What To Expect At Apple’s “Rock & Roll” Press Event Tomorrow

Leander Kahney ()

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Basically: new iPods and iTunes, no Beatles and no tablet.

In declining order of likelihood, here’s what Apple will show off tomorrow:

1. Steve Jobs. Steve’s back but very, very thin. Steve will be the highlight of the show and his presence will dominate tomorrow’s headlines.

2. New iPod Touch with built-in camera; no compass, no GPS. The cases all but confirm it. May not be for sale immediately if Apple has withdrawn first batch.

3. New iPod Nano with built-in camera, no GPS or compass. Same as above.

4. New iTunes with social networking. Tell your idiot friends on Facebook and Twitter what you’re listening to, and serve up an iTunes’ link so they can buy it from Apple. Steve knows how to make a buck.

5. New App Store. This is probably the most important thing Apple will unveil tomorrow: a new App Store that makes it easier to find Apps, especially the good ones. Big picture, this will dwarf the new iPod hardware — the App Store is the heart of the new iPhone/iPod platform.

6. $149 iPod Touch. Seems plausible that Apple will keep the old iPod Touch in the lineup as  the entry-level device, just as it’s kept the old iPhone 3G at $99.

7. Cocktail, Apple’s new format for digital LPs, isn’t fully baked yet, but Steve may show a preview.

Here’s what’s not happening:

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Best Guess For Tomorrow’s Announcement: Beatles on iTunes

1. No tablet. This is an iPod event. I’m betting the tablet will be unveiled at CES in January during a surprise Steve Jobs keynote.

2. No Beatles on iTunes. The reissue of the remastered Beatles catalog is separate from Apple’s announcements, but I think it’s likely Steve will at least acknowledge it. 50/50 he uses the Beatles to show off the new Cocktail format.

3. Discontinue Classic? Maybe. I think there’s still a market for a high-capacity player. The drives are still being made, and I think Apple will keep it around.

Apple’s Sept. 9 event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. It’s open to press and VIPs only, and will kick off at 10 AM PST (1 PM Eastern).

11 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, News, Opinions, Rumors, Top stories |

  • macnyc

    How did they know a camera at the gym was exactly what i was missing from my life. (sarcasm on)

  • Steve O

    So no mention of a possible Apple TV update? I don’t really think it’s going to happen tomorrow (although one can wish) but there have been rumors about it.

  • Alexis

    now now…I’m expecting lots of hot illegal pics to be taken with the new ipods

  • Brian

    I represent the Mixed Metaphor Police, and I hereby notify you that a cocktail may be shaken or stirred, but never baked.

  • Steffen

    Did he just call my friends (which I also happen to have on Facebook) “idiots”? ;-)

  • Charli

    i have to disagree about the Steve comments. A welcome or perhaps a ‘one more thing’ but Steve will mostly likely never be THE face of a keynote again. they got the media etc weaned off the tit of thinking Apple = Steve Jobs (and everyone else is just a mindless non thinking Borg Drone following his every command), they are not crazy enough to drop that and have folks watching his waistline to decide if they should buy, sell or hold.

  • http://twitter.com/wisher86 mario

    A new App Store would be really appreciated. As it is finding new cool apps its quite hard.

  • http://none edgar riios

    yea as u guys say That could be released tomorrow but If you think about it apple can do whatever they want whenever they want. They can even release something called an iWatch or I dont know. Remember that the iPhone came in surprise. Apple could hit us again with something revolutionary like the iphone but again as u guys say its not likely.
    also i dont think the classic will ever be discontinued thats why its called Classic. besides being fast and extremely resposive; the iPod classic has lots of memory and imagine if apple would discontinue it./ alot of people would have to buy other branded mp3 players that have big memory. But i think that also the probability of a Touch screen ipod classic would be reasonable. the discontinuation of the ipod touch would be much better and they could even make a -click-touch-screen device like the blackberry storm for the click wheel jaja. i would like that. but again, apple can do anything they want, whenever they want..
    thks for reading, excuse all the misspelled words and bad punctuation, for all the commas and the huge run-on sentence i decided to write. i hope u still get my point..
    ahh

    -edgar
    |will be looking at a live blog tomorrow! during school jaja/

  • Kyle

    Yoko Ono says that The Beatles arrive on iTunes TOMORROW!:

    http://9to5mac.com/Beatles-iTunes

  • Jake

    There will be a tablet… Trust me!

  • http://thatisright.blogspot.com H. Michael Karshis

    For the benefit of Mr. Kite – I’ll be really surprised if there’s any kind of Beatles/Apple announcement tomorrow – most obvious reason: It’s Only Rock & Roll is a Jagger/Richards tune not Lennon/McCartney. And one more thing, they should be releasing the new re-mastered Beatles stuff on the 10th, officially making it the one after 9.09…

    Yeah yeah yeah,

    HMK