Poor Steve Jobs, he has probably been enjoying the massive amount of rumor and speculation over the iSlate, sitting back safe in the knowledge that come the 27th January, he’ll be the one to say if it’s real or not.  But that little bit of joy may have been cruelly taken away by a very informative Stéphane Richard, speaking on French TV channel Europe 1.

Mr Richard is second in command at France Telecom/Orange, therefore his word carries considerable weight, so let us see what he has to say:

For non-French speakers, here is a translation:

Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: According to the weekly publication Le Point, in a few days your partner Apple will launch a Tablet…
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: …with a webcam.
Stéphane Richard: Yes.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: Will Orange users benefit from this?
Stéphane Richard: Of course!

He went on to explain that the 3G device’s webcam will transmit images in realtime and that it will ‘modernize the videophone’.  He also added that Apple will be launching the product in the ‘coming days’ – January 27th perhaps?

So, should we take this as confirmation that the iSlate is coming very soon?  Well, if anyone would know outside Apple, it’s a mobile network bigwig.  If this turns out to be factual, we just can’t see Apple being very happy about someone else letting the cat out of the bag!