14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the news about the joint development of a mobile phone and iPod combo device by Apple and Softbank was nothing more than another rumor.
The report in the Japanese Nihon Keizai Shimbun stirred quite a few waves, and the story rippled across the Internet and was picked up by the international technology press.
Yesterday, Softbank released a short public statement in which they described the device that they were supposedly working on with Apple as guesswork by the media. Interestingly enough, this seems more like an effort to cover a breach of a Non Disclosure Agreement rather than an outright denial of such a device being worked on. Then again, even if they did publicly state that there was no such device being planed or worked on, Apple has been known to make such statements in the past, and then come out with the exact thing they stated they would not be doing.
As for Apple, they have not made any statement on this matter yet, and they will probably never do so.
Still, as far as Apple iPhone rumors go, this one has to be the most interesting to date, if only for the fact that it pairs Apple with a Japanese company, who has recently acquired the Japanese Vodafone mobile business and is now a player in the Japanese mobile phone landscape competing with DoCoMo and others.