Going mad with anticipation
16 March 2007

"There's something on the horizon that's going to blow our socks off. Or perhaps we'll be so grateful for any news that if all they did was to paint an existing iMac bright orange we'd be cracking open the champagne."

Earlier this week if you'd searched for Mac Pro on the Apple UK web site you would've seen a note that said "Now quad-core or 8-core processing power. Configure yours today". Chance would be a fine thing; that's exactly what I've been waiting to do for the last 8 months. However, this was a gaff or a clever piece of viral marketing. You decide which. Either way, it wasn't true. There is no 8-core Mac Pro. Not yet anyway.

It's been several months since the last Mac hardware release. November 8, 2006 to be precise when the MacBook was upgraded to Core 2 Duo. You have to go back to September last year (August in the case of the Mac Pro) for the last desktop Mac hardware release. That's a very long time! We expected it during the transition to Intel processors, but now that we're just talking regular upgrade cycles I was expecting things to be a little more frequent.

Of course I expect that this is all some evil master plan hatched months ago in a darkened cellar in Cuppertino. There's something on the horizon that's going to blow our socks off. Or perhaps we'll just be so grateful for any news that if all they did was to paint an existing iMac bright orange we'd be cracking open the champagne at finally getting some solid news. As always, only time will tell.

I can't help thinking that perhaps this total lack of anything-whatsoever is a hint that maybe one of those hidden features in OS X 10.5 Leopard Steve Jobs hinted at during the World Wide Developer's Conference in 2006 (or was it 1971 - it seems so long ago now) is going to be somehow tied to the hardware it runs on. Perhaps you'll be able to run Leopard quite happily on older kit, but if you buy a new post-Leopard Mac it'll polish your shoes for you or do the washing up while you surf the internet? Perhaps there's some touch screen technology a la iPhone in there which means I'd have to spend even more money buying a display to go with a Mac Pro? Personally, I prefer the washing up idea.

The next dilema following an annoucement of new hardware will be when to buy it. If a new Mac Pro is announced next week (or as some are suggesting at the already announced Apple special event on Sunday 15 April) then if there's still no news of Leopard does one buy or wait. My head says "wait you idiot, the new OS will be out before the next WWDC in June". My heart says "sod it, go on, you know you want to". My heart will win. My wallet will also lose being trampled in the rush to get to the Apple Store.

The more I think about it, the more I'm having increasing problems trying to fathom out what Apple are doing with their hardware and software strategy. It will all make sense eventually and I'm 100% happy that they have a plan. It's just annoying that they haven't told us what it is yet. Another thought I had was that they want us all to be banging on about the iPhone and the Apple TV (yawn in both cases in my opinion) and set aside the whole of quarter one 2007 for general fawning and thrashing of breasts. I have a sneeking feeling that quarter two could be the big Mac period in the year and then quarters three and four will be the iPhone release (first in the US and then elsewhere) and mind blowing new touch screen iPods. I'm half expecting after months of no Mac news at all to get a rush of announcements in quick succession (even perhaps all at once).

However, my predictions are up there with Mystic Meg's and we all know what happened to her, don't we.

The early annoucement on Apple UK this week ("Did I really mean to push that button [laughs]. Of course I did, the marketing people planned the 'mistake' in December. How clever are we [laughs again while stroking cat]") has triggered my hopeless trawling of the news forums and web sites for any tiny scrap of news I can find. It's starting to annoy me and I'm getting precious little done at the moment. For goodness sake, pull yourself together! Where's that off-button, I'm off for a sulk.