Apple’s October 16th product announcement begins at 10am PST; 1pm EST.
My guesses?
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Definitely: OS X Yosemite, iTunes 12, and the next-gen iPad Air and iPad mini.
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Maybe: Updated Thunderbolt 2 + Retina display (I’d guessed at this last year and was wrong), iMac with Retina display, updates to the MacBook Pro line, Apple TV 4 with support for third-party apps.
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Not a chance: An HDTV, more info about Apple Watch, a mega-sized iPad, or a pull-string-to-talk Steve Jobs doll.
New iPads
Thinner, faster, beefier. I would expect to see a marginally-improved camera, and Touch ID is a definite.
iPad Air and iPad mini should have equal specs, except for the screen sizes. I don’t believe that a 12-point-whatever-inch “iPad Air Plus” will be a thing.
Retina Thunderbolt 2 Display
I’ve been looking forward to the successor to the Thunderbolt display for quite a while now, and I really hope that this is it. Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3.0 have been shipping in modern Macs for a couple of years now, and I’m anxious to see an updated display.
Also, Helvetica looks like ass in Yosemite on non-Retina displays. It seems like a good time to update.
Apple TV 4
I’ve also been keenly interested in seeing support for third-party apps on Apple TV.
With modern SDK features like better scalability for different viewports, games for iPad (4:3) and iPhone (16:9), the introduction of a controller API in iOS 7, the Metal API, and a well-built system for managing your account, apps and games, introducing a new Apple TV capable of gaming and third-party apps seems ripe.
Maybe not PS4 or Xbox One-caliber just yet, but Apple TV has been outselling both of them (by an order of magnitude) for a couple of years now. Nintendo should be very, very worried.
