Of all the wonderful new Apple products to come out of Macworld 2009, check out one of the highlights. Introducing the Macbook Wheel, yet another revolution in computer interface technology. The Macbook Wheel will do away with that cumbersome keyboard and replace it with a giant scroll wheel. This exemplifies Jobs’s new philosophy of “don’t think, let Apple handle that for you”. Look for the Macbook Wheel to go into stores in spring 2009. We’ve already pre-ordered ours! In case you are unfamiliar with The Onion, they are a satirical news site so don’t go submitting this to Digg because you actually believe it. I can’t believe I actually need to state this but there are all kinds of people on the internet.
Just another example of the Steve Jobs obesession that seems to be sweeping through the internet community right now. Above is a screenshot of a Macworld Live Blog. Unless the picture itself is a fake, it looks like someone was able to hack into the blog feed and post the potentially Apple/wallstreet harming news that Steve Jobs has once again died. Don’t worry, all reports right now point to Steve Jobs’ continued heart beats so don’t sell all your Apple stock just yet. We’re just here trying to mitigate yet another potentially harmful rumor that can get Apple into quite a bind.
While Steve Jobs’ health had nothing to do with Apple’s decision to pull out of Macworld according to a company spokesman, Apple’s stocks did take a hit from the Gizmodo report. As soon as the story surfaced, Apple’s stocks went red very quickly on Wallstreet as paranoid investors began screaming “sell” upon first words of the rumor. CNBC’s Jim Goldman has checked with Apple and confirmed that it is nothing more than a rumor. Apple simply doesn’t want to invest in Macworld anymore and that would include Steve Jobs’ keynote speech. Perhaps Apple has been biting its lip a little too much. Hopefully the lessons learned from this rumor gone wrong might encourage them to be a little more open.
Word on the street is that Apple is planning on releasing a large screen version of the iPod Touch some time in the fall of 2009. A confidential source from Apple has claimed to have handled the prototype iPod Touch personally. The new screens are rumored to be 7 to 9 inches, a considerable jump over the 3.5 inch screens on current iPod Touch devices. There is no word on whether the new iPod Touch will be compatible with iPod Touch 2G Accessories yet as Apple is supposedly in negotiations with Asia for large scale production. If the rumor is to be believed expect this iPod Touch to replace the Apple Tablet rumors. 7 to 9 inch screens would make the iPod Touch a little unwieldy though, what do you guys think?
Like it or not but it seems that every day we get a little more info about the rumored iPhone nano. Is it a fake? Will it ever come out? We’ll just have to wait and see. But in the mean time we can all sit back and make fun of the pint sized iPhone 3G with no 3G. David Letterman recently “revealed” the new iPhone nano on his show and a few case makers like XSKN and popular iPhone 3G Car Charger maker Inspiretech have added iPhone nano sections to their sites. But are you wondering where in Apples market segment will the iPhone nano fit? This comic strip from Joy of Tech can help explain.
Rumors keep popping up about the new iPhone Nano that Apple is suppesedly working on. From iPhone case manufacturers leaking images in China to iPhone Nano clones already popping up in Asia, when will these rumors turn into fact you ask? Well if they ever do come to light expect it to be announced at MacWord next month. Does Apple really need to sell an iPhone nano at $99 when AT&T sells a refurbished iPhone 3G for $99 online?
According to iPhone Alley:
“We just received word from a reliable source within Apple that they are in fact working on an iPhone Nano, and that it will be announced at Macworld. The source says that the iPhone Nano will most likely be similar in form-factor to the iPod touch, and will probably not include 3G.”
What would people think if Steve Jobs did not show up at the MacWorld Expo 2009? It obviously would not be a good publicity stunt by Apple. Well Paul Kent, VP of IDG World Expo and the general manager of MacWorld Expo, said in a phone interview that we should expect Steve Jobs to give his annual keynote address. Paul Kent also said that IDG and Apple would be making a joint announcement. According to Paul Kent, “We haven’t made an announcement yet. We hope to in the next two weeks.” Now we have no idea what this means or what the announcement would be. There were many analysts who believed that Steve Jobs would not make it to MacWorld 2009. With no official announcement from Apple or Steve Jobs himself, and with Adobe scaling back their presence from MacWorld and Belkin completely backing out of the show, there are many people who are believe Steve Jobs won’t be at the expo in January 2009. In addition, the official website of MacWorld has no note regarding a keynote with the Apple CEO. Only time can tell whether SteveJobs will make an appearance at MacWorld 2009. Please stay tuned as more information comes our way.
iPhone rumors are pretty “rare” these days. The latest one to surface out of China is the iPhone Nano. If it is to be believed, the rumor states that the iPhone Nano will go into production shortly and Steve Jobs will announce it at the Mac convention in January. You might wonder why you should give any credit to some Chinese rumor? You should take in mind that China houses all the factories that assembles the iPhones as well as countless other Apple products and accessories possibly the iPhone Nano. It is doubtful that corporate Apple employees will leak information about the iPhone Nano if it exists but a disgruntled and underpaid factory worker…maybe…. Apple has often been the subject of speculation regarding if and when they will finally take aim at more money conscious consumers. The iPhone Nano would be a great way to dominate the lower end mobile phone market. Still, take it with a grain of salt and don’t go showing the above pictures to all your friends expecting them to high five you on your sick insider skills, its fake.
Earlier this year, Steve Jobs said that Apple had some interesting ideas concerning netbooks. But during the last quarterly earnings call, Steve Jobs killed all hopes of an Apple netbook when he said that Apple would not enter the netbook market because “not a lot of them getting sold”. But yesterday there were reports that sales of netbooks are better than that of the Apple iPhone. So with that report, new speculation has risen that suggest that an Apple netbook will be on its way by early next year. With Apple’s recent acquisition of PA Semi, the semiconductor company that develops the ARM processor that powers the AppleiPhone, there is no reason not to believe that Apple will come out with their own netbook. The speculation also stems from Apple’s recent hiring of former IBM executive Mark Papermaster, who famously designed the PowerPC chip that is found in older Mac models. Analysts believe that Apple is planning to use the ARM processor to not only power the iPhone, but other iPods and netbooks. The ARM processor is relatively cheap, about $10, and it is 10 times more powerful than Intel’s current chip. So there is no other reason why Apple would not develop a netbook in the future. All the necessary ingredients are there for a great Applenetbook.
A russian iphone site RussianiPhone.ru is claiming to have had a peek at the beta for the iPhone firmware 2.2.1and it allegedly has the highly wanted push notifications feature. Is it a fake? Probably… So why are we reporting it then? Because maybe if enough people had this on their minds it would give Apple enough pressure to finally deliver this function on an iPhone firmware update. The site posted up a screenshot as proof:
While push was supposed to have been on iPhone firmware 2.1, the delays according to Steve Jobs were because Apple “wants to get it 100% right the first time”. Until then, I guess users will just have to be happy with SMS and Email.
