Rumour Roundup for December 28th

Its time for a roundup of some of the rumours spotted over the last week or so. Once again there are plenty of Apple TV rumours but I thought I would start with Windows Phone 8. Winrumours are reporting that Microsoft are planning to improve the backup and migration features in Windows Phone. In a recent job posting Microsoft are saying their vision for backup recovery includes:

Our goal is to ensure that no matter if someone loses their phone, drops their phone in a lake, buys a new windows phone, or just has their toddler wipe their phone by entering the wrong PIN over and over, a user can quickly and seamlessly get their phone back to a good state. The features we are producing will be new for the next version of Windows Phone and will help ensure Microsoft stays ahead of the competition when it comes to disaster recovery. Come be a part of defining this area.

Currently Windows Phone backups up to the Zune software where as Apple and Google have cloud backups so it would be great to have Windows Phone have this functionality.

One story I saw a couple of weeks ago and thought worth mentioning is that Google could be planning to market their own Android Tablet. Quoted in an Italian newspaper Chairman Eric Schmidt said “In the next six months we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality.” So far Android tablets haven’t really sold well (apart from Amazon’s Kindle Fire) so I could see Google doing what they have done with phones by selling and marketing a device made by a 3rd party like Samsung.

Finally its another Apple TV story, Digitimes are saying that Apple suppliers are gearing up to deliver components for Apple to release a HD TV for the 3rd quarter of 2012:

The supply chain of Apple will start preparing materials for iTV sets in the first quarter of 2012 in order to meet Apple’s schedule to launch the new display products in the second or the third quarter of 2012, according to industry sources.

Instead of a form of set-top box (STB) like the Apple TV launched in 2006, Apple’s new products will be full TV sets, the sources added.

Media reports in Korea also indicated that Samsung Electronics started producing chips for the iTVs in November 2011, while Sharp will produce the displays for the new TVs.

The displays of the new iTV sets will focus on 32- and 37-inch sizes initially, noted sources in the supply chain.