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Did you hear Steve Jobs will unveil an iBook nano on Tuesday, Jan. 10? No, that's not true -- he has actually reinvented the Mac, transforming it from a desktop computer into a living-room entertainment console.
Those are just the best of a dozen rumors I found myself trading with fellow techies and journalists at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Apple (AAPL) wasn't there, but since I have a regular gig reporting live from Apple's product launch events I couldn't stand in line for a taxi without being asked what "Steve" had planned for Macworld Expo this week.
I have no inside info, but I love the rumors. More than everyday gossip, Apple rumors have a special place in tech culture. I'm not talking about the easy guesses like an iPod with...more storage! But the credible, spreadable stories like that long-foretold video iPod. These rumors are a form of techie folklore. Like urban legends, the best stories are woven around ideas people instinctively feel to be true. The fact that they're believed actually makes them a useful business tool.
WISHFUL THINKING. First, the rumors that catch on tend to conjure products easily built with available technology. The hypothetical 2006 iBook nano -- an ultraslim, ultralight laptop with a widescreen display, flash memory instead of a hard drive, and an all-in-one adapter port on its side to keep it simple and slim -- is just a pricier version of the $100 simplified laptop MIT professors want to build for third-world children (see BW Online, 12/20/05, "Quanta's $100 Laptop Challenge"). I saw all the parts you'd need to build it on display in Las Vegas.
Second, people don't repeat rumors about products they wouldn't care about. The rumors that stick tend to concern products consumers really want. My fellow show-goers were sure Jobs was preparing a home media center that either uses Intel's (INTC) new Viiv platform -- or its equivalent -- for downloading, sharing, and moving around high-definition video with an interface more like TiVo (TIVO) than a desktop computer (see BW, 1/9/06, "Inside Intel").
(For non-Macheads, the current iMac is already partway there with a remote control and a graphical interface called Front Row meant to be surfed from the couch.) Why not ditch the iMac's pricey monitor, which isn't the best for fast-moving video, and instead hook up to the HDTV displays taking over our living rooms?
NO CALL FOR PHONES. Intel made it clear at CES that it has spent a lot of money to learn home consumers want exactly that from their next computer. For those of us without Intel-size budgets, the Apple rumor mill is free market research. The strength of a rumor tells you what products people want to buy, if only tech companies would build them.
Even more valuable is the corollary: If there isn't a persistent rumor about a certain kind of Apple product before Macworld, it's probably not worth building. On my last night in Vegas I searched the Net's archives for old rumors aligned with previous Next Big Things introduced by Intel, Microsoft (MSFT), or anyone else. An Apple Web portal circa 1998? I couldn't find even a wish for one. An Apple tablet computer beyond its doomed Newton? Rumors persisted for years until the Treo's microkeyboard made stylus-tapping unnecessary.
Most telling was the arc of iPhone rumors. They flamed hotter each month -- until the first iTunes phone was upstaged at its own launch party by a sexier iPod. Mac rumorists seem to have realized they didn't want a better iTunes phone -- they just didn't want one at all. Four months later, this year's pre-Macworld rumor roundup at MacRumors.com doesn't even mention phones.
WHAT'S IN STORE. I have no idea what's up Steve's sleeves. But based on what he's supposedly going to unveil, I can forecast the success of the gear I saw at CES: Tablet PCs will go nowhere. Windows Vista doesn't really matter -- it's Windows, so we'll use it no matter what.
SanDisk will soon replace laptop drives with flash cards. And Intel's Viiv will become the standard home entertainment companion to a new flat-panel TV. If it happens, remember you read it first on MacRumors.com.
Paul Boutin is a former software engineer and manager who writes about technology for Slate, Wired, and Engadget
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