It wouldn't be a Monday without rumors about the Apple Tablet — that fabled touchscreen device in between an iPhone and a MacBook. Apparently a Chinese online wholesaler has put up for sale the SIM card tray of the "iPhone 4th Gen/iTablet." They've even got comparison shots of the tray with the one from the iPhone 3GS, and the iTablet's is ever-so-slightly thicker, as you'd expect.

iRumor Part II after the jump.

Next up, Bill Keller, Executive Editor of The New York Times mentioned the "impending Apple slate" in a recent internal speech at the newspaper (video below). His exact quote was:

I'm hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that.

That's hardly confirmation, even given that Apple often likes to demo its mobile Safari browser with NYTimes.com. More likely, Keller is just mentioning it as a media watcher, assuming that the tablet exists and is imminent. Then again, if you believe in conspiracy theories, Times chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. showed up at Amazon's launch of the Kindle DX, so the Times is certainly maintaining close relationships with the companies who build the devices that paper is available on. There's an outside chance it's an inside-info slip.

Whichever the case, the iTablet probably does exist, and whether or not you can easily get the Times on it most likely won't be the key factor in its success. For me, it'll be all about price.

Engadget, via Gizmodo