An official announcement can’t stop the wheels of the Apple Tablet rumor mill from turning

Some of you may recall a small event that happened last week where Steve Jobs quietly showcased a tablet device to a select few. In effect, it was the accumulation of years worth of rumors that were finally realized. But leave it to the blogosphere to not let those rumor mills stop a’turning. Nope, merely days after the official announcement of the iPad, there are new rumors of another Apple tablet device that may be on its way.

According to TechCrunch, who is basing their entire post on an admitted second-hand source, Apple may be working on a larger, beefier tablet that would run Max OS X and be able to handle traditional Mac software. They expect that Apple could be playing its cards close to their chest (the only way Apple plays their cards, by the way) until the WWDC event in June. The tablet, maybe the iSlate we’ve been waiting for, would most likely feature a larger screen and a much larger price tag. In essence, if the iPad was a tablet replacement of the netbook, this new tablet would be a replacement for laptops.

We can’t help but hold our head in our hands after hearing this so soon after the iPad announcement. While it represents something that could grasp much more of the missed potential of tablets that the iPad missed out on, can’t we just have a breather at this point? Let’s just call a cease fire on Apple talk until we can all gather our wits and sanity (or at least until we have time to check with our sources).