Tuesday, Sept 12. "It's Showtime!"

Well it seems confirmed now. There will be a press event in San Francisco and the invitation says, "It's Showtime!". That means we should finally see the true iPod video and a video store. I also think we will see new Mac Mini's and video enabled Airport Express (maybe). I doubt the 23" iMac and any new portables. So my predictions:

iTunes movie store
Video iPod
Refreshed Nano
New Mac Mini
Video AirPort Express (my long shot)

What do you guys think?


**EDIT** I love Apple rumors!

 

The invitation

 

im excited!!!!

 

Haha.

Even if you don't have the money or already have a new Mac, its always exciting to see what Apple has coming out next, it only ends up making you drool over the next thing.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Mac Mini will get. Its pretty much confirmed Mac Minis are getting an update because Apple was refusing any large orders on them for the past few weeks.

 

What would be the differences between the new video ipod and the current one I wonder?

And lets hope they release the merom next week too

 

The rumors are a bigger screen. The current screen is much too small. As for Merom, I don't believe there will be an announcement. One, it is not big enough to announce and two, Apple does not like to announce things you cannot buy right away. I doubt they would have Merom notebooks in quantites by next Tuesday. Although you never know.

 

Um, that's not true. Apple announced the Macbook Pros in early January and they didn't start shipping until the middle of February.

 

That is correct. It is also the only announcement they have made like that in recent memory. Plus as I said before a small processor upgrade does not warrant an announcement. Also, they usually stick to a theme and Merom notebooks have nothing to do with "Showtime".

 

I think it'll be boring on the laptop/desktop front at this event

Hopefully all about the iPod

Come on! You know you want to give me 8/10gb Nano goodness Jobs!

 

I'm betting on a new iPod Video - Apple's probably updating it to compete better with MS's new Zune. The Nano update will probably also happen. I'm also hoping for an iPod-cell phone integration, although, it probably won't happen.

 

I just want a 64 bit Macbook Pro! Please! My 4 year old Toshiba is barely surviving!

 

Yeah, if Sony can do it this early with the SZ340 Apple can do it. Besides, I thought Sony and Apple were bossum buddies.

 

it's an iPod + iTunes announcement more than anything else.... considering that "it's showtime" refers to movies?

 

I wouldn't mind seeing a 12" MBP, although the showtime theme doesn't seem to favour this happening.

 

We'll probably see the merom coming out at about the same time though. There will probably only be a small announcement, or something on the website to let us know MBP has merom in it. Kind of like what they did with the imac.

 

Apple announced the iMacs with Merom yesterday (and minor upgrades to the Mac Mini cpus, bleh - was hoping for more) as well as the 24-inch iMac version. So... one has to wonder what is going to be announced next week that is big enough to let that (the 24-inch iMac) slip through without an event. Almost certainly meroms will be put in the MBP, no reason for them not to, but that's definitely not it

I'm guessing the movie deal everyone talks about + new iPod Nano (possibly new iPod Video). I don't really care about the movie stuff, but a new Nano would be nice.

 

I believe the imac has conroe not merom. Not possitive on that, but the Merom is the mobile version of conroe (which is the desktop C2D chip).

 

The iMac has a Merom in it. The iMac has all mobile parts except for the video card and hard drive.

**EDIT** That is my beef with Apple right now BTW. I want a Conroe desktop, but Apple seems unwilling to supply one.

 

ah okay... That just seems really odd to me. but I guess cause of it's small form factor it kinda makes sense.

 

Yeah Cash is right, its a merom core in it.

Apple keeps stating that the iMac is their 'Desktop' for consumers but it's really not. Its kinda hard to explain what it is. I think the thing people want is a Consumer desktop tower, with a choice of getting an ACD or not. If Apple did come out with such thing as that, it would definitely be my next purchase.

 

I am not sure people want a consumer desktop tower - and anyways, the guys at Cupertino seem to think people don't. Question is, it will be very, very difficult for Apple o differentiate itsef from beige boxes. The move to Intel archictecture brought Apple too close to other PC hardware manufacturers. I guess they don't want to, or haven't managed to, come with a design that sports a cost/benefit ratio that is good enough and it still spells Apple in it - without cannabilizing its current lineup. Think, how much would you pay for an Apple tower? More than a 17" iMac? less than a 24" iMac? perhaps in the US$600, like the MacMini? I don't think a consumer Apple tower will come anytime soon, Apple will have already enough trouble selling MacPros. The iMacs and the Minis, due to their design stand on a category of their own and thus can't be directly compared to other manufacturer's offers- that's what Apple does best, it stands out from the crowd.

 

A question, how is a Nvidia 7300GT to support such a huge screen. I definately see some LAGGING when u go HI-DEF.

 

I don't think the macbook will have a merom cpu after 12 september. I think the extra performance you gain by switching from core duo to core 2 duo is minimal. So it's even better to buy your core duo now and upgrade when santa rosa is out on the macbook. I think this will be around june 2007 or something. I think people will regret their core 2 duo if next year santa rosa comes out on the macbook (pro), shortly after they bought the core 2 duo.

p.s. sorry for my bad english

 

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2808

I dunno, seems like it's a fairly good difference between cd and c2d. Not enough to warrant an upgrade from cd to c2d...

 

Those numbers though do not live up to the hype that was created. Add in the fact that the low end are even closer to each other and that the Core2Duo's are reportedly hotter than CoreDuo's. Merom is a great chip, but not what was hyped.

 

I'm actually curious about the heat reports. I haven't seen much discussing that. Mostly from what I hear is that people think it runs hotter due to a highe TDP or whatever, but actually reaches it's peak less often than the c1d does.

but not really sure, haven't seen any real reports done on it. But I'd also like to see something comparing 2.0ghz c1d and c2d.