Apple Plans to Unveil Tablet

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Quattro Chief Executive Officer Andrew Miller was named vice president of mobile advertising at Apple, the Waltham, Massachusetts-based startup said in a blog posting. The price is $275 million, All Things Digital reported yesterday, citing unidentified people. Apple declined to disclose the terms.

Oversized iPod

Apple, which also makes the Macintosh computer, gained 37 cents to a record $214.38 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares more than doubled last year on investor optimism Apple will continue to sell more Macs and iPhones and add new products.

Analysts, including UBS AG's Maynard Um, expect the tablet could be an oversized version of Apple's 3.5-inch iPod Touch media player. Or it may take the form of a scaled-down notebook computer, said Um, based in New York.

The Wall Street Journal reported the expected release date of the tablet yesterday.

10 Million

Apple expects to ship 10 million tablet computers in the device's first year of release, former Google Inc. (GOOG) executive Lee Kai-fu wrote on his blog last week, citing a friend familiar with the project whom he didn't name.

The device will be introduced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs this month and sell for less than $1,000, according to the post dated Dec. 28. It will have a 10.1 inch multitouch screen with three-dimensional graphics and look like a large iPhone, Lee wrote.

Lee, who was president of Google's Chinese operations, left the company in September to start Innovation Works, a Beijing-based technology fund with investment from WI Harper Group and Foxconn Technology Group. Foxconn's flagship Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. business is the world's largest electronics manufacturer and the supplier of Apple's iPhone.

Lee said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News last week that the information didn't come from Foxconn or Apple.

To contact the reporter on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net.

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