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I forgot about that aspect. Between that and the 25th Anniversary, I think this might be spot-on. I am of the opinion that they will announce all new hardware on the anniversary, and use the next months shut down as a reason to upgrade to the new Apple TV.

There will be no 25th anniversary event. Nothing.

At least it won't be as large as the 20th anniversary event. Wow, remember that? They can't top that.
 
Was on Apple Store temporarily after a "Down for Maintenance". Wasn't there long...

http://i44.tinypic.com/2dbjuyc.png

These will be announced soon but released when iWork available. [Best guess]
:eek: Whoa! :eek:

From what I see…
  • Price drops on the iMac and Mac mini. (Going by ratios only, that would mean $899 iMac and $449 Mac mini.)
  • No case redesigns to either model, at least none that I can see.
  • No Mac Pro update (yet)
 
The danger of hyping up something months ahead of its release is that it kills existing sales.

People who may be thinking about a new computer and are on the fence will simply use the "I'll wait till that new version they keep raving about comes out."
For people who only want Mac OS, sure, hold off. But they're still a minority of the market.

For the larger market not talking about new releases risks losing customers. Apple isn't the only game in town, and people don't have to buy a Mac. There are some very attractive PCs with much better tech at lower prices.

Case in point: me. I'm currently about 50:50 whether to wait for a new iMac or simply give up on Apple and buy a PC. If I knew a new iMac was coming around date X it's easy to wait. Apple's "we'll tell you when we're ready, but you can buy our overpriced old tech if you don't want to wait" attitude doesn't inspire me to stick around.

I'll be looking at the Windows 7 beta this weekend, and if it's good as I've been hearing I may well decide to go back to the Dark Side.
 
This shows the negative side of Rumor sites. Expectations end up so high that even when there is a lot of great news, products and announcements, it ends up being seen as disappointing to those of us who send too much time making rumor sites rich, my 09 resolution is to get more of a life and spend less time here. :)

Haha... my wife told me the same thing! "But your only disappointed because you read all those rumors". Some people don't get it do they?

I think if I made that my resolution that within a week I would have already broken it! ;)
 
I think Apple is going to release the new Mac Mini in a few weeks. They want to prove that they don't need Macworld to release new products.

If it had been ready, the real way to have done that would have been to release it before Macworld, in time for the holiday buying season. If it had been ready at Macworld they certainly would have announced it then to get the maximum media exposure. No announcement means it's not ready (yet).

As we are all aware that the next imacs will house the new Nvidia chipsets, however there has been no mention of the cpu specs expected, whats the likely hood of a quad core imac?

Core i7 mobile chips - end of '09.
 
Apple HDTV?

Apple has a great opportunity to introduce the new iMac, Mac mini and Apple TV next month in conjunction with the analog television broadcast shutdown on February 17th. The analog shutdown is going to be big news, and Apple can profit from it. They could produce an event that says Apple is ready for the next stage of the digital entertainment revolution, and here is our newest hardware. It would be the perfect date to introduce the long-rumored Apple HDTV set too.

No. This will never happen.

Different countries around the world have slightly different standard for HDTV. It's far too much effort for Apple to support all of them (or even all the big markets).

Sorry.
 
MacBook and Air still new...

That pic suggests the Macbooks and Airs will be updated at the same time, which is doubtful. Unless it's a while way. I'd believe it if that were for March, but not January.

Must remember that the MacBook and Air are still new, hence the NEW tag still on 'em. They will still have that tag for another month I reckon.

We might see these on or around the release of last quarter's financial results later this month and shipping Feb with the new iWork, iLife etc.
 
Must remember that the MacBook and Air are still new, hence the NEW tag still on 'em. They will still have that tag for another month I reckon.

You must still be looking at your doctored snapshot. The "new" tags aren't there for anything but the 17" Pro.
 
I'll second that. Rumour mill is really quiet on this one other than the suggestion that server class Nehalems will be out 'Q1'... Been holding off for 3 months now on the basis that the Nehalems are supposed to be a huge step up, but it's getting frustrating hearing absolutely no news...

Since it seems that Gainestown is entering production this quarter, the Mac Pros may be updated as late as WWDC 2009.

One rumor mentioned that Apple will use quad-core CPUs in this quarter.

On the one hand...
Those of us who have been waiting, can wait a bit longer.

On the other hand...
The economy is slowing, and there's plenty of other distractions to spend discretionary money on. Canon's released a firmware patch for their EOS 5Dmk2 dSLR...which is about the same ticket as a Mac Pro...hmmm



:eek: Whoa! :eek:

From what I see…
  • Price drops on the iMac and Mac mini. (Going by ratios only, that would mean $899 iMac and $449 Mac mini.)
  • No case redesigns to either model, at least none that I can see.
  • No Mac Pro update (yet)

Yeah, I saw that too. Despite 'refurbs' of all four Mac Pro variants listed on the Apple Store, which kind of sounds like they're trying to clear inventory, I suspect that with the slowing economy, we're more likely to hear a June 2009 release.



Anyway, it's not certain the U.S. will go digital on February 17:

The FCC is embarassed and becoming entrenched. Maybe there will be a shift after 1/20/09, but the more likely scenario is for a short delay of 2-3 months...just enough time to get the last batch of Coupons out there.


-hh
 
The waiting continues...

"On the one hand...
Those of us who have been waiting, can wait a bit longer. "

Same here. Money in the bank, 7 year-old quicksilver beside me, and still nothing worth buying. Mini is too obsolete for a desktop, and the iMacs will be dumpster bait 6 months after USB 3 ships, (I expect the same fast transition to happen as when USB 2 came out, fortunately my quicksilver had an expansion shot) and Mac pro is too much money, and pulls too much power. Literally. As in: will trip the breaker. 12 amp draw on 15 amp circuit? If I turn up the speakers while the desk lamp is on it'll all go dark. And my UPS can't power a kilowatt either. ;)

So I wait.

And wonder about Snow Leopard. :confused: Is it really Intel only? Is it going to support all Intel machines, or just Core 2 Duo and up? (no need for 64 bit or multi-core support in a core Solo mini. And there were only about 10 sold anyway...) And will Snow Leopard bring on Activation or Trusted Computing of some other way to shut down the hackintosh crowd?

It's less than 6 months to release; Apple really should start releasing specifics. I'm certainly not buying anything, hardware or software, until I have facts instead of rumors.

Hardware wise, a couple of ExpressCard slots in an iMac would solve many problems. My dream mini has evolved to Cube II. 7.7"^3. With a 3.5" drive and ExpressCard slots. :cool:
 
7

If I knew a new iMac was coming around date X it's easy to wait. Apple's "we'll tell you when we're ready, but you can buy our overpriced old tech if you don't want to wait" attitude doesn't inspire me to stick around.

I'll be looking at the Windows 7 beta this weekend, and if it's good as I've been hearing I may well decide to go back to the Dark Side.

Oh, gosh, good luck with that. I can wait. That's just Apple for you. That's how they play. If you really need a machine that bad then.... UGH oh gosh, yeah, I can wait.
 
Oh, gosh, good luck with that. I can wait. That's just Apple for you. That's how they play. If you really need a machine that bad then.... UGH oh gosh, yeah, I can wait.

That's the problem: I pretty much do need a new machine. My current desktop is about four years old and showing its age, both in terms of specification and more recently (and worrying) showing more and more problems with the hardware.

Furthermore while my laptop is a Mac my desktop is a PC, so upgrading the latter to a new PC isn't going to be a major problem.

I'd prefer to go all-Mac. But my life isn't going to suffer greatly if I don't.
 
Well having played with Windows 7 beta it is an improvement over Vista (not difficult). However I don't think it is stable enough just yet to be used as your primary OS - 1 BSOD and 3 lock ups in 5 hours of usage and I haven't really been pushing it!

However if you can keep your PC going for a bit longer I’d recommend waiting for the iMac upgrade.

In case anyone is wondering the only reason I’ve been playing with Windows 7 is that I’m an amateur photographer who doesn’t like glossy screens for photo work, which may mean switching back to the dark side if my iMac breaks. Here’s hoping for an update Mac mini to keep me going should the worst happen.

Gordy
 
I think Macworld '09 was a huge disappointment, especially when you compare it to Macworld '08 and Macworld '07. They each had a cool new item, iPhone and MacBook Air. They also had cool stuff like Apple TV Take 2 and renting movies and in my opinion, the biggest announcements this year, DRM-Free iTunes and iLife / iWork '09 are equal to what movie rental was in Macworld '08.

By the way, whoever knows me here, I usually bash Apple, but I wanted to try it out so I got a Mac Pro. It's pretty cool but for some reason sometimes I get the message "X quit unexpectedly" (replace X by iTunes or DVD Player or iPhoto).
 
Well having played with Windows 7 beta it is an improvement over Vista (not difficult). However I don't think it is stable enough just yet to be used as your primary OS - 1 BSOD and 3 lock ups in 5 hours of usage and I haven't really been pushing it!

However if you can keep your PC going for a bit longer I’d recommend waiting for the iMac upgrade.
The idea wasn't to use Windows 7 as my main OS. The idea was to see if it was promising enough to justify buying a new PC now with a view to upgrading from XP to 7 later this year/early next.

If W7 is anything like Vista that's more of a reason to hold out to see what Apple comes out with.

As for keeping my PC going, my wife organised her nephew the IT tech genius to come around tonight to give it a thorough going-over (it started making postively 'orrible noises last night. I think the fan is about to die, to be followed shortly by one of the HDs). If he can patch it up adequately it makes it waiting more viable.
 
Super Bowl Ad?

According to wikipedia we are coming to a 25 anniversary of the Macintosh at the end of this month. Isn't it likely that this would be a good time to announce new generation of desktop machines?

Hmmm.... just plausible enough to mess with our heads. Perfect.

I sure hope they don't pull some "25th Anniversary" histrionics, like a Super Bowl halftime ad, or an overpriced but technically underwhelming 25th Anny Special Edition iMac.
 
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