German Intel executive Hannes Schwaderer may have spilled the beans during the company's 40th birthday celebration at BMW World in Munich this week. According to AppleInsider, the Intel staffer made comments that corroborate reports of a Newton-like mini-tablet under development at Apple.

The device, per the comments, may be one of the first powered by one of Intel's Atom ultra-mobile device chipsets.

"Schwaderer today confirms what has long been a rumor on the Internet: namely, that there is an iPhone with Intel's new Atom chip," reads a report in the German edition of ZDNet. "The device is slightly larger than the current version, Schwaderer said. This is not [because of] the Intel chip, but [because of] the larger display used in the new iPhone."

The device has been described by sources as featuring an ultra-thin "slate" design similar to the iPhone and would run an embedded version of the Mac OS X operating system.

Stay tuned for further details as this story develops and if you've heard anything on your end, let us know in the comments or forums.