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Macworld Rumor Aftermath: What We Know Now

This year’s Macworld saw four core announcements during Phil Schiller’s keynote speech. Even though Apple delivered some incredible new stuff, a large majority of the rumors were inaccurate, without even a brief mention.

What Came True

Macbook Pro

Most notably, Apple unveiled the brand new 17″ Macbook Pro. It has adopted the unibody design and also brings with it some major innovations in battery life. When Apple first unveiled the new unibody notebooks back in October, early speculation pointed towards a Macworld ‘09 release. This prediction was looked at as relatively natural, and Apple even murmured a few notes pointing to a “few month” delay. As Macworld grew near, 9to5mac was first to announce anything noticeably major surrounding changes to the 17″ Macbook Pro. They specifically pointed to the embedded non-user replaceable battery, and a major jump in battery life. MacRumors also heard similar whispers, and prior to the event was able to reaffirm the legitimacy of the information. The design changes that the 17″ Macbook Pro got were obvious, but nobody new Apple would offer a $50 anti-glare option.

iTunes Loses DRM, Three Tier Pricing & Over the Air Downloads

Cnet correctly reported a good amount of information regarding Apple’s then unannounced iTunes update. Information about new tiered pricing, over-the-air downloads and massive updates to the DRM free catalog of music were all correct.

iLife & iWork

While it may have seemed easy to assume these update were coming. MacRumors found a nice piece of confirming evidence before the official announcement. Up until then, mentions of iWork (or parts of it) moving into the cloud, were all that was reported about.

Strong Cloud Computing Push

9to5mac brought the first word that this was happening. In fact, they even new the name would be iWork.com and called the launch date. After we found out what might be coming, we did a little investigation ourselves and were able to completely confirm the rumor, along with some new pricing and presentation info. Specifically, we had the name iWork Online thrown at us, but it ended up just being iWork.com. Additionally, our sources revealed that this would be free from Apple, which also turned out to be correct, only in the form of a beta tag. Parts of the information both 9to5, as well as ourselves received about iMovie cloud updates were a little blurry, and no significant updates to a web based version of iMovie were announced.

What Did Not Come True

Mac Mini

A few weeks back, Wired introduced the notion that Apple would be updating the Mac Mini in time for a Macworld appearance, even providing some rather detailed specs from what was noted to be a trusted source at Apple. Leading up to the event several others followed suit as Apple Insider was under the impression that the low-end desktop would receive dual display support. While Ars Technica did buy into the indication that the Mac Mini would receive updates, they remained weary of the dual display support. TUAW provided there own take regarding the purported changes, yet were stifled by an opposing report. Bottom line: no updated Mac Mini appearance at Macworld 2009 and the future of the desktop remains unclear.

32GB iPhone

Back in November we received word from an unconfirmed and anonymous source that a memory bumped 32GB iPhone would be making an appearance in January. The tipster stated, “That rumored red iPhone… It’s not happening. The only iPhone news I know for certain is that it’s getting bumped to 32GB in January.” While 32GB iPhone rumors have surfaced before, information pertaining to Apple’s stockpiling of NAND flash pointed toward larger capacity devices. Macrumors was able to solidify a technical explanation of what was possible for this. It’s important to note that the tip clearly states “January” as the launch month, and not Macworld specifically, so there are still three weeks for this to happen which would make the tip accurate. Here at MacBlogz, unconfirmed sources and tips remain just that: unconfirmed.

Snow Leopard Demo

Digitimes was first to report about a possible Snow Leopard demo at Macworld. AppleInsider hammered home the notion of a Snow Leopard demo at Macworld. Both were wrong. Information first made public by MacRumors is perhaps the only solid information from a proven source regarding Snow Leopard and a tentative launch date.

iMac

Last October, claims supporting the notion that Apple’s all-in-one iMac would be getting speedbumped in time for the holiday season, proved to be incorrect. Following these reports, Digitimes, who tout a relatively accurate track record (lately), reported that updated iMacs would make a January appearance. Additionally, AppleInsider vehemently sided with a PC Perspective report that detailed expectations of a 28″ iMac. This was also inaccurate. Whether we see this in the future remains unconfirmed, but it did not show up at Macword.

Be sure to read our Rumor Roundup which was put together before the Macworld keynote.