You know what happens the days before an Apple event. Fanboys go gazombo and start photoshopping fake Video iPods with reckless abandon. Their eyes roll into their heads and they moan for iPhones. Half of them even think that Core 2 Duo Macbooks are coming, as do the King s of the Geek Journalism.
But we've never told you what we think is coming. Here are Gizmodo's Odds on what hardware Steve'll unveil at Showtime.
Movie Downloads, 99% percent chance of iTunes hard-launching full-length feature films.
All our hopes rested on an invite image emblazened with the words "It's Showtime." We'd normally make that reason to believe Steve is delivering his speech in show tunes form, but then there's this legitimate outlet's article on the subject that Apple, in "mid-September, sources tell BusinessWeek, plans to announce it will start offering movie downloads from its iTunes store." Of course, Steve wouldn't expect us to watch movies in front of our computers. Nor would he spill all his beans with his "It's Showtime" invites, saving nothing for his typical "One More Thing."
This leads us to speculate on new hardware....Jump!
Video Airport Express: 75% chance.
We're basing our gut check on the above, plus Apple Insider's fairly detailed—and confident—wording about a video streaming system. I'd guess such a machine would have Microsoft Media Center Extender functionality, and hope for Apple's sake it's a more responsive system than the company's Front Row UI, which no one I know uses. I'll just throw this out there: Maybe it'll use powerline networking, as some of the newer gear is surprisingly springy when it comes to dealing with high resolution video. (Yes, I said powerline, like it's 1999.)
True Video iPod: 50%
Having been burned 2342352345 times before, my gadget-sense refuses to give me anything on this one. But given the movie announcements we're solid on, and the lack of refreshes in the past few months for the vPod, don't you think this could actually be the Date Of All Dates? Clearly, we'll all hungry for it. And the iPod banner hanging over Yerba Buena's Arts Center in SF makes me think so. (See below. It's real, we sent an intern to investigate.) But that could be for the colored Nano updates with more we're expecting any day now. I place the likelihood of a new nano at higher odds than the video iPod out of sheer plausibility, but then lower it back to even odds based on the movie theme of the event. Plus, I don't give shit about the nano, really.
iPhone: 25%
So far, only analyst Shaw Wu has come up with strong comments regarding the phone. Even stronger than his comments are an Apple Insider's source, one with an unblemished record for predicting new Apple porn, that Steve is bragging to his homies about his new candy-bar phone. We've seen Apple patents, too, with little etchings of phone-like devices. So, it's coming, but I'm going to bet that Steve isn't going to launch anything of the sort tomorrow...unless it's a nano replacement with a phone built in...which I lay odds at 10%.
Macbook Pro with Core 2 Duo: 25% tomorrow, 80% sometime this month
Now that Apple is running native Intel hardware, there's no excuse for not keeping with the times. And right now, you can't say your lappy is a fast one without a Core 2 Duo chip inside. We asked editors of PC World, PC Magazine, Maximum PC, and Mac Addict, and they all said the same: Apple has to upgrade the Macbook Pro in September to stay competitive. We're not sure tomorrow is the time to do it, but we're betting that it happens sometime this month.
What do we know for sure? No new iMac, or Mac mini....unless there is.
Tomorrow, come back to read us live, and talk some trash about how off our predictions were. What do you think'll come out?