so is this summer a good time to buy a macbook or 24" imac?

well i have a confirmed buyer for my alienware. but he wont be able to come up with all the cash till the mid july.

1) i dont really follow apple news that much. does apple realese new products randomly when no major events are scheduled?

2) when is the next major event that apple might unveil new products?

3) is thier any chance of a black macbook pro?

4) what will be done with the standard macbooks?

5) since the 24" got an upgrade a few months ago, whats next? and when?
any chance of an all black or all white model? im just so sick of everything silver.

 

I'm close to pulling the trigger on a 24" iMac and about the only thing that I'm concerned about is the relatively recent news that apple will have LED screens on all their products soon, including the iMac and Macbook line.

Now the question is how soon is "soon"? Will it be in 2008, early 2009 or later?

I'm planning on holding off as much as I can till I absolutely need my desktop replaced at which point I'm sure I can make a more educated decision.

 

1) Generally, no. Any major new product will get announced at an Apple press event. The WWDC was just yesterday, so the next one will certainly not be for a while. However, a platform update may be in store unannounced.

2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but the next major event would be Macworld 2009, in January.

3) No, as the current MBP is brushed aluminum, which is inherently silver.

4) I would bet that they will eventually adopt the Montevina chipset, but since they only recently upgraded to Penryn processors, an update will not come out for some time, I'd imagine. Macbooks tend to be on a 6-month refresh cycle, and I believe that the last update was in February.

Check this out for cycles

5) I don't know, but don't get your hopes up for anything but silver.

 

1- If they do a normal update (new processor, ram, hd) they will probably just put it on the site.

2- Theres a chance there will be another "special event" in september for iPods, but computers might not come till macworld in january of 09.

3- No

4- Nobody knows, multi-touch is a maybe since its on the other 2 laptops but probably not, LED is most likely, montevina is most likely, a case re-design is possible.

5- Probably no color change on the iMac. And they just got updated like a month ago so it'll probably be a good time till they get updated again (see here)