business acumen, eye for detail and formidable negotiation skills to revive the Apple brand and the iMac was launched with a new sleek design.  Under Jobs’ watch, the Macintosh range gradually evolved from dull beige boxes to design icons in their own right. Apple began to build a reputation not only for solid and easy-to-use software, but for beautiful gadgets that could be lusted over as well as used.

1998 saw the launch of the iBook. Its compact proportions together with its cute, clamshell design proved to be particularly poplular with women and was a turning point in the company’s fortunes. The trendsetting character Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City was an avid fan of the iBook. This was perhaps the start of Apples cult status.

In 2002 Apple released a cleverly designed all in one iMac, which proved to be extremely easy to use and futuristic in its appearance.

In 2007, Apple changed its name from Apple Computers to simply Apple Inc. reflecting a wider focus for the company, and an acknowledgement that cutting-edge gadgets, such as the iPhone and iPod, were helping to bring its technology to a wider audience, and in turn driving consumers to discover other Apple products – younger consumers in particular associated Apples products as cool and ‘must haves’.

By late 2008 laptops were outselling desktop computers and to embrace that Apple announced a new look MacBook range fashioned from aluminium and glass.

What will the next 25 years bring for Apple?