There has been much speculation over the past couple of weeks since new hardware was a no-show at this Seybold Seminars, about Apple's intentions concerning upgrades of the PowerBook, iBook, and iMac.

There have been reports, not only on Mac OS Rumors, but also on the PowerBook Zone, the Cube-Zone, As The Apple Turns, MacNN, The Register, and others, that the current Titanium PowerBooks have been "end-of-lifed" by distributors, and that the iBook is in short supply. Prices have also been dropping on the PowerBooks, which is often an indicator that new models are on the way.

Apple has of course made no official announcements with regard to this speculation, but here in Canada, TiBook prices have been cut to Can$3289 and Can$4449 for the 400 MHz and 500 MHz models respectively, from Can$3,769 and Can$4,999 last month.

MacNN cited "sources" this week saying that new speed-bumped PowerBooks with 667MHz and 550MHz processors, larger hard drives (20GB/30GB), a Radeon Mobility graphics processor, Gigabit Ethernet, and a bundled AirPort card will be introduced October 16 at the same price points as the original TiBook models (pre the recent discounting). We'll see next Tuesday.

The Register's Tony Smith this week predicted that the new PowerBooks will be released "in a few weeks' time," and will have 600MHz and 700MHz PowerPC 7440 chips, lower-powered versions of the second-generation G4 PowerPC 7450 running on a 133MHz bus. Current PowerBooks are based on the PowerPC 7410, which runs on a 100MHz bus.

However, Smith says that while the 7440 runs at a lower voltage than the 7410, it consumes more than twice the power its predecessor does, which should make both heat generation and battery life interesting issues with the speed-bumped TiBooks, if these prognostications are accurate.

Even more interesting, Smith's source suggests that these speed-bumped TiBooks will merely be interim models, with a "big revision" new PowerBook to be unveiled at Macworld Expo Tokyo 2002 in February, based on Motorola's third-generation of G4 PowerPC 7460 running at up to 1.33GHz.

The Cube-Zone reported this week that "Several computer retailers have promotions on the PowerBook G4, with special prices till October 20th. This is probably the sign that Apple will ship updated versions of its laptop on that date." They also note that an ad in a French magazine shows two new PowerBooks -- a low-end 500 MHz unite and a high-end i 600 MHz machine.

Now, with the TiBook 10 months and counting in production with no changes at all, it would be exceedingly strange if Apple did not have an upgraded model ready to launch. The average interval between PowerBook model changes since the introduction of the G3 Series in 1998 has been roughly nine months. Perhaps such a launch was even or originally scheduled for Seybold, as had been speculated. By historical standards, the iBook, which was introduced May 1st, could also be considered due for an upgrade, and indeed there are unconfirmed reports that one is ready to rumble with a faster 600MHz G3 processor, bigger capacity hard drives (15GB/15GB/20GB), and 128MB of standard RAM across the board.

However, September 11 altered the landscape drastically, and hard on the heels of that day of infamy came a typhoon in Taiwan, where PowerBooks and iBooks are manufactured, killing more than 30 people and damaging some of the manufacturing infrastructure there.

My read is that the iBook shortage may well be related to problems caused by the typhoon. Demand is still high, and there is no compelling reason for Apple to goose sales with a product upgrade at this time. That doesn't necessarily mean no such upgrade is in the works, but Apple can still bide its time with the rollout of any new iBook model.

With the PowerBook, things are more critical. The TiBook is now the oldest model in Apple's four-legged product array without any changes. The lack of a built-in CD-RW drive is beginning to constitute a significant deficiency, and PowerBooks have been stuck a maximum of 500 MHz for 20 months. The TiBook is still a formidable and highly desirable machine, but it needs an upgrade to rekindle buyer interest.

I suspect that the Taiwan typhoon may also be a factor in Apple's timing for a TiBook upgrade rollout. The last thing Apple needs or wants is to introduce a new product and then not be able to deliver. They may want to wait until Taiwanese production gets back up to speed before making any announcements.

This puts them in a bit of a bind, if, as seems plausible, production of the original TiBook has been discontinued, but stocks of the new one are not built to a comfortable level yet. If so, that would account for the end-of-life reports and tight supply of TiBooks.

And it isn't as if Apple could just shift PowerBook and iBook production to another venue. These machines are not just built by their suppliers, Quanta and Alpha-Top respectively. These companies are also responsible for a substantial proportion of the engineering of the current Apple portables. The fact that the PowerBook and iBook are substantially dissimilar in design details is directly attributable to the fact that they were respectively engineered by different companies.

This Taiwanese connection doesn't mean that moving production elsewhere would be impossible, but it certainly couldn't be done on short notice, and one assumes that doing so could not be a unilateral decision of Apple's. However, given the frequency of natural disasters afflicting Taiwan of late (there was a major earthquake two years ago that disrupted early production of the original iBook), not to mention the uncertain political climate there, it might make medium-term sense to shift part of Apple's portable production elsewhere.

An unprecedented factor that may also be weighing on Apple's strategy for new product releases this fall is the existence of the new brick and mortar Apple Stores. Apple may just think that it would be nice to have a new product launch to boost floor traffic as the Christmas shopping season ramps up.

New Apple hardware announcements have traditionally been reserved for major trade shows, and nothing in that category is on the horizon before MacWorld Expo San Francisco in January. However, the new iBook debuted on May 1, breaking the pattern, and it's quite conceivable at Apple could be planning an "Apple Event" for some for sometime between Halloween and Christmas, or maybe even sooner than that.

Two weeks ago, I was about 80 percent convinced that we wouldn't see any new Apple hardware until MacWorld Expo. Now I'm about 80 percent certain that there will be a product announcement before Christmas, perhaps more than one.

Prospects for a new iMac are considerably more murky. There has been an awful lot of speculation all year about the imminent release of a completely redesigned, flat screen iMac, and it seems unlikely that this is all just hot air. In any case, the current iMac's basic design and form factor are well into their fourth year -- an eternity in the computer world. Flat screen or no flat screen, we are obliged to assume that a significant redesign of the iMac is in the works.

However, the market climate, especially after 9/11, is hardly congenial for the launch of a brand new product line. The automobile industry is in an analogically similar bind, with a whole raft of new models poised for launch this fall -- Ford's new Thunderbird and Lincoln Blackwood; Cadillacs Escalade EX 1; the Chevy Trailblazer and GMC's Envoy XL; a new Toyota Camry and Lexus ES 300; Saturn's Vue sport-ute; the new Nissan Altima; a new BMW 7-series sedan; Mercedes' C230; the Land Rover Freelander; Pontiac's Vibe and its clone the Toyota Matrix; Audi's new A4 and the Acura RSX; Chrysler's new Jeep Liberty and Ram trucks.

Some of these are being released anyway, while others are being held back, but the automakers, like the computer manufacturers, are faced with a consuming public distracted by matters with more gravitas than the latest set of wheels or computer box. As DaimlerChrysler Canada's CEO Ed Burst commented this week, "Consumers are a bit shellshocked."

Consequently, I'm less positive about an iMac launch before MacWorld Expo than I am about an upgraded PowerBook. The most recent iMac revision is less than 3 months old, and Apple has just fleshed out the iMac line in North America with the release of a lower-priced entry-level model (which had been available in Europe all long).

Steve Jobs could of course surprise us with desktop announcements before Christmas, but I wouldn't advise holding your breath in anticipation of a new iMac in the immediate future.

As for the Power Mac towers, the Quicksilver version is also less than 3 months old, with some models just becoming widely available, so I wouldn't look for any changes in the machines prior to MacWorld Expo either, and then most likely just a speed bump.

However, some new 'Books look like a virtually sure thing.

Charles W. Moore