Verizon owns 55 percent of the cellular enterprise, and – according to Reuters’s unnamed sources – it now thinks it can pick up the rest for $100 billion, half of which would come from bank financing and half of which would take the form of Verizon’s own shares. The U.S. firm apparently wants amicable discussions with Vodafone over this, but is willing to “take a bid public” if Voda doesn’t play ball.

I’ve asked Voda for comment on this latest notion, and am interested to see how any potential acceptance of the potential offer would overcome the hurdles faced in the past. The problem there, as another unnamed Vodafone investor previously explained, is that a sale of its share would hit Voda with an enormous capital gains tax bill – which is why a merger seemed more attractive.

As those in the U.K. know all too well, Vodafone is allergic to big tax bills, so let’s see how this latest outbreak of whispering pans out in reality.

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However, late on Tuesday evening Verizon issued the following statement, which keeps alive the perennial possibility of Verizon buying out Voda’s stake in their joint venture, Verizon Wireless, but which is also pretty categorical on the latest rumor:

“As Verizon has said many times, it would be a willing purchaser of the 45 percent stake that Vodafone holds in Verizon Wireless. It does not, however, currently have any intention to merge with or make an offer for Vodafone, whether alone or in conjunction with others.”

The denial knocked down Voda’s share price by – at the time of writing – 2.2 percent on intra-day trading. That said, according to Bloomberg, the rumor brought a 6.1 percent bump on Tuesday, so for now it did more good (for Voda’s investors) than harm.

According to Reuters, the problem with the Verizon-buying-out-Vodafone’s-stake scenario is that the $115 billion transaction would land Voda with a $20 billion tax bill – hence the idea of carrying out a merger instead. Apparently that’s now not going to fly, so it’s back to the drawing board.

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We called BS on the supposed T-Mobile-MetroPCS tie-up earlier this week, and we’re calling BS on this one, too — for the exact same reasons. Leap is a CDMA operator, while AT&T networks are built on the GSM family of networks. As with MetroPCS and T-Mobile, the only thing AT&T and Leap have in common are plans to launch LTE on the same Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum, but that’s hardly enough to justify the enormous cost and hassle of such a deal.

Let’s put this in perspective: Leap is a regional operator with 6 million customers with networks and an average of 23 MHz of spectrum in mostly mid-sized markets across the U.S. as well as in a few big cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. According to Reuters, it has a market cap of $400 million and a debt load of $3.2 billion. So for a transaction of about $4 billion, AT&T gets an incompatible CDMA network, extra LTE capacity in mostly smaller markets and an incomplete footprint of licenses, most of which are already encumbered with that aforementioned CDMA network.

Meanwhile Verizon is paying around $3.9 billion to buy SpectrumCo and Cox Communications to get 20 MHz of pristine no-strings-attached AWS spectrum that covers nearly every populated region across the country. That cable spectrum may be off the market, leaving AT&T with fewer options, but is Ma Bell really this desperate? If it is, it certainly has the cash: $39 billion left over from its failed T-Mobile bill. But I really, really doubt it.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Iourii Tcheka

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Macotakara’s Chinese sources say that Foxconn will handle 85 percent of next-gen iPad orders, while Pegatron will take on the remaining 15 percent. While the blog hasn’t always been 100 percent accurate with its reports, it has been right on multiple occasions, including when it called the iPad 2′s March launch, and today’s report is very much in line with what we have been hearing elsewhere. Macotakara reports the initial batches will use Sharp LCD display panels, echoing a rumor that cropped up in late December. Sharp was reported at the time to have secured a contract to provide Apple with new IGZO-based panels that allow for high-res, 2048 x 1536 displays without adding additional bulk.

The new report also claims that, as recent rumors suggest, the next iPad will be visually similar to its predecessor and shouldn’t offer any noteworthy changes in terms of its case design. Tight-fitting cases might not fit, according to Macotakara, which is what iLounge’s Jeremy Horwitz also reported this week, but the Smart Cover and most other accessories should still be compatible with the iPad 3.

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“We don’t have the DNA to be a music company or a movie company,” Zuckerberg said in an onstage one-on-one with Publicis CEO Maurice Lévy.

The comments come just as Facebook is reported to have deepened its partnership with Sweden-based startup Spotify to roll out a more fully integrated music-streaming service within the social networking site, according to a Forbes report  published Wednesday citing anonymous sources. The report claims the feature will be called either “Facebook Music” or “Spotify on Facebook.” The new service will reportedly not be available in the United States, as Spotify has not yet cleared regulations to be used in the U.S.

However, a source familiar with Spotify denied the deeper integration when reached by GigaOM. The company already has a “Spotify on Facebook” feature that allows Facebook users to share links to Spotify songs on their profile pages. A Facebook spokesperson responded similarly, telling me “there’s nothing new to announce” and pointing to the existing integration between the two companies. “Many of the most popular music services around the world are integrated with Facebook, and we’re constantly talking to our partners about ways to improve these integrations,” the spokesperson said. Both Facebook and Spotify have separately raised funding from telecom mogul, Li Ka-Shing.

Whether the Spotify/Facebook rumor du jour is true or not, Facebook is clearly keen to get more immersed in the media and entertainment industries. At e-G8, Zuckerberg noted that while Facebook had no ambitions to move the company from Silicon Valley to Hollywood, entertainment companies could do well to take advantage of all that social networking has to offer. “I hope that we can play a part in enabling… the companies that are out there producing this great content to become more social,” he said. “We’re going to see a lot of the transformation in these industries over the next three, five years.”

Image of Mark Zuckerberg and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the 2011 e-G8 summit courtesy of Flickr user Cyril “cattias.photos” Attias.

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Blacked out Apple Store in Durham, NC, before the iPad 2 launch

Earlier this week, BGR cited a “solid” source concerning a possible “major product launch” in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of Apple retail. Details focused on mysterious “hardware” that had already been received, overnight shifts this weekend, black helicopters curtains, and the always insanely tight security. Of course, the longtime Appleologist would be rightly be skeptical at the company launching a new product on a Monday, unless the new product was the Apple Store itself.

Like pieces in a puzzle, additional rumors are putting together a picture of a new retail experience to start the second decade of the Apple Store. 9to5 Mac has coined it the “Apple Store 2.0 event,” citing a source that provided “a load” of tantalizing unconfirmed information.

9to5 Mac asserts the new retail experience has been in planning for a while, led by CEO Steve Jobs and VP of Retail Ron Johnson. That makes sense, as the original Apple Store design was heavily influenced by those two. Supposedly, Apple industrial design wizard Jonathan Ive has also been involved with the planned changes.

Those changes reportedly include more emphasis on personal services relating to new products. Last quarter, Apple set up more than a million products for customers for free. Supposedly, a dedicated part of the store will be used for personal setup going forward.

In terms of the shopping experience, signage next to Apple products like Macs will be replaced with iPads, presumably to provide information displays. There will also be new, “huge” displays in some stores, as well as new sound systems. A few stores currently have wall-screen projectors. There will also be a new Apple Store app, if that’s not being too redundant, that will help guide consumers through a local shopping experience.

AppleInsider, citing sources “familiar” with Apple retail, suggests Apple is preparing to have employees use iPads on the floor. It’s unknown whether the iPads would replace the current EasyPay terminals used with the iPod touch, or perhaps be complementary. Those iPads could be the hardware BGR referenced.

It’s looking more and more like these rumors will pan out. That means besides a press release on Monday, expect some kind of carefully staged unveiling at a flagship store with at least some Apple executives present, if not Steve Jobs himself.

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Citing a “trusted source” at a “major educational institution,” iLounge is also now also predicting a MobileMe relaunch in April. A new, free version of the online service will apparently coexist alongside the current paid version for the next year. Presumably, that would cover those like myself unfortunate enough to have recently renewed their MobileMe account, but without Apple having to offer refunds or credits. However, a deprecated service running alongside a free one seems confusing and very much out of character for Apple, and I think it’s more likely a free service would coexist alongside other paid tiers.

The possibility of an imminent iOS 5 preview does seem likely, too. Last year, the iOS 4 preview showed multi-tasking, Game Center, iAd, and AirPrint, though the last was eventually scaled back from its earlier incarnation. Perhaps we’ll get an update on AirPrint this year in iOS 5 that expands support beyond a few select printers.

As for MobileMe, the recent discontinuation of retail boxes is probably the best indicator of an imminent relaunch. Besides that, it’s been widely rumored that some kind of storage “locker” for media content, music and video, will be part of the service. The most interesting social networking feature that’s been talked about for the service is a new personal homepage, dynamically updated based upon where you are and what you are doing.

While “free” is likely the most anticipated potential feature of a new MobileMe, I’d personally prefer Apple-hosted domains. What features are you looking for in a new MobileMe?

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The WSJ’s Yukari Iwatani Kane and Ethan Smith write:

Apple Inc. is working on the first of a new line of less-expensive iPhones and an overhaul of software services for the devices, people familiar with the matter said, moving to accelerate sales of its smartphones amid growing competition.

One of the people, who saw a prototype of the phone late last year, said it is intended for sale alongside Apple’s existing line. The new device would be about half the size of the iPhone 4, which is the current model.

The authors don’t elaborate on what “half the size” means (half the screen real-estate? half the thickness?) though it’s hard to imagine an iPhone with such a small screen being particularly practical. Sure, the new iPod nano leads the way in tiny touch-screen form factors, but, by necessity, has only a tiny subset of the functionality and flexibility of an iPhone.

The new phone [...] would be available to carriers at about half the price of the main iPhones. That would allow carriers to subsidize most or all of the retail price, putting the iPhone in the same mass-market price range as rival smartphones, the person said.

Apple doesn’t usually try to beat rivals on price, so I’m not sure, even in today’s increasingly competitive smartphone market, that they would start now. Apple has long maintained that it isn’t interested in selling the most devices, but rather, selling the best devices. Despite the Wall Street Journal‘s reputation, I’ll remain skeptical about a new miniature iPhone appearing this year.

Still, it sounds like a mighty interesting device, even if it is only a prototype:

The person who saw [the prototype] said the device was significantly lighter than the iPhone 4 and had an edge-to-edge screen that could be manipulated by touch, as well as a virtual keyboard and voice-based navigation.

Revamped MobileMe

Last year, Steve Jobs reportedly said in an email to a customer that MobileMe was going to get a lot better, and the WSJ touches on this, too:

Apple is considering making MobileMe a free service that would serve as a “locker” for personal memorabilia such as photos, music and videos, eliminating the need for devices to carry a lot of memory…

MobileMe [...] could become a focal point for a new online music service that Apple has been developing for more than a year, the people said. Social networking would be another key component, one of the people said.

This sounds far more plausible, and makes much more sense. Remember that Apple bought Lala in early 2010 only to close it down a few months later; it seems likely the acquisition was more about getting Lala’s engineering talent into Cupertino to work on some kind so streaming music ability.

What’s more, Apple’s heavy dependence on flash-based storage in iPhones, iPads and now MacBook Airs (and, presumably, in upcoming MacBooks) greatly enhances the need for cloud-based, pervasive data storage and over-the-air access and synchronization. Flash storage is still too expensive to allow for 500 GB or terabyte storage capacities in MacBooks and iMacs without contributing significantly to their purchase prices.

It makes sense to use flash memory — it’s a much faster and more energy-efficient technology than the traditional hard disk drive — but to keep prices down, storage capacities will likely remain modest.

So with MobileMe’s (now) rock-solid Mail, Contacts and Calendar functionality in-place, and a hugely successful ecosystem of flash-storage-toting iOS devices selling faster than they can be manufactured, the stage is set for a much more sophisticated, cloud-based data and media-streaming service from Apple.

There is just one annoying fly in the ointment:

The new MobileMe file-storage and music service could be available as early as June, depending on the progress of licensing talks that are in their preliminary stages.

Streaming a user’s iTunes content requires a new — and complicated — set of distribution licenses between Apple and content creators, and that’s likely to take a lot of time to work out. Indeed, Kane and Smith write that Apple intended to launch this service a year ago — if I were a betting man, I’d wager the delay has been entirely due to the legal wrangles between Apple and content creators.

Even if this summer’s iPad refresh is only a modest upgrade, and the iPhone nano doesn’t materialize at all, this new MobileMe could still be huge news. After all, who else could possibly compete with such a service?

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CNET is reporting the MacBook Air will be transitioning to Sandy Bridge, Intel’s latest microprocessor architecture, as early as June. While Sandy Bridge and Core “i” series CPUs offer improved performance, especially with Intel HD integrated graphics, a hardware flaw related to SATA ports temporarily slowed shipments this month. While the issue has been resolved, it likely pushed back MacBook Pro updates until mid-March. Depending on whether or not that update happens will set the stage for Sandy Bridge for the MacBook Air in June.

There’s still a degree of uncertainty, because there remains some debate as to whether Sandy Bridge supports OpenCL, the programming framework favored by Apple that allows use of the graphics processors. If the 13-inch MacBook Pro moves to Sandy Bridge, Core i3, and Intel HD graphics, Sandy Bridge for the MacBook Air is a certainty. If the 13-inch MacBook Pro gets a discrete GPU in addition to Intel HD, like the other MacBook Pros, that probably means trouble for the MacBook Air. If Sandy Bridge doesn’t fully support OpenCL, Apple will have to wait for Ivy Bridge. Ivy Bridge is the die shrink of Sandy Bridge that supports OpenCL, which is on track to be released in the second half of the year.

Apple could well just wait for Ivy Bridge. According to DigiTimes, Apple is doubling orders of some “hot-selling” models of Mac laptops. That would be the MacBook Air, which has been credited by analysts as largely responsible for the record 2.9 million Mac laptops sold during the holiday quarter. Clearly, the use of an older microprocessor architecture isn’t hurting sales, and arguably only the die-hard tech crowd would even care if Apple held of on updating the MacBook Air until late this year.

As a member of that crowd, the thought of not getting a Core i3 MacBook Air this summer with OS X 10.7 is hurtful indeed. Would you be upset if Apple skips a mid-year spec bump?

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Keeping track of iPad rumors is tough, but there are a few sources that are almost always worth paying attention to. One of those is the Journal, where Apple has been known to intentionally leak advance product information in the past. In fact, immediately preceding the announcement of the first iPad, the WSJ ran an article confirming the device’s existence and promising a January announcement and March release (this ended up falling in early April, but late March could’ve been the original target). Following that announcement, former Apple marketing manager John Martellaro wrote that such articles were often examples of “controlled leaks” employed by Apple to intentionally bolster interest in its upcoming products. Martellaro said that Apple will contact “trusted friend[s]” at major news outlets. The WSJ article announcing the original iPad’s existence was co-written by Yukari Iwatani Kane, as was the one published today discussing the iPad 2.

This definitely feels like an intentional leak, since it’s light on details, busts some of the loftier expectations floating around (no high-res display or Sprint/T-Mobile compatibility) and mainly re-treads established anticipated features (front-facing camera for FaceTime). It also doesn’t mention any specific dates or timeline for release, but if Apple is beginning production now, a March or April release is most likely, which is in keeping with a one-year update cycle and existing rumors.

One thing that’s conspicuously absent from the WSJ’s description of the iPad 2 is a rear-facing camera. Maybe Apple is of the opinion that it isn’t much use on a 10-inch tablet. What do you think? Would a single, front-facing camera on the iPad 2 disappoint?

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