Apple Speculation

In the late 1990's, when Apple was "beleaguered" and people were more concerned with how many layoffs they would have or how much money they were set to lose each quarter, there was a small contingent of "Mac faithful" who lived and died with every MacWorld Expo keynote, Apple earnings call, and in the old days, Seybold conference, where Apple leveraged its strong roots in publishing to launch the latest in Mac hardware or OS tools. But we (yes, I was one of them) were considered the lunatic fringe, the exception to the rule.

Now, with Apple having been rebirthed through a string of successes, started with the original Bondi Blue iMac in 1998, the introduction of Mac OS X in 2001, the overwhelming domination of the iPod and iTunes Music Store, and Apple's adoption of Intel chips, the number following Apple's announcements has grown dramatically. Mainstream tech sites openly speculate on what Steve Jobs and crew will uncover, and technology blogs are holding contests to mock up images in great anticipation of tomorrow's planned unveilings. Apple hasn't said anything publicly, but invited select media to attend a special event Tuesday morning for "some new fun products". Speculation has run rampant, from an iTunes Video Store, offering full-length feature films, to a new iPod HiFi Boombox, and new hardware - from a consumer MacBook (replacing the iBook) and a Mac Media Center, based on today's Mac Mini.

This speculation comes on the heels of the weekend rumor that Apple was considering a purchase of Disney, with Steve Jobs already owning 7% of the company, following their acquisition of Pixar. In fact, my post on this from Saturday was mentioned on one of Apple's more consistent rumor sites - "The Unofficial Apple Weblog" or TUAW, for short. In their short article, they said, "Blogger Louis Gray thinks it can only happen in  "a business reporter's dream." He argues that the financials don't add up and worries that taking over Disney would quash the possibility of Apple offering shows from competitors like NBC or Viacom/MTV on iTunes."

Funny, and I thought nobody was paying attention - given the lack of comments on the site.