At the time I started writing this post, it’s exactly 22 hours until WWDC 2007 starts. Every Apple nerd/geek/fanboy is waiting to see what Steve Jobs will pull out of the hat in his keynote speech. For the non-Apple-n/g/f, WWDC is the World Wide Developers Conference.
The interesting thing is that two of the major Apple rumours sites are predicting different things for Steve’s keynote address. Think Secret is predicting the release of a brushed aluminium iMac. AppleInsider is arguing that the focus will be on the “Top Secret” features of Leopard. I think they both could be right, in a manner of speaking.
Late last month I received an email from an Apple dealer that I bought my iMac G5 from. He was asking if I was interested in following up on the quote I had requested for a 24″ Core 2 Duo iMac. I sent back a reply explaining why I intended to wait before purchasing a new iMac. I intended to write a lengthy post with my theories, but wanted to finish my blog re-design first, and life got complicated, and now the keynote is less than 24 hours away.
To summarise my theory:-
1. As of today it is the second longest period of time that the iMac range has gone without an update – 277 days (September 6, 2006 to June 9, 2007 – US dates). The longest period of time between updates was November 18, 2003 (20″ iMac G4) to August 31, 2004 (iMac G5) – 288 days. So the timing appears to be about right (thanks MacRumors for dates and Mactactic for the widget).
2. Australian Apple dealers across the board have had a sale on iMacs that appears to me to be unprecedented. A little birdy told me that it was Apple bringing prices into line with the Australian dollar. I’m not buying it. A sale that ends on the 9th of June? Two days before WWDC. To me, it screams “clear stock from the channel”. I don’t remember a sale of this scale on Apple products before. With that said, there wasn’t the same market penetration of Apple products into the general electronics “superstores” and department stores that there is today. So, maybe I just didn’t notice it before.
So, here it is. I think that AppleInsider is right. I think Steve may focus the keynote on the “Top Secret” features hinted at in January. For the sake of every Apple fanboy, they are going to have to be mind-blowing. I fear they won’t be. I think the anticipation built up by the “Top Secret” stunt from MacWorld SF is almost going to work against Steve here, and his much vaunted Reality Distortion Field may not be enough to keep the faithful drinking the Kool-Aid.
So, when Steve is about to finish, we get the “One more thing…” – and Steve announces the new iMac.
I may be wrong, but we’ll know in 24 hours…