France Télécom confirms Apple Tablet only to have PR division backtrack
There was a saying during World War II that “Loose lips sink ships”, and apparently that may just be what is happening over at France Télécom/Orange this morning.
TechCrunch is reporting that France Télécom / Orange executive Stéphane Richard was on a radio show this morning in France where the subject of the long rumored Apple Tablet/iSlate came up. While his reply the queries were in French, they have now been translated to English:
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: According to weekly Le Point, in a couple of days Apple will be launching its tablet computer …
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: … equipped with a webcam.
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Are Orange customers going to be able to enjoy it?
Stéphane Richard: Of course!
So it would seem this is the first confirmation we have seen to the device that resembles anything close to an official statement.
Well, before you get too excited, paidContent is reporting that the France Télécom/Orange public relations department was quick to issue a correction to this statement.
These responses in no way reflect Orange’s confirmation of the existence of the rumored device. The spokesperson was merely confirming that he is aware of the speculation surrounding a launch and that Orange would be delighted to have such a product were it ever to be available.
While we see their point about how this could have possibly be interpreted in that manner, Mr. Richard’s comments seem pretty definite to us. True, it was translated from French, but it still seems like a pretty definitive answer.
There is still some sort of large Apple announcement coming at the end of this month, so we’ll know for sure then, but things sure do seem to lining up that the Apple Tablet/iSlate is almost upon us.
Related Posts:
May 21st, 2011
BackTrack 5 has been released. This new revision has been built from scratch and boasts several major improvements over all our previous releases. Download Backtrack 5 Now