7-inch iPad mini, Apple iTV and other related news, rumours

It's been a wild week packed with breaking tech news and industry rumours and speculation — particularly surrounding Apple and its products.

What's that? Missed the headlines? No worries, we break it down for you in bite-sized summaries so you can get your iFix.

Apple television a reality

The long-rumoured Apple iTV — a big-screen smart television loaded with Apple tech — looks to be the real deal.

Terry Gou, the head of Foxconn, slipped the news during a Shanghai press conference, reports the China Daily. Gou said its Taiwanese company was preparing its facilities to start producing Apple's television, though "development or manufacturing has yet to begin," says the China Daily article.

Foxconn is the world's largest maker of electronic components and manufacturer of the Apple iPhone and iPad, among other products like Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Amazon Kindle.

Said to be Steve Jobs' last breakthrough product, iTV is rumoured to have access to the App Store and iCloud, will have a built-in camera for FaceTime video calls and will include support for the company's voice-activated personal assistant, Siri, which is bundled in the iPhone 4S.

iPad mini in the works?

Another rumour that's gain traction: Apple is prepping a 7-inch iPad to compete with less expensive colour tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire (or in Canada, Kobo Vox).

iMore is reporting the 7-inch iPad will be available this October, for $200 to $250, to compete against the popular Fire. The pocket-sized tablet will boast the same high-resolution "Retina" display as its big brother, at 2,048 by 1,536 pixels.

But the information leaked from a "reliable source" says the smaller version of the 9.7-inch iPad will also have less memory — 8 Gigabytes — which is half of the entry-level iPad ($519) at 16GB of capacity.

The iMore piece mirrors a report published in the DigiTimes publication in February, where it was said a 7.85-inch iPad model was in the works.

Would you buy an iPad mini?

Siri said what?

The Next Web has found something amusing with Siri on the iPhone 4S.

If you ask Siri "What is the best smartphone ever?" you'll see the answer, provided by Wolfram Alpha, but get this — it won't say iPhone.

Instead, you'll see it's the Nokia Lumia 900 — a Windows Phone 7.5-based device.

This top rating is delivered to you by Siri because the query is based on "customer review average" across the Web, the article states. It's true the latest Nokia device is rated very high by critics and customers alike.

At least you have to give credit to Siri for her objectivity. Er, unless, of course, you ask her "What is the best smartphone?" — a slight variation of the question posed above — to which Siri will answer "the one you're holding."