Apple event September 9th, 2009 – what will be announced?

In September 2009 (i.e. this month) Microsoft is releasing Zune HD – their first device with multitouch … so Apple wants to preempt Microsoft with iPod touch related announcements – most notably Zune HD does not have camera and iPod touch will be getting it for sure this week…

Another big event from Apple will take place on Wednesday this week and this is the time of the year when Apple usually releases new iPod-related stuff, so here is a round-up of rumors about what will be presented at this event and what will not be shown:

— (certain) iPod touch with camera

— (very likely) iPod touch gets faster graphics chip (similar or the same as in iPhone 3GS) so that not only OpenGL ES 1.1 but also OpenGL ES 2.0 will be supported in hardware. In other words: much better graphics in games, including shaders and more source lights etc.

— (possible) iPod touch gets also digital compass and GPS – so in combination with camera also iPod touch would be capable of running augmented reality apps

— (possible) also other iPod players are getting camera

— (possible) iPod touch gets also built-in microphone so that it could be used without external headset for voice over IP apps and for apps that require microphone for usage

— (possible) iPhone users in USA will get MMS at last (MMS = cellular standard for sending images in the same way as SMS is sent – to phone numbers, not to email addresses)

— (possible) iPhone OS 3.1 upgrade will be released – it offers among others: better video editing, better access to videos by apps (new API?), OpenGL improvements to make 3D graphics even better on iPhone 3GS

— (very unlikely) iTablet – Apple Tablet Mac based most likely on full Mac OS X and not on iPhone OS, as tablet-related improvements have been discovered in Snow Leopard version of Mac OS X. More likely this tablet will be announced/released in January 2010

— (possible) British music band “The Beatles” will be at last offering their songs through iTunes. While for many Americans music of “The Beatles” sounds like cheap musical and pop, for many Brits it is classical rock and surely this would mean huge sales of their songs if it would be available in iTunes. Also: probably some iPods will be offered with pre-installed albums from “The Beatles”.

— (likely) new iTunes version 9 that now will offer connection to Facebook and Twitter in other words: social networking comes to iTunes. Considering that iTunes has support for podcasting since 2004, arrival of social networking will be a bit belated.

— (impossible) iPhone HD (that at last offers higher resolution than 480×320 that in meantime is rather mediocre in the smartphone world) or any other iPhone for that matter – new iPhone-s are released by Apple only around June each year, not in September, not in any other time.

— (possible but unlikely) Steve Jobs – he was ill recently and is just recovering but for everybody it would be nice to see him. Note that it is thanks to brave decisions of Steve Jobs that Apple is a financially successful company now, notably: the decision to use Unix as basis for Mac OS made an outdated annoying old Mac OS a modern an fluid OS, and the decision to use multitouch in iPhone made it a hit in smartphone market. Now everybody speculates that Steve Jobs is focusing on Mac tablet but such minor iPod-only event probably would be not enough to woo him to the public.

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If you know of something else that will be presented at this event, please post in comments below (no registration required to post comments)!

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