Rumors have been circulating for some time that Apple is buying up 10″ touchscreens like mad, but the question is what they plan to do with them.

Numerous Apple rumor sites are reporting that Apple has placed large orders for ten-inch touchscreens to be delivered in the third quarter of 2009.  This places them arriving sometime between July and September, which would position them perfectly for a device to be released in September, the usual time of the annual iPod line refresh.  This is usually done to help spur holidays sales of the popular media playing devices.

While some have speculated that these screens may be for either some form of Mac OSX-based tablet, or even a Mac OSX-based mini-computer.  However, we here at StarterTech have another, perhaps wild, theory about what they are planning if these touchscreen orders are real.

What about a 10″ iPod Touch?

While Apple has always been about slimming down devices, and making them ever smaller, what if they radically shifted gears and made an entirely new product line?  While it would technically be an iPod, what we are speculating about is the possability of a 10″ media player.  The iPhone and iPod Touch have become popular media playing platforms for downloaded videos, streaming YouTube videos and even ebook reading with things like the Amazon Kindle app.

All of this has been nice, the one thing people have talked about is how much nicer it would be with a larger screen.  Apple of course can’t go this route with the iPhone as people still need to hold it up to their heads to talk, but the iPod Touch could be converted to something else all together.  I don’t feel they will discontinue the current size of the popular iPod, but I could see them launching a new super-sized version of the player.

We also add to the speculation that this is an iPod-type device due to the recent announcement that the iPhone OS 3.0 will work with accessories.  Imagine a 10″ iPod-like device with a physical keyboard accessory that would allow you to work on it like a netbook/mini-laptop when you wanted to, but then you could just use it as a media playing device when you were traveling on a plane.

All of this is completely speculation at this point. While the screens look to be likely, they are not a definite as of yet. Even if the device does exist, there is no guarantee if it will run iPhone software or Mac OSX software.  Everything being said by all sites is speculation, but the timing of the release really leads all of us here to feel the finger points more to an iPod like device than a computer of some type.

What say you?  What do you think Apple is planning to do with these 10″ touchscreens?