Below is an image comparison of the leaked Apple Tablet image a friend passed on to me, read the whole story here and Digg it/pass it on. Pass it on from Twitter here. Click the images below for full size versions.  It's identical.

A good friend of mine works at an ad agency in the States. His company was recently hired by Apple to create some print ads and billboards for the tablet Macbook they're releasing in a few months. My friend is not working on the Apple campaign but a guy that he said, "sits near his cubicle" apparently is and was working on some creative. He went over to talk to him to try catch a sneak peek at the new tablet and the guy "just got up and ran to the bathroom in the middle of the conversation, so I opened Firefox in porn mode and emailed it to myself so I could look at it later," he said.

When he called me that night to brag that he'd seen the future I naturally didn't believe him, I didn't even know he had a job. heh. So he sent me a copy and now I'm sharing it with the world. So without further nonsense here it is, click it for a bigger version.

digg_url = 'http://fightskillz.com/2009/07/macbook-tablet-leaked-image/';

Aside from the tablet itself, which I guess has a soft keyboard.. It looks too thin in that photo to open up like a regular Macbook, but aside from that there's a 3G icon in the menubar next to blue-tooth. I guess they upgraded the Macbook line to Macbook Pros at the last keynote so they could use the Macbook name for the new tablets. Cause if you can write on the screen it's more like a physical notebook, and I guess they want 'Macbook' to be the Mac Notebook, probably to be targeted at low end users and students. Also there's no EyeSight or mic. The mic could be on the side or hidden in the frame but it seems a little extreme to leave out the camera especially since it'll be a middle tier between iPhone and Macbook Pro, which both have cameras, and if they left it out then why is there a Photo Booth icon in the dock? It's more likely that there's a camera on the back similar to the iPhone. It doesn't make sense to me why for the iPhone and apparently the Tablet they can't just put the camera on the front for video conferencing. Then again it's a mobile product and a) Video conferencing over 3G wouldn't be all that great and b) On the go you're probably taking pictures of other stuff. It's hard to gauge physical dimensions but I'd imagine if students are carrying it around everywhere it's about 11/12 inches diagonally.

Big question: Will it need a sim card to get 3G service? and a monthly plan... will you be able to make Calls from it or text? I don't think so, but I think I'm gonna keep my eyes open for info from cell companies. When the iPhone first came out they were pretty quiet until right before but it looks like recently Apple's been looser when it comes to secrecy. Or at least there are significant leaks down the ladder, like that guy that jumped out of his 11 story apartment after losing one of the iPhone prototypes he was transporting the other day. Then again why would they have secret iPhone prototypes when they just released the 3GS and augmented reality is coming out soon. There's no reason to be working on the next iPhone for a while. Maybe there was no prototype and the story's just a diversion to draw attention away from the tablet before it's release.