Despite the Kremlin-like secrecy of Apple, words has been leaking out for almost a year now about the coming tablet or (as rumor will have it) the iSlate. iSlate is a brand that Apple controls so the current reading of the runes suggest that Apple will be announcing the iSlate at the ned of january and will be delivering them by march. The rumor is so strong that it has added about 5 percent to Apple’s stock price.

Apple’s competitors (HP, Microsoft, Dell, Acer, Nokia, Motorola, and even Google) are going to find it hard to keep up pace. In fact only Google is likely to be able to. For them, the problem with Apple is that it innovates as a matter of course. Rumor has it (and you only ever get rumor about what happens within Apple) that the slate has been in preparation since about 2002. Commentators, myself including, are convincing ourselves (on the basis of no hard evidence whatsoever) that Apple has another iPhone up its sleeve.

If it does, it will be game changing.

And there’s still another shoe to drop. The reason that Apple TV is such a moribund product is the the Apple genius engine has yet to put its finger on what the home media device needs to be. The Apple TV is currently a joke of a product, but deep inside you know that eventually it is going to be something much better.

I’ll do a full New Year review of Apple in the coming week, but right now my view is that the next decade belongs to Apple and Google. They are Castor and Pollux, although which of the two is mortal has yet to be determined. (In Greek myth, Castor was mortal but Pollux was immortal).

I wrote a piece yesterday about Firefox and why I’m abandoning it, I’ve also been writing a whole series of Xmas “words you don’k know” which currently includes the following words: #1 Hwoelor-tid, #2 Brumalia, #3 Protomartyr, #4 Dulocracy, #5 Pohutukawa, #6 Hagiolatry, #7 Sinterklaas, #8 Prolicide, #9 Apophoret

There are 3 more to be added before I’m done.