Sounds to me like Apple is saying to the market, “Buy what’s on the shelves, we’ll make more, but not in time for the holidays”.

More or less.

Interesting to see Apple being a little more vocal regarding hardware updates. I guess that’s one way of quietening down expectations and rumours. Still, it’d be nice to at least see an industrial design update of the MacPro and Mini. They’re about the only 2 major Apple hardware updates left that aren’t silver, black and glossy.

Dave Barnes wrote:

Give me an iMac that supports 8GB of memory and my credit card will be in action.

If they are going to use the same guts as the MacBook Pro, it’ll be 6GB, max. But who knows?

Peace,
Gene

Give me an iMac that supports 8GB of memory and my credit card will be in action.

iMac:
I would believe that the big change will be LED-BL displays, because in terms of cpu, there’s not much to upgrade to from Intel (unless they start using quad-core cpus). Given that the new 24″ LED-BL Cinema Display is not yet available it’s a sign that the new iMacs were not ready to ship, and will not before 2009.

Mac mini:
Could be updated to MacBook specs if Apple wanted it to survive another year, probably they are focusing on notebook manufacturing for the holiday “quarter” and when the new parts (nvidia chipset) are largely available, they will probably release the new Mac mini (if they choose to keep the model).

Mac Pro:
Last time I’ve checked, the Xeon parts will not be available before early 2009, so that could explain the perceived “delay”. All the press about nehalem lately is for the Core i7 which is a high-end desktop cpu (a nice one) but Apple will probably keep using Xeons on the Mac Pro…

On the positive side, MWSF will probably be about the Mac this time (updated desktops, other displays?, Snow Leopard preview, iLife/iWork ‘09?). Of course, there will be talks about the iPhone/iPod, and probably an update for AppleTV too. But, will there be a “one more thing”?

Apple doesn’t really sell on specification anyway, so a lack of desktop updates won’t really matter that much. I would imagine that most people buy a new Mac because their old one just doesn’t do it for them anymore, or to escape from Windows, and the performance differences between the current iMac and the last of the white ones is so minor, and the aluminum model so new, that a mere non-press-release speedbump is much more likely than any new model, and actually makes more sense.