Rumor Mill: What you’ll be coveting from Apple next
Jason stepped away from his MacBook Air and left it logged into his ZDNet blogging account (Wheeee!) so I figured that I'd pen another quick roundup of the latest rumors on the Apple front– before he gets back.
iPhone 3G. Inventory is constrained across the U.S. and AT&T's Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega stated at CTIA 2008 that he expected all of their "smart integrated devices" to be 3G within the next couple of months. Draw your own conclusions here people. iPodObserver posted an image that they claim represents what the rumored 3G iPhone will look like – sporting a glossy black back instead of the satin nickel look found on the current model.
New Mac mini. The mini was last updated on 07 August 2007 and it's been 242 days or (7 months, 29 days) since it was updated and is, well, due. The mini has been updated on average every 188 days in the past. According to AppleInsider, the mini could receive the following upgrades:
- 45-nanometer Core 2 Duo (Penryn), starting at 2.1Ghz (currently 1.83GHz or 2.0GHz)
- 3MB of shared L2 cache (currently 2MB or 4MB on-chip L2 cache)
- 800MHz front-side bus (currently 667MHz)
- Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics processor (currently Intel GMA 950)
New iMac. iMacs were last revved on 07 August 2007 (just like the mini) so all of the above applies here too, the average update cycle has been 205 days in the past. iMacs will most likely retain the same form factor and screen sizes as the currently shipping models but will get a bump to the latest Intel Penryn processor with more RAM and bigger hard drives, yadda, yadda.
Lots of rumors from last week's installment are still floating around:
- Unlimited/flat-rate music
- The Beatles on iTunes
- 3-D display hardware
- Double-sided panels
- Apple DVR
What have you been hearing?