The iWhatever and the Madness of TheStreet.com

I promised myself I was not going to write anything more about whatever it is that Apple will announce next week until they do it. But things are really getting out of control.  TheStreet.com has just published an article by Scott Moritz that may set a record to the number of errors, misconceptions, and wild leaps of faith ever crammed into one short piece.

Under the headline “Exclusive: Apple Tablet Heads to Verizon,” it asserts:

The hotly anticipated Apple Tablet — or the Apple Newton II — will feature a wireless chip made by Qualcomm. This discrete little fact would confirm that Apple has chosen Verizon (VZ Quote) as its telco partner, says Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar.

It doesn’t bother to tell us which Qualcomm chip Apple is allegedly using. We are long past the days when Qualcomm automatically meant CDMA2000. These days Qualcomm makes chips for all sorts of air links and one of its hotter product is Gobi, a radio that supports both EV-DO (CDMA) and HSPA (GSM) 3G technologies.

If true, it validates what TheStreet first reported in July — that Apple and Verizon are working together to sell the new Tablet.

Now we get “if true.” And even if true, it does nothing of the sort. At least not without a whole lot more information.

Moritz has a track record with Apple prognotications. He predicted back in March that a tablet would be an overpriced flop for Apple “which desperately needs a new hit.”  He borrows from that earlier report by describing the to-be-announced tablet as “an in-between device with no keyboard and a $2,000 price tag that includes a data contract.” Earlier in the same piece, he said that the tablet would cost $800 unsubsidized and that Verizon would take the price down by $200 with a two-year, $60 a month contract.

But I have to stop. All this is just giving me a headache.