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About a month ago, I posted on some impending Apple product refreshes. Since then, we’ve seen some nifty new iPods, but the other rumored updates, to the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini, haven’t transpired yet. However, today I came across a very good indicator that Apple’s new laptops will be here very soon, perhaps within days.

I’ve been a grad student at UCLA for four years now, and I’ve noticed a strong trend: when new Apple products are about to be announced, the UCLA Computer Store makes significant cuts in their prices for whatever hardware is about to be refreshed. I’m not the only one who’s noticed this; it’s almost common knowledge around here that when prices drop, something dramatic is about to happen. I’ve fallen victim to this twice: I bought a suddenly-discounted fourth-gen iPod right before video iPods were announced, and a few months later I picked up an oddly cheap G4 iBook mere days before Apple announced the MacBook.

Today, I noticed that the UCLA Computer Store’s Apple laptop prices have fallen precipitously. (Apologies for not providing a link; the actual prices are only revealed to those with UCLA logins.) The new prices are good “while supplies last,” another indication that this is an inventory-clearing move. Note that the prices below take into account the standard academic discount:

2.4 ghz white MacBook: originally $1199, now $999
2.4 ghz black MacBook: originally $1399, now $1249
2.4 ghz MacBook Pro: originally $1799, now $1599
2.5 ghz MacBook Pro: originally $2299, now $1799

These are pretty substantial price cuts, especially the 2.5 ghz MacBook Pro, which dropped $500. If memory serves, the UCLA Computer Store usually drops prices by $50-$150, so these are significantly larger than usual. This is nothing more than a hunch, but based on these discounts, I’m guessing the laptop revamp will be pretty dramatic, especially at the high end, and that the prices of the new ones will be similar to the current pricing scheme.

I really don’t know what to expect, or when exactly to expect it, but my guess is the new laptops will be impressive, and we’ll see them announced sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Apple Insider suspects the following:

The player will reportedly be the first non-Multi-Touch iPod to sport a motion or orientation sensor, according to two people familiar with the matter.

I think, based on the elongated form of the new Nano (which seems to be dependable as the shape, at this point) the screen rotation for watching video on the compact screen would be a no-brainer. Here’s hoping I don’t come away from today wishing for the updated Touch (should it arrive).

Update:
Thank goodness it’s not a faster ipod touch! The volume rocker and the battery life enhancements will be nice but an estimate for music and app use while on the wi fi will be a lot shorter than video/audio. Last.fm or pandora come to mind.

So, as you may know, I’m planning to pick up a Mac mini for the movie library project, and I’m itching to get a Macbook too, since my iBook’s usefulness is rapidly waning, and my iPod is in drastic need of replacing.  But I haven’t bought any of these things yet because I put too much stock in rumors:

• An Apple Insider article in March claimed that Apple is preparing a new revision of the Mac mini with a more current generation of dual-core processors, better graphics, and the like.  This has not yet come to pass, and no further mini rumors have come down the pike, but considering the mini is not supposed to receive an updated design, it seems possible that the revision could be pulled off in six months.

• Reports a few weeks ago from both Apple Insider and Mac Rumors indicate that Apple’s planning a big product event in late September. The products most likely to be updated, they report, are be the iPod Touch (which will look more like an iPhone 3G, and will probably be cheaper), iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano (both of which could see increased storage capacity) and the Macbook (which will look more like the Macbook Air and, supposedly, have a new chipset and processor.  The latter change is supposed to be a dramatic upgrade). Mac Rumors suggested in May that Apple would release its rumored tablet PC this September, but subsequent reports suggest that probably won’t happen.

• Mac Rumors also reported last month that Apple might be looking to drop the prices of Macbooks and Macbook Pros when the new revisions are released.

• A week ago, Mac Rumors reported that Apple might be planning to start putting dedicated video encoding/decoding chips into new versions of its computers, taking a tremendous load off of processors and speeding up the process of video encoding.

So I’m holding my breath and hoping that all of these things are true, and that we’ll get a $199 iPod Touch and new Mac minis and Macbooks, both with dedicated video chips, by late September. I doubt that all of these rumors are true, or, if they are, that they’ll all come to fruition at once, but still, it seems like it might be a good idea to hold off on any Apple purchases until after the announcement comes (if it does) in late September.

This is like a bad launch day in an MMO. No official word on why some of the iTunes Store is offline, and we’re paying for the update! Please Mr. Jobs, can I give you ten dollars to waste my morning because your engineers failed to anticipate server loads? Why did I pay so much for your device? That’s right, because things “Just work” in Apple land. Your overpriced gadgets with revolving costs are starting to really chap my hide.

The thing that annoys me is that to have the functionality of a portable computing device that also happens to play music, I’ve been forced to purchase an update for email, and now an update so I can finally get the thing on the WPA-Enterprise network. Heck, the thing still doesn’t do Flash. Sure, some may say, it’s just an iPod, buy a laptop or an iPhone. I’m tired of buying an Apple product and getting burned for not waiting another six months. It’s not that I’m expecting to get things sooner, it’s that I hate feeling like I’m being milked by Apple. “Gee, if we sell an 8 gig unit for a while, then update in a few months to a 16 we’ll make more money and who cares if our customers feel burned.” It’s the standard anymore. Heck, I can’t imagine how people who dropped coin on the Airbook with SSD feel after the big price drop there. Whose pockets got lined with that change?

More rant once I get back from work…

Update 2: Okay, so 12 hours have passed, and nothing changed. No email from Apple, except the one telling me they’d deleted my post from the discussion thread (I’ll show you non-constructive). No official statement on the apple.com website, nor even a removal of the “Buy” button. Fuck you Apple. I wanted to like but you’ve obviously shown us all that you’re way too cool to even come out of the Cupertino bunker and say “We fucked up, here’s 10$ in free software. Our bad.”

Update: Start-up cost for an 8 gig iPhone 407$

Update: iPhone 3G plastic casings are cracking left and right.

You know, it’s time to admit I was wrong. Way, way back, before being hacked, before moving over to wordpress, back when stickybuffalo was a big brown page with a shoutbox, there was some discussion of Apple’s switch from PowerPC processors to Intel processors. As I recall, I was pretty much against the move, seeing it as a bad omen for Apple’s independence. But I was wrong.

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porn loves the iPhone. the long-nailed and the fat-fingered don’t. (no worries, though — mash the touchscreen with your palm to obtain a special dialing wand from apple.)