By SteveJack
It’s late Sunday morning on the East coast of the United States and, in a clear sign that I am among the deranged, the waiting is painful for Tuesday’s Apple Computer earnings report and financial results conference call plus Wednesday’s “One more thing” special event.
For those not in “The Cult,” those who haven’t had a drop of the Kool-Aid, this is just another Sunday morning. Maybe they’ll be going to church, taking a nap later, trying to clean malware off their Windows PCs, watching the baseball game or some football, seeing if John Daly can hold off Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, or, ironically, listening to their iPods. They just don’t understand.
For “the rest of us,” this Sunday morning means that we have too long to wait for two days that promise to be as big as that magical few days that come every January when Apple earnings and Steve Jobs’ Macworld Expo keynote combine to form the perfect Apple storm.
This Tuesday, October 11, Apple will release their fourth quarter 2005 earnings report after the closing market bell. Shortly thereafter, at 5pm ET, Apple will webcast the audio of their Q4 05 quarterly earnings conference call to discuss financial results with analysts. The consensus of analysts surveyed by Thompson/First Call expect Apple (AAPL) to earn $0.36 per share on revenue of $3.68 billion. In the year ago quarter, Q4 04, Apple earned $0.14 per share on revenue of $2.35 billion and shipped 836,000 Macintosh units and 2,016,000 iPod units. In the last completed quarter, Q3 05, Apple earned $0.37 per share on revenue of $3.52 billion and shipped 1,182,000 Macintosh units and 6,155,000 iPod units.
Okay, the earnings announcement/conference call happens four times a year. It’s a pretty big deal just by itself. But, then on Wednesday, October 12, at 1:00 pm ET, Apple will hold their “One More Thing” special media event at the California Theater in San Jose, California. What the event will reveal has been subject to thousands of articles and theories already. Expect quite a few more in the upcoming days.
I’m not going to add to the conjecture here, but I will say that Apple must be very confident of a strong earnings report to have scheduled the special media event for the very next day. And only Apple can inspire such outright crazed anticipation in its customers.
People who aren’t “Macheads” just don’t understand this excruciating anticipation experience we’re all going through now and in the upcoming days (you’re probably one of them if you’re reading this). Just remember, you’re not alone. Only 52 hours and 45 minutes until for the earnings release, 53 hours and 15 minutes for the conference call, and 73 hours and 15 minutes for the special media event left to go! Are you feeling it, too?
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
Yez!
One more thing … world domination.
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My 2 cents with respect to Oct 12th … video content available for download from ITMS and Airport Express AV.
Thanks a lot Steve! You just made it worse!
Honestly though I think it’s going to be about five things…
Dual Core G5’s
Higher Rez Powerbooks (better screens)
A Mac Mini as the centerpiece of the iHome along with Airport ExpressAV
and then LATER not on Wednesday…the Video iPod.
Universal announced the other day that their catalog was going to be downloadable. More studios will follow suit. Comcast offers a lot of content On Demand now…So the timing is right for a digital entertainment center that is NOT really a PC (think Media Center PC only not so PC centric) and one that allows a measure of both wireless connectivity and with the video iPod (again later once content and infrastructure are further along)… some portability. Would people store 3 or 4 movies on what amounts to a portable TIVO? Absolutely. But it makes more sense to do that on a BIG hard drive in a mini that can do a lot more…sitting next to your TV.
Who you calling outright crazed, buckwheat? Speak for yourself. That little trickle of saliva dripping off my chin is just cause I’m hungry .. or sumpin’.
I still don’t think Apple would launch Mac products (niche market) at a special media event.
I’m going with the Madonna special-edition pink nano, possible an iPod video but more likely a new smaller HD iPod.
I prefer to see it for myself than speculate. So maybe it’s something from all those things they have already said…maybe its something we can’t imagine. So… be patient.. only a couple of days to go.
I thought, hey, great, iPod videos! But really, this is not feasible for Apple. They would need to have all the video content contracts finalized with all their video distributors BEFORE the announcement.
On the flipside, I don’t think Apple would have created so much hype with the announcement over a simple upgrade to its products.
This is going to be big! I can’t wait!
MDN, others and I have said Apple needs to take advantage of the unique position they’re in right now: on top of their game while Bill “Sour Grapes” Gates, et al are in chaos.
Apple needs to go for M$ jugular and put them out of their misery. Hey, Apple is getting help from folks like Google and others. So if not now – when?
Sure, vidPods are fine but far from cataclysmic (the way the original Macintosh was back in the day).
Let’s hope there’s more to this Wednesday’s “One more thing” than an insipid, pink Madonna (the trashy has-been) iPod or vidPod.
Here’s hoping…
prob with ipod video content? maybe steve will introduce some sort of mac mini based media centre with the ability to record tv? wanna watch your favourite series on the way back from work?
“Like a Nano…scratched for the very first time!”
Steve did a deal with Madonna to get her to put her library on iTunes. Problem is “Who cares about Madonna???” old news. Or as my teenage kids would say: she´s old.
At least Steve got to meet her in person and get her autograph.
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If its a madonna ipod/nano….
well, this is just going to be a big bust.
Thanks for listing once more all things Apple that are about to happen this week. But it would be even nicer if you could mention the timing in a somewhat more international style (e.g. by adding the GMT time). I hate having to use time zone converters the whole time.
From an Oct. 8 press release from Seagate…hence my guess about a Mac Mini AV coupled with the Airport Express AV…Oh..yeah..they will
probably do the pink iPod Nano too…but who cares?
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It’s fun to be a Mac Head!
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No new iPods. We have our lineup this year. Like I said, No iPods will have video.
Apple is gonna make it past 5% marketshare, which Steve is gonna make a big deal out of, and then they are gonna unveil updated Dual core Power Macs, and a newer, thinner, nicer iMac.
That’s my guess.
C’mon guys and gals,
Tell me you’ve figured it out..
On Wednesday, Apple will be announcing that they are releasing the next version of iWork as a full Office suite, to compete with GoogleOffice and Office.
Oh yeah, and the Video Ipod thingy too.
I bought a bottle “Kongsgaard” Chardonnay 1999 $ 112 for tuesday evening ,I also got 1268 shars of AAPL to celabrate wih
I predict the relaunch of the Laserwriter Select beige laser printer line, only this time they’re going to use a lower case “s” for select.
Even though I’d really like to see a nanobook, I think there will be an iPod related announcement. However, it will NOT be new iPods.
Just like Steve revealed that OS X has been secretly running on Intel all along, I think he will reveal on Wednesday a firmware update for existing color iPods that enables video.
“One more thing… there is a new iPod video but we are not releasing it today. In fact we have already released it – those of you with “Photo” or the newer color models (full size and nano) already have it! Just download the new firmware and enjoy!”
If others’ speculation about short clips being the first content is true, these products already have room.
Also, I agree that we need software to support mobile/portable video, but I disagree with that a mature store is crucial at the beginning. I do like iTMS, but to me the power is being able to import and organize my existing stuff in iTunes. I wonder if we’ll see the video equivalent (thumbnail layout, sorting and searching with metatags) even before the arrival of a mature store for purchasing content.
MW paid
I need to get PAID so I can buy whatever Steve announces on Wed. (unless it’s a free firmware update!)
Remember when it was 2 days before Christmas and you were 6 to 8 years old?
That’s how you explain it to a Windows user.
If they didn’t celebrate Christmas then you are SOL.
What about the famous Apple-branded cupholder? It sure deserves it’s own media event.
Ok, SteveJack, no one really cares about Tuesday.
The presentation announcement is “One more thing…”, so Steve will never be able to use his favorite little phrase again in future keynotes.
So what does this mean… he leaves Apple. Because he’s going to announce a lot of new stuff too, it’s the ideal moment. This way he’ll be able to leave while Apple is peaking. The right moment for him personal and the right moment for the company.
If there will be video, my guess is that it will be with the subscription based model.
Owning music makes sense IMO but video?… no, hiring is the way to do it.
PS I really hope I’m completely wrong…
What do you guys think about the possibility of a new Mac with 2GB of flash memory for real fast OS access? They should have enough chips from Samsung and it would also solve any complaints about slow hard drives on the Mac Mini.
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Just another wild theory…
Drum-roll Please…
Steve Jobs walks out and announces that FairPlay DRM will be available for licensing starting in July 2006. He further announces that Blu-Ray, and the RIAA member companies will all adopt FairPlay as a supported DRM standard. Finally, he announces that the UPNP standard will now include support for FairPlay DRM.
What this means to the market-
1-Record companies will be able to roll out their own music stores featuring FairPlay DRM encoded tracks that will work on iTunes and the iPod.
2-Movie studios will be able to attach FairPlay DRM to video content. Figure out what that means.
3- Hardware OEMs will be able to license FairPlay for their devices starting in July 2006. DVD players, handheld units, Cell Phones, cable boxes, HDTVs, UPNP devices (El Gato Eye Home, Roku Soundbridge type, etc).
What this means to Apple-
1- Apple will gain a steady stream of revenue from companies using FairPlay to create, distribute, store, or play media content.
2- Other companies will be able to make devices capable of sync with iTunes and FairPlay encoded files.
3- Content creators will be able to market media that will run on iTunes and the iPod.
One more thing…
Out comes Sir Howard Stringer of Sony
The PS3 will be the first non-Apple device capable of playing FairPlay encoded files. Update software for PSP units installing iTunes for PSP will be released soon after.
It could happen.
Think Different