Sometimes the timing all just falls into place, you know? Just yesterday we were bemoaning the lack of wild-eyed and frothing speculation on all aspects of the imminent iMac G5, hinting that diehard rumor hounds might have been taken aback by Apple's official confirmation of the product's existence and general release time frame and that they'd be more comfortable chasing down less "official" rumors that wander farther afield from Apple's PR department. Well, guess what? You get to spend your weekend wondering endlessly just what the heck this thing is, whose design Apple tried to trademark in Europe last May.

Yes, faithful viewer DanMann was the first of many to point out that The Register unearthed a design trademark application for a "handheld computer" that was just made public this week, and which includes some sketches that ought to claim the lives of at least three or four weak-hearted Mac fiends who've been thumping the table for an Apple tablet device for the past couple of years. What is it? We don't know. It looks kind of like the screen from a 12-inch iBook or PowerBook-- and only the screen. There's a little ridgy thing on the side that looks kind of like an iPod dock connector. And that's pretty much all anyone has to go on right now.

So is it a PDA? Not likely, since it looks way too big. How about a tablet Mac of some sort, such as has been rumored for years, now? Possibly, especially given all the past rumors about such a device and the fact that Apple still hasn't done anything compelling with the "Ink" handwriting recognition engine that debuted in Mac OS X 10.2 almost two years ago. Still others think it may even be the screen of the iMac G5, which they predict can be undocked from the base unit and used as a wireless tablet via AirPort Extreme. And other others figure it's a standalone wireless media device of some sort, which will handle wireless pictures and video to complement the iPod's role in the "Digital Hub" scheme of things. You want frothing speculation coming out of your ears? Take a trundle on over to MacRumors or one of those other rumors forums; they're really working themselves into a frenzy over this one.

Before your pleasure center explodes and you posthumously lose your cleaning deposit, let us remind you that Apple trademarks things all the time that it never ends up using. (Remember Junkyard? iPhone?) So there's a chance that, whatever this thing is, it won't ever actually come to market. Personally, though, we're starting to suspect that Apple is only months away from taking the wraps off its own version of Microsoft's deliriously lukewarm Tablet PC; part of us still thinks that, just like with the PDA issue, Apple wouldn't want to enter any market that can barely support its existing players, let alone a newbie, but we can't forget that the iPod changed all the rules and finally did portable digital music right. So who's to say that an Apple tablet device wouldn't school Microsoft sixty ways from Sunday and wind up being a tablet that people actually do want to buy and use?

It's the weekend. Start chewing.