Something unexpected at MacWorld.

If he's being serious then it's the Mac touch, but I am very reserved about this. ihnatko has a habit of getting excited about the most dull things at times, though at the same time he's clearly the most genuine one on Mac Break Weekly. I can't see why this would leak to him though, it seems unlikely at best. I had to unfollow him a while back cause he tweets too damn much, like C.P. I'll turn him back on for a few days at see if he says anything interesting.

No Ireland even though I really WANT to agree with you I'm going to say its its not the mactouch. If anything its going to be the iphone nano.

This is fascinating stuff. What if this guy is telling the truth? What if Phil DOES have something really hot to show at macworld? Would that mean that Steve Jobs really is that sick?

wtf?..

What do you mean? Think about it. If this guy who twittered think there is really something hot at macworld then that blows the theory out of the water that only Steve Jobs needs to announce the hot products.
Everyone thinks Phill Schiller is there to announce boring stuff.

But if there is something good then that would mean that either Steve Jobs is trying to train the public into not having to expect him only to announce the good stuff and/or.....Steve Jobs really is sick. =/

I've never thought that.

Perhaps Steve Jobs is tired of being the song and dance man. Perhaps he's POed at someone from IDG. Perhaps since he really hates the Mac mini, he doesn't want to talk about it. There could be dozens of reasons he's not attending.

I'm expecting Phil to put on a show. He is Apple's marketing guy, after all. He'll probably have the usual couple of hardware or software announcements following the usual talk about how well Apple has been doing.

Oh, and Ihnatko is probably just shooting for hits.

Hes twittering from his cell phone from his hotel room. I.......no I don't think he is fishing for hits. LOL somehow I don't think he expected his tweets to spawn ravenous posts on various Apple forums. haha.

The guy is a tech pundit, much like John Dvorak or any of those guys. You better believe he lives for hits and exposure. I'm sure he knows the word will get out abut his rumor and everyone will be googling his name.

Calling him a Dvorak is almost insulting. If there ever was a hit whore its Dvorak. But no I don't get the feeling from this guy. He wouldn't have done it from a simple twitter post if he was looking for hits. He would have done a straight up blog post up for all the world to see complete with a detailed analysis.

I'll be curious to see how much Ihnatko's rumor gets legs in the next 48 hours.

Andy Ihnatko has been around for ages. From the days before the Second Coming of Jobs.
He's a true Mac nerd and smart and often fun Mac journalist.
I have no reason to believe he's phishing for hits. That has never been his style.

He has good contacts to Apple and suppliers and it's quite likely that he met up with some old pal who'd spill some beans.

As exciting as this sounds, it's likely not the iPhone nano, as rumors of it circulated for quite a few days. Ihnatko would know about these and hence his remark that there's no rumor about it yet wouldn't be true.

I'm more inclined to think it's not a new product but a product feature, along the lines of the 17" MacBook Pro having a BlueRay BTO option - being the first Mac supporting that technology.
Or perhaps it now comes with an eSATA port.
Or a quad-core MacBook Pro option.
Or the fact that Snow Leopard is ready for release.

Something like that.

Those contradict what he said though:


Both of the top things have been rumored. Even the early release of Snow Leopard was rumored. Not it being ready but still close.

It sounds like he's pointing to something else. Trouble is, what impresses him may not impress everyone. I've heard people say things like this before such as for the Macbook Air and it's an ok machine but it's not something that I particularly care about.

I don't see it being iphone related at all. That doesn't need a refresh until June/July and I don't see a 'nano' product being cheaper.

It could be a touch-based iMac but again I think this was rumored too.

Eewwww.......I think you might be right.

Oh well. It might be a case where an uber nerd thought something was exciting when it really wasn't. Or perhaps it is worth it. I guess we will soon find out.

Apple will reduce prices across the range by 20% ... but only in America

AI's spy photo shows what looks like Paul Otellini from Intel.

They are working on a number of things. SSD is one, the new quad core CPUs but also Larrabee.

There were supposed to be engineering tests of Larrabee ready at the end of 2008. Given that this will be Apple's last MW, it is a good stage for Intel to demo their product possibly with Snow Leopard just to show what it's capable of even though it could wait until WWDC.

People expect a 17" MBP and Acer already have a quad 18" cheaper than Apple's dual core machine with Blu-Ray:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10129566-1.html

But mobile quads isn't something amazing.

Let's just say whatever it is, it won't be as orgasmically fantastic as Andy is making it out to be.

As I've said in another thread, this is probably the MacBook Nano.

It's a foldable two-multitouch screen thing.

Actually, that is quite orgasmically fantastic if it were true.

Mid-tower. PLEEEEAAAASE!

Does it have to be hardware?

Could it be some new software they've been working on that takes advantage of the technologies in Snow Leopard? There hasn't been much in the way of software rumours recently - only obvious things like new versions of iLife and iWork for 2009.

My best bet is a quad-core 17" MacBook Pro. MacRumors also has a rumor that Apple is going to release a 17" MacBook Pro with a superslim battery that is NON-REMOVABLE like the iPod Touch/iPhone batteries and is supposed to give much longer battery life than previous models. Let the bitching begin about the non-removable battery!

If its software...maybe Apple is going to GIVE Snow Leopard away to previous Mac OS 10.5 owners. Maybe that would explain the white banner when they're typically black?

Whatever it may be (if even true), Apple is doing a very good job so far of keeping it a secret. Otherwise it would have been out in the wild already. Although, usually something comes out of the wood work the day of the keynote on rumor sites. I try to stay away from rumor sites the day of the keynote.

I think that means it will not be at MacWorld. He has no idea when.

I don't think the banners are visible yet - the covers over the banners are white.

They won't give Snow Leopard away. It's a huge money maker:

$129 * 10 million upgraders = $1.29 billion

Apple won't need to give it away if it's any good. Current Leopard owners may not be happy having to pay again when Leopard wasn't really a huge upgrade but that's how Apple have always done things.

Perhaps it's an Apple HDTV (Cinema + Apple TV)?

~Matt

I bet it is Verizon

it hasn't been in the rumor mill lately and would definitely be Big!

The Mini is replaced with a full function mac os box the size of an original iPod, with mini DisplayPort, bluetooth, wi-fi, ethernet and 2 USB ports. Charges via induction. A 10" wireless touchscreen display is released to go with.

"Everyone" doesn't think that as far as I'm concerned.


Exactly, either did I. I didn't think about it either way. I have the luxury of simply not reading into this nonsense. I must have developed some patience or something.

Almost? Good one. Dvorak is an idiot. He's an arrogant, ignorant, American know-it-all. He's watchable, even funny at times - but the more you watch him (or listen) the more you realize how little he actually knows.

I hope you're right Matt. This one wouldn't actually surprise me, though I'd bet it would surprise a lot of people here

The Mac touch would surprise me, as I imagine it's not near ready yet.

Wowzer, yeah it adds up alright!

Ok then, perhaps he's not seen me and a few others here go on about an Apple television lately. This product would be welcomed by me!

I'm just trying to get things sorted to see where this rumor could point

Due:
Unibody MBP
New cinema displays
Bumped and/or redesigned iMac and Mini
New Pro
Snow Leopard (is there a date for this thing yet?)
Keyboard and mouse conforming with new colour scheme

Possible:
iPhone nano
Mac Touch
Mac netbook
Midrange tower
multitouch mouse

Fanboy fantasies:
Touch iMac, or touch on anything
HDTV/Display over 30"/iMac over 24"
Media computer (mini+apple TV, and a little media server thrown in)
----
I don't see the iPhone nano happening, unless they turn the event into a iPhone event, which I doubt. I do agree that the iPhone on another carrier would be huge. It isn't the only touch phone out there anymore, and the best way to compete is to open it up.

The Mini seems likely. I'd expect to see a 20" version of the new 24" display apple put out a few months ago. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the iMacs dump the chin so they looked more like the new displays

The pro, 17" MBP and 30" display are pro items, so they could be issued together, and maybe not at MW.

Really, my bet for a surprise is the touch, netbook or tower. This is of course assuming that these rumors are actually correct, or that apple doesn't have something completely in leftfield. That being said, I think its safe to say that the one thing we can count on is that we'll all have items on our wishlist go unfulfilled.

? The keynote.....duh!

We probably won't see a Mac Pro until later in the month. The Apple keyboard was recently updated however a new Mighty Mouse is likely. We also might see a new Apple Remote as well as a minor Apple TV update.

Phil Schiller's 'One More Thing' will be...........Steve Jobs and this announcement!

Maybe.

Over at macrumors one of the theories is that its going to be an Apple branded LCD television with integrated AppleTV. It would fit in with what Ihnatko mentioned about there being no rumors about this yet.

What do you all think?

Although I don't think it will happen, I have recently felt there needs to be a product like how you've described before. Trying to buy a media player for my grandparents is a bit of a nightmare because they don't know how to work the remotes.

I wanted a single unit that gave a nice picture with freeview, a PVR (80GB is fine; 16-32GB Flash might have done actually if it used mpeg4) and a DVD player. You do get them but they are very hard to find and not very good models.

One problem is cost. I found that an AIO device was actually more expensive than 3 separate parts and the individual parts were higher quality.

If Apple made one, it may be simple but it likely wouldn't hit the £200 price point I managed to get the 3 devices for. Sure, they will be a little more complex to work but not that much.

The TV is basically an on/off affair and the remote isn't needed. The freeview box does most of the work and uses the EPG to record shows (choose from the guide, hit record). Then the DVD player is an on/off affair too with basic navigation.

itunes content is meaningless because my grandparents don't have internet and they only like what's on TV anyway. The pay per download model wouldn't go down well - itunes really needs a subscription model.

Given that Apple don't do the whole PVR thing, I don't see them being the ones to fill this space.

The screen would have to be 26" minimum (£300), with the ATV components (£195) + twin freeview tuner (£40) = approx £499 price point.

Like I say, that's just out of the question when I paid £200. For some people, it is worth it but most people don't like tying their really expensive TV to their low cost TV decoders and recorders.

The low end ATV needs a tuner with EPG and PVR ability for half the price it's at now. Even then, you still need a separate box for playing DVDs.

You can say that again...He's also an Apple hater. He would be a great spokes person for Steve Ballmer who also puts everything Apple does down.

I remember back in the day when he was on Silicon Spin, which was on ZDTV (later called TechTV and now known as G4TV) as it was called. After every MacWorld they would also do a round table discussion and he would very rarely ever have anything good to say about what was announced. He would usually have the exact opposite opinion of everyone else.

Ihnatko is having a "tweetup" tonight around 8ish california time. I'm going to monitor his feed because I'm sure everyone will want to ask him about the inside intel he got from his source about macworld.
Crap thats around 11pm eastern isn't it.

Perhaps I can light a small candle for the mactouch after all. \

I think you stole me thinking/comment and reproduced it. But I have my doubts though. If this TV has LCD technology Steve can stick it where the sun don't shine!

He's just anti-cool, he likes to antagonize people. His parents never gave him the attention he needed probably. I've seen him recommending the iMac over windows boxes several times, and he's agreed the iPhone is the future. But he slandered both loads of times too. He waits till things get popular and just changes his story, he does it all the time. He simply lacks the foresight, and just bullshits his way through it. And like all good bullshitters, he's convinced himself he knows what he's on about.