This week saw a couple of big rumors about Apple's future products, from wildly different places, citing anonymous sources. The two rumors this week were that Apple is planning on bringing set-top gaming to the Apple TV and the iPhone 6 released in 2014 may be a phablet.

Apple TV -- For Gaming?

The most recent rumor involves a new Apple TV, and/or an update to the Apple TV firmware. Reports are that Apple is currently developing a new version of the Apple TV that will feature a redesigned operating system based on iOS, possibly with an App Store and Game Store, from which you could download Apple TV apps directly to the Apple TV's storage drive or iCloud.

If it's a new variant on the Apple TV set-top hardware and not just a firmware update, rumors originating from iLounge have it that the new Apple TV may feature Bluetooth controller options for gaming. There has been no word on whether Apple's late-2013 acquisition of PrimeSense, a 3D sensor company that helped Microsoft develop the Xbox Kinect, has any part in the purported Apple TV refresh. iLounge's report, from "reliable industry sources," states that the new Apple TV will "likely come in March or earlier."

iPhone Phablet

The second rumor of the week is that Apple plans on making a phablet -- the industry term for a smartphone with a screen so large, it's essentially a phone/tablet hybrid. This report comes from "people familiar with the situation," as reported by The Wall Street Journal. Purportedly, Apple is planning a couple of new iPhone 6s -- one with a screen larger than Apple's 4-inch standard, and a second with a display larger than 5 inches.

If correct, this could put the larger iPhone 6 variant in phablet territory -- which usually describes smartphones with screens about 5.5-inches or larger. Apple has been known for sticking to a smaller screen size so users can reach everything with one hand, while Android-based devices have continued to get larger and larger. Besides the major Android flagship handsets whose screen sizes hover around 5-inches, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has a 5.7-inch screen, the HTC One Max has a 5.9-inch screen and, not to be outdone, Sony's 2013 phablet, the Xperia Z Ultra, has a mammoth 6.44-inch display -- so large that Sony sold a Bluetooth handset accessory to use for phone calls.

But these companies have sold larger smartphones for a reason -- there's a market for it. As Zach Seward of Quartz notes, while in the U.S. phablets are not popular and often treated with derision (example here), in other big markets like South Korea, phablets are huge (-ly popular). While the "c-for-China" iPhone 5c was not particularly a hit in Asian markets -- and the same WSJ piece reports that Apple is scrapping the plastic variant -- Apple needs to find another way to find new buyers.

A 5-inch+ screen on an iPhone would certainly be a departure from the norm: the last time Apple increased the display size of the iPhone was two years ago, bumping it up from 3.5-inches to 4 inches. Purportedly, the larger-screened iPhone is still in preliminary development, while the 4.5-inch+ iPhone 6 is on its way soon.

Grain of Salt

Apple rumors are slippery things. No matter what the source or publisher, rumors can be completely wrong, half wrong, or right on the money. In the case of this week, the smaller tech news site and source of Apple TV rumors, iLounge, has previously been right on the money about the iPhone 5c being low-cost and plastic as early as Jan. 2013.

But then take the 2013 iPhone "mini" rumors that wire service Reuters lent credibility to last summer. Indeed, Apple ended up unveiling the iPhone 5c, which is basically a "mini" iPhone, in that it was a somewhat budget-conscious variant of the flagship iPhone 5s. However, in that same report, Reuters stated that Apple would be introducing iPhone models with larger screens -- up to 5.7 inches.

That turned out to be wrong, at least in the short term.