I’m really sorry. I do realize these tablet rumors are becoming tiresome, but you know, don’t you, that they’re going to get a lot worse in the coming weeks as we approach January 26 and Apple’s not-yet-officially-confirmed-but-unofficially-will-definitely-happen media event?

The latest tidbits come from Fox News’ Clayton Morris and (somewhat unexpectedly given how he should know better) an ex-Apple, ex-Google China senior executive. Let’s get started…

Fox’s Clayton Morris writes that he’s been talking with his very own private mole inside Apple HQ about the as-yet unconfirmed media event (first reported by the Financial Times) and has this to offer us:

While nothing official has been handed down from the notoriously tight-lipped company, my source took the Financial Times report one step further by saying this event will focus on the mobility space, meaning we’ll see something related to the iPhone/Touch product line.Could this be the announcement of the mythical Apple tablet we’ve been hearing so much about?

Well if it isn’t, if El Jobso doesn’t announce a tablet, if, instead, the whole event is nothing more than a high-profile sales pitch for a slightly-higher-capacity iPod shuffle, I’ll be torn between shedding bitter tears, or laughing myself sick. Maybe both.

“Focus on the mobility space,” eh? How charmingly vague. You have to wonder why these “sources” are always so…unhelpful. I mean, a real, genuine, worthwhile secret mole should be leaking specific, valuable information, right? That’s what moles are supposed to do, it’s in the job description. But when it comes to Apple’s moles, this just doesn’t happen, does it? Instead, they offer infuriatingly nebulous non-information that seems, if nothing else, perfectly suited to further fuelling speculation, rather than offering, y’know, facts.

I think of these sources as the tech community’s version of spirit mediums who, after (rolling eyes) ‘miraculously’ connecting with the dearly departed, then bafflingly waste that rare and wonderful chance at communication by playing an odd game of Guess Who? “Focus on the mobility space” might as well be “I see a man with thinning hair whose name begins with something sounding like Ste…”

I have a modest theory; these “sources” are tasked with providing fuzzy details to media hacks. It’s all part of a precise marketing strategy, pioneered by Jobs, designed to get the flames of the rumor mill burning brightly. It probably saves a fortune on actual advertising.

A Little Less Vague

Also fanning the flames today is a report by Engadget’s Richard Lai who writes that former Google China president Kai-fu Lee has claimed privileged insider-knowledge of the mythical tablet. Lee’s comments appear on Lee’s microblogging site and, translated by GadgetMix, read in part:

The Apple Tablet looks like a bigger iPhone that sports an awesome UI packed in a beautiful 10.1-inch screen. The tablet combines the functions of both netbook and kindle, an ebook reader. It has virtual keyboard for text entry and a webcam for video conferencing

Lai adds:

We’ve heard a lot of this same noise before: sub-$1000 price, an iPhone-like appearance, 10.1-inch multitouch screen, video conferencing, cellular connectivity, 3D graphics and virtual keyboard. What really got our attention is Lee’s link with Foxconn — the Apple OEM is one of the main contributors to Lee’s post-Google investment venture, Innovation Works, so there’s a good chance that Lee’s spoken to someone overlooking the manufacturing of a certain Apple device.

Kai-fu Lee also adds in his blog that “Steve Jobs will be introducing this product in January,” lending credence to Clayton Morris’ sepulchral source at Cupertino.

Well, that’s it — another day, another round of rumors. Make of them what you will. As far as I can see, we don’t know anything more now than we did when we reached for our hot lava java this morning, but, please, don’t shoot the messenger. At least this specumor (I’m enjoying my portmanteau’s; this one’s a cross between speculation and rumor) is bolstered by what appears to be sort-of-credible evidence.

Honestly, though, January 26 can’t arrive fast enough. I’m thoroughly sick of all this guessjecture.

UPDATE: Looks like my modest theory is correct, ifFake Steve is to be trusted.

I recently made the switch to the newest version of the web development application Espresso. After having used Coda for all my previous web development needs, I’m naturally making some comparisons between the two. I’ll leave the blow by blow evaluation to others but thought it worth noting that the one feature I find myself really missing the most from Coda is the ability to quickly search through reference books. This surprised me a bit as I wouldn’t normally list this as a “killer feature” of Coda, but more than anything else I’ve found myself continuously cursing the lack of this option in Espresso.

Thinking others might be feeling the same way I quickly threw together this Google Quick Search Box plug-in (ZIP, 742kb)that will let you send searches to reference sources for HTML, CSS, JQuery, PHP, MySQL, Python, and WordPress. You can start the query by entering text directly into QSB or by selecting text within Espresso itself, or any other application for that matter.

It seems like a simple feature hardly worth mentioning but I’ve found that having the option to quickly check up on the details of a particular function, element, declaration, etc. is an essential part of the way I work. In Coda you can add your own reference books directly into the application associating each one with a particular code type, e.g. php, css, javascript.

While in the code editor you can then select some text and choose “Look Up in Reference Books” from the contextual menu which will execute a search at the associated reference source using the text as the query. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks to this approach is that you can’t quickly send queries to more than one source for a given code type. Nevertheless, over time I’ve really become dependent on being able to run these quick lookups.

I figured the best way to close this gap in Espresso was by building a QSB plug-in. To install the plug-in just add the codex.hgs file into your ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Quick Search Box/PlugIns directory. Once installed you will need to restart QSB in order to access the new actions.

Once you have everything working, just add any text into QSB (don’t forget to prepend with a space) press “tab” to pivot to an action and select a codex to search. Typing “codex” will bring up all available sources or you can just type the name of a specific source, e.g. WordPress, JQuery, and so on. Once you have selected the codex to be searched, press return to send the query. Alternatively, you can also start by sending text to QSB from within Espresso, or whatever other editor you’re using, by selecting the appropriate bit of code and choosing “Send to Quick Search Box” from the services menu.

With the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words I recorded this quick video demonstrating the plug-in in action.

Now that I have quick access to all my reference books I think I’ll be switching over to Espresso full-time. I’d be interested in hearing if anyone else has recently made the switch to Espresso and if so what they’ve been missing the most.