“Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, in a report to investors Thursday, ranked the top-ten biggest Apple rumors, which cover everything from Macs to iPods, by their credibility,” Mary Crane reports for Forbes.
Munster’s rankings in order of probability (1 = most, 10 = least):
1. Intel-powered “Mac Pro” to replace Power Mac G5; unveiled at WWDC on August 7
2. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard launch in late 2006 or early 2007 with ability to run Windows applications
3. iTunes Movie Store with feature-length films
4. “iPhone” iPod with cellphone capability within twelve months
5. iChat 4.0 with telephone capabilities
6. True video iPod with touch-sensitive four-inch viewing screen
7. “iHome” home media hub with music, photo and video capabilities
8. iTunes-branded audio content on airplane flights
9. Ultra-portable Mac equipped with NAND-flash memory technology
10. iTunes advertisements
Full article here.
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Will the “iPhone” rumor never die?
He made some easy picks for his top 3 and for the rest, I can’t argue too much.
iHome is already used by another company.
one interesting twist on the iPhone would be to give iPods WiFi and use VoIP to make the phone calls for free (as long as you are in WiFi hot spot). This would be great for urbanites – not as good for the rest of us.
Would love to see an Ultra Portable Mac. Still have a 2300c Duo lying around.
has there previously been mention of giving iChat telephone capabilities?
Yep. It’s a full checklist of all of the things that we’ve pointlessly argued about over the past few months. I’m afraid that until Steve descends from Mount Apple to proclaim what is written into his stone tablets, we’ll make no headway at all.
Jeeze.
Piper Jaffry is a Mac Rumors site.
@ Akido –
Only when the PowerBook G5 rumor does!
After reading reviews yesterday on MacWorld about VoIP programs, I think that iChat 4.0 with phone capabilities is a very likely thing — much more likely than the iPhone.
You’re right, ron. iHome is an iPod accessory, if I’m not mistaken. I think they’re even in Wal-Mart stores.
The name “iHome” is completely unimportant; that’s just what people were calling it back when the rumor started going around. Apple would likely name it something else, just like the “iPhone” would likely be named something else.
What?
The newton was not good enough for the list?
“iHome” is a place holder for the functionality in most people’s minds. Anyway, didn’t AAPL buy “iWork” just before they launched Pages and Keynote as a bundle?
Once Apple called the all-in-one the ‘iMac’ and went with the whole ‘i” this and that, their marketing and legal should have registered all known variations automatically. Kind of like buying a huge plot of land, building a town and also buying up the surrounding “raw” land for speculative purposes.
The Steve should fire all those complacent marketing and legal bastards immediately. I mean, settle with ‘Creative’, please.
the iSpunk. handy little bag that is machine washable.
9. Ultra-portable Mac equipped with NAND-flash memory technology
Oh yea baby bring it on!!
The current stock of laptops are too big, too hot, to fragile.
We need a nice DVD movie case size Mac with a slimed down version of Mac OS X.
no hard drive, no cd drive, a firewire 400 and USB port, optical/analog audio in/out, ethernet and phone. all flash based.
great battery life. one cool processor or a slowed down dual core so it’s cool, metal case.
It will be a nice portable device just for the occassional use, like a PDA, GPA, iTunes, web and email, word and spreadsheets. nothing hardcore, no super video stuff needed. put pictures on and so forth.
Take any heavy loads back to the desktop Mac for working on.
Laptops just s*ck in performance, not worth their money anymore.
Someone already has an “iHome”. See http://aldi.us/ (until 9 July?) for a picture
Of course they’d probably love for Apple to buy the name from them for many dollars.
How are the Mac Pro and Leopard rumours when they have already effectively been announced by Apple?
Apple said that it would start to transition the entire line of computers to Intel chips by June 2006 and would complete the move by the end of 2007. It also has set a date by which Leopard will be out – early 2007.
This smacks of padding but, hey, whoever heard of a top eight list?
Tied with #5 – iChat “whiteboard” function allowing users to create and modify content in real time over the internet.
Also, iChat will have lower system requirements for video chat and will be more reliable.
My 2 cents.
The Mac Pro is all but fact … the only part that’s rumor is the date
Leopard will run Windows apps? natively? That’s a bit extreme. lawsuit?
niggles … compared with:
9. Ultra-portable Mac equipped with NAND-flash memory technology
– the never-ending Return Of The Newton rumor
7. “iHome” home media hub with music, photo and video capabilities
– isn’t this just a matter of packaging existing apps?
6. True video iPod with touch-sensitive four-inch viewing screen
– convert the entire face of an iPod to screen? would have to be touch sensitive!
4. “iPhone” iPod with cellphone capability within twelve months
– as opposed to the Moto phones that act as iPods?
Ads on iTunes are just a matter of time, iChat with “Internet Phone” capabilities is hardly a stretch, and the only fly in the ointment for feature length films from iTMS is pricing.
While we are on the topic of what is coming, how about what has left us. That’s right folks, a moment of silence please.
Today, July 7th, 2001 Apple discontinued the Cube. Worst day in history ever!
MDN wrote: “2. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard launch in late 2006 or early 2007 with ability to run Windows applications”
That wording implies that 10.5 will run Windows applications directly. The story merely mentions running Windows with Boot Camp. They don’t use the word “applications” at all.
Cubert, LOVE you! That “whiteboard thing is hardly a rumor … more of an “Apple needs to add this” sort of thing. Perhaps with the ability to post “thumbnail links” to “local documents” on that whiteboard … except then it would become a “cork-board”.
I’ve run both iChat and Yahoo! Chat in video mode with my camcorder and the results were a fairly smooth with iChat and painfully jerky with Yahoo! – I’d say Apple is doing OK with that.
Cubert: “Today, July 7th, 2001 Apple discontinued the Cube. Worst day in history ever!”
Are you going to post this on every comment board? And once again, today is NOT July 7th, 2001. I think you mean, “Five years ago today, July 7th, 2001…” unless I’ve been living one long, horrendous nightmare.
He made some easy picks for his top 3 and for the rest, I can’t argue too much.
What part of “in order of their probability” don’t you understand?
Dennis,
“Yes” to both of your questions.
(I do think you know that I meant 5 years ago)
My Cube, almost 6 years old and going strong1