One of the downsides of a company as secretive as Apple is that customers and the media will feel compelled to speculate about new products. Some of that speculation will be true, some of it not, but it’s usually hard to know in advance which predictions will pan out except through logic, reason and a lots of good luck.

The biggest downside of all is that, if the predictions all point to a single product or service, expectations increase. Folks come to believe such a thing to come from Apple in the near future. If the product is an upgrade to one of the existing lines, it creates the annoying prospect that sales will dip temporarily as customers wait for a revision.

If the revision doesn’t arrive, then Apple suffers from lost revenue. This happened to some degree after the original migration to Intel processors was announced during the WWDC in 2005. In one fell swoop, all of Apple’s Mac hardware was rendered obsolete, kaput. Originally, the transition was expected to be completed in 2007. Yes, that’s what they said back then.

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All right, here’s what we know: Apple has loads of gear undergoing testing at their corporate campus. We don’t know what they’re working on, but we can make educated guesses and if a product passes muster, we might even see it in production eventually.

That surely includes the rumored netbook. Apple says nay, but it’s hard to separate the marketing from the reality. Indeed, when and if they do release an gadget that fits into this category, the words “net” or “book” will positively not be part of the name. So, you see, it won’t be a netbook, at least by that measure.

Now don’t assume that Apple responds well to pressure. Just because the media says it’ll happen doesn’t make it so. But if Apple feels they can make a sizable dent into a market on a long-term basis — and not just for a few months — you can see how they’d be tempted.

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Since making a low-key announcement about 10.5’s successor last summer, Apple has been, publicly at least, extremely quiet on the subject. The preview at Apple’s site remains substantially unchanged, at least as of the time I’m writing this article. And the expected release date, “ in about a year,” hasn’t been altered.

To the surprise of many, Apple said nothing about it at Macworld Expo. Then again, Snow Leopard is not supposed to be visually distinctive compared to Leopard. Most of the changes, such as improved support for multicore processors, and the ability to offload processing chores to the graphic chips, are under-the-hood and difficult to demonstrate. Certainly the improved ability to support Microsoft Exchange servers won’t do much to the look and feel, other than to alter or add some preference settings in Address Book, iCal and Mail.

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Make no mistake about it. Other than close partners and contract equipment manufacturers, very few people outside of Apple know the truth about their future plans. By being exceptionally secretive, however, Apple feeds the rumors big time simply by saying nothing. The less they say, the more people talk.

So we have stories in recent days suggesting that Apple is in heavy talks with Verizon Wireless to add a second carrier to the U.S. once their contract with AT&T ends, and that’s reportedly in 2010.

On the surface this appears credible. After all, Verizon, by dint of its acquisition of Alltel, has emerged as the number one wireless carrier in the U.S. Even better, they have a reputation for superior network reliability and customer service. Indeed, some suggest that Verizon may have been a better fit for a company such as Apple, since it prides itself on offering an excellent customer experience.

On the other hand, Verizon uses the CDMA standard, one supported by far fewer companies worldwide, whereas building GSM-based product for AT&T allows Apple to manufacture one model that can work with dozens and dozens of carriers around the world.

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