Apple Event: Rumor Round Up

Wednesday is the day, another Apple event; another slew of rumors surrounding the impending release of new and updated product line-ups. Naturally, the majority of the rumors this year surround the highly anticipated Mac Tablet, leaving many other imminent updates overlooked, or all together forgotten about.  February has often catered in updates to most the Mac lineup, ranging from simple hardware upgrades, to new sleek exteriors.

This year Apple has left only a handful of products untouched, up until now. The iMac, Mac Mini, and MacBook all saw updates late October, and will likely be left untouched until later in the year. The products desperately due for updates include: Macbook Pro, Mac Pro, Macbook Air, and the Apple Cinema Display. Below shows the current rumors surrounding each of these products, and likely upgrades that will be seen this Wednesday.

AT&T loses exclusivity of iPhone:

With 2010 being the year many expected Apple to move the iPhone to multiple networks the time has never been better. AT&T has become embarrassed lately by their networks inability to handle the data hungry iPhone crowd, and with their exclusive deal rumored to run out in 2010 expect to see Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint finally enter the era of the iPhone, my money is on Verizon.

Macbook Pro:

With Intel recently debuting the mobile i5 processor at CES, expect the top models of the 15” and 17” to gain quad-core processing power.  Other changes will be minor such as larger hard drives, faster Core 2 Duo processors, and a likely price drop to match the drops from the October event.

Mac Pro:

Again, Intel is rumored to be supplying the i7 Extreme 6-core CPUs for the new Mac Pros, deeming the Mac Pro, once more, the powerhouse in Apple’s lineup. Like the Macbook Pro expect to see simple updates such as larger hard drives, additional RAM and a lower price tag

Macbook Air:

No big rumors have been surfacing around the Macbook Air. Although, I am expecting the design to finally be updated to match the rest of the aluminum mac products. Black and Glass display,

iLife & iWork 2010:

Multitouch gestures built in to incorporate Apple Tablet, and Multitouch pads on Macbook laptops.

With snow leopard being Intel only expect the same for the new iLife & iWork.

Upgraded ability to run in 64-bit

iPhone 4.0:

Summer is almost upon us, and like clock work, with summer, comes a new iPhone model, and new iPhone OS. iPhone OS 4.0 is rumored to offer new ways of multitasking, graphical changes to make navigating through the OS even easier, and multi-touch gestures will be implemented in even more aspects of the OS.

Apple Cinema Display:

With Apple releasing the 27” iMac capable of acting like a monitor there is a large gap in the 20” Cinema Display area. Seeing the 20” LED Cinema Display finally released would be a nice surprise, but will most likely not happen.

And finally, for the device with more rumors than all the other combined:

Apple Tablet:

Due to the vastness that is Tablet rumors this list will be broken down by the likely hood of each rumor’s realist chance of having made it to final production.

Highly likely:

It will be announced, but released in March/April, price between $600 – $800, Aluminum build, glass screen, Larger, flatter iPhone in appearance, Tablet version of Mac OS X, Will run App Store Apps, Ebook capability with color display,

Likely:

Will be offered with 3g chipset with subsidiary plans for AT&T and possibly Verizon, LED Display, 5-6 hour battery life, Docking Station, 10” display, PA Semi Chip processor, MultiTouch Version of iWork

Unlikely:

OLED Display, Two finishes (plastic, and aluminum), Front facing camera, iPhone OS

All these rumors aside, I expect that Apple again will, once again, not be able to outperform the hype this mythical device has created. Still, I am on the edge of my seat waiting for Wednesday to come.

For a blow by blow of Apple’s upcoming event follow BuyMeAniPhone on Twitter for all the important announcements Wednesday is sure to bring.