Hasta La Gadget!

You know the saying "If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again"? It now applies to Apple rumors.

Either disappointed by the lackluster Macworld Expo keynote, or just plain lazy, China’s Economic Daily News is recycling the iPhone Nano rumors which were swirling around like a Quidditch Snitch at the end of last year.

According to the newspaper, two Chinese chip makers are lined up to receive orders from Apple: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and United Microelectronics Corporation. The story goes that the orders will be placed in March and the iPhone Nano will ship in June.

This is either wrong or just plain dumb for a few reasons. Apple likes its secrets, and if these contracts aren’t signed yet, leaking them ahead of time is a sure way to make certain they’ll never be signed.

We’re not discounting an iPhone Nano, and to be sure Apple is a lot more leaky than it used to be, but this report just doesn’t sound right — it smacks to much of recycling.

See Also:

• iPhone Nano Rumors Continue, Look More Legit
• Another iPhone Nano Case On Offer
• IPhone Nano Clones Already on Sale
• Possible iPhone Nano Photos ‘Leaked’
• iPhone Nano To Be Announced Within Next Decade

TSMC and UMC likely to receive orders for iPhone nano, says paper [Digitimes]

Apple’s
charismatic CEO won’t be showing up to deliver his famous keynote
speech at Macworld Expo on Tuesday, but the show must go on. Wired.com
has been following the rumors and analyst reports on what to expect at
the show. Here’s a roundup of those tasty tidbits, along with our
probability estimation for each prediction coming true.

Aluminum Mac Minis
Wired.com
learned straight from an Apple corporate employee that a new Mac Mini
is slated for announcement at Macworld Expo. The Mini, Apple’s portable
desktop, hasn’t been upgraded since August 2007 — which is unusual,
considering Apple typically refreshes its products every six or seven
months. Other publications dug up additional details about the Mac Mini’s
specifications. In summary:

• The enclosure will be composed of a combination of aluminum and black plastic, matching the color scheme of the latest MacBook family and iMac.
• The system will ship with an Nvidia graphic chipset.
• The system will ship with a SATA optical drive, which can optionally be swapped for a SATA hard drive.
• The system’s connectivity ports include support for Mini DisplayPort, Mini DVI, FireWire 800 and USB.

Probability: 99 percent

iPhone Nano
A
third-party iPhone case manufacturer created a new category labeled
"iPhone Nano," igniting speculation that Apple will release a smaller
version of its popular handset. A purported image of the Nano case suggests
the handset is simply shorter and less wide than the original iPhone.
Our problems with this gadget: It would be extremely difficult to use
the touchscreen if its size is compromised. An iPhone Nano is a
possibility later in the future, but the evidence for a Macworld
release is thus far unsubstantiated.

Probability: 15 percent

iMac Upgrades

Economic
Daily News, a Chinese publication, says component suppliers have leaked
Apple’s plans to upgrade its all-in-one desktop, the iMac. According to
the publication, the iMac will sport a magnesium-aluminum alloy
chassis. Corroborating this report, MacRumors discovered a string of
code evidencing that new iMacs will carry an Nvidia chipset.

Probability: 90 percent

17-inch MacBook Pro
APC speculates Apple will refresh the 17-inch MacBook Pro at
Macworld Expo with a unibody chassis and a low-cost, quad-core mobile
processor. The evidence? Intel quietly added a new quad-core chip to its price
list: the Core 2 Extreme Q9000 ($350), which partners four 2-GHz cores.
Also, it’s mysterious that Apple in October upgraded all the new
MacBooks except the 17-inch MacBook Pro, and January would be a good
time to announce one.

These are reasonable inferences, and AppleInsider claims it "independently confirmed" an upgrade for a 17-inch MacBook Pro would be announced. AppleInsider’s report doesn’t further the theory of a quad-core processor, but instead claims the notebook will include a fixed internal battery and an Nvidia chipset.

Probability: 75 percent

Thus far, it appears the "big deal" product at
Macworld will be the souped-up Mac Mini. That’s not awfully exciting to
us, but we look forward to an aluminum treatment for the little guy.

A
question to all the crazy Mac fanatics: Are you going to be camping out for the
keynote this year, even though Phil Schiller’s emceeing rather than
Jobs?

Photos: adamjackson1984/Flickr, Apple, f0rcerec0n/Flickr, ~nathan/Flickr

We’ve got less than 48 hours until Apple’s last Macworld keynote, and the rumor mill keeps hinting that Phil’s gonna announce new Mac minis, which so far are purported to have the Macbook’s NVIDIA chipset, aluminum casing, and an SATA optical drive that can be swapped out for a second HDD. Go ahead and add dual display support to that list, which is what Apple Insider is speculating based on their sources saying the new minis will sport both a mini DisplayPort and a mini DVI connector. Additionally, the site has managed to snap some shots from the Moscone Center of the expo being set up. There’s a picture of a monitor showing what’s presumed to be a live feed of the keynote rehearsal with a blurred figure that kind of looks like Al Gore, and inside the south hall there are several mysterious banners concealed in white cloth. So pretty much status quo, though is it just us or do the banners seem to look a little tired and thin this year?

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Read – Apple’s next-gen Mac mini to get dual display support
Read – Macworld site rife with concealed banners

Filed under: Desktops

Mac mini update with dual display support, banner unfurling rumored for Macworld festivities originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Insiders are leaking details about Apple’s rumored Mac Mini, confirming Wired.com’s earlier predictions about the device.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog cites anonymous sources who say the new Mac
Mini will sport an enclosure resembling the aluminum-and-black scheme
seen in the new MacBooks and iMacs.

Also, sources told TUAW that the Mac Mini would ship with a SATA
optical drive, which can be swapped out for a second SATA hard drive as a
customization option.

Wired.com in mid-December reported the first rumor from an insider about a new Mac Mini. An
Apple corporate employee said an upgrade to the Mac Mini will be
launched at Macworld Expo 2009.

Our source could not disclose specification details on the device, but we predicted
the Mac Mini would be composed of aluminum (and perhaps be marketed as "The greenest Mac ever"). We also guessed the rumored
Mac Mini will ship with Nvidia chipsets — which corroborates with a
MacRumors report that discovered strings of code referring to an
unreleased Mac Mini shipping with an Nvidia chipset. 

Rumor Watch: New Mac mini go for launch [TUAW]

Photo: Apple

Rumors of a touchscreen tablet from Apple are gaining momentum — again.

Three independent sources close to Apple told TechCrunch that a large-screen iPod Touch is slated for a Fall of 2009 release.

The device will feature a 7- or 9-inch screen, sources told TechCrunch. One of the sources even claims holding a prototype of the tablet.

The first rumor of a Mac tablet surfaced in July at MacDailyNews. But that rumor was slightly different: Rather than describing the rumored device as a larger iPod Touch, the source said the Mac tablet would have a MacBook screen, an optical drive and run a full version of Mac OS X. The source said this device would launch October. Clearly this was an inaccurate report.

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said a Mac touchscreen tablet would be a logical step, since all Apple would have to do is blow up the screen of an iPod Touch and slightly tweak the software.

As always, we should take rumors with a grain of salt. But this time around — with TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington citing three sources — the fabled device has more hope.

TechCrunch did not have details on pricing for the rumored device. But we estimate the device, if real, would cost around $700 to $800 — positioning it in between the low-end MacBook ($999) and the iPod Touch ($230).

Illustration of a fake, large-screen iPhone: vernhart/Flickr