Some of you may have read a report the other day that Apple was behind the curve because there were no recent updates to the MacBook Pro lineup. This despite the fact that Intel had recently upgraded its mobile processors. So what’s wrong with Apple? Don’t they want their customers to have the latest and greatest and fastest notebooks?

Of course, the real world doesn’t always work that way. Yes the chips may be available, but there are also complications in the way Apple has configured its recent hardware, using the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M chipset. Now this integrated graphics processor is way faster than anything offered by Intel, but both Intel and NVIDIA are embroiled in a dispute over the latter’s right to produce chipsets that support the new Core i5 and Core i7 mobile processors. Until that’s resolved, Apple can’t use those parts, so they’d have to devise a different solution.

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Well, the cat is being prepared for shipment and is ready to pounce upon millions of expectant Mac users come Friday. Now all last week, there were rampant rumors that Snow Leopard development had wrapped. Well, for a product promised for a September delivery, that development made perfect sense. Unless the DVD processing plants are waiting 24/7 for Apple to deliver the Golden Master, it takes time to ramp up production and ship to retailers.

The other rumor was rather more intriguing, that Apple would beat its deadline, and deliver Snow Leopard the last weekend in August. Now not to toot my own horn, but my original shipping date, as predicted on the radio show, just happens to be Friday, August 28. That statement, however, was made before the September timeframe was announced at WWDC. I actually apologized in public for my overeager optimism. So consider the apology withdrawn.

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All right, Apple Inc. really isn’t celebrating my birthday. Besides, that was so long ago, even I’ve forgotten how old I am. But, seriously, being so close to the main event makes the results ripe for speculation.

Apple enjoys giving the press broad hints as to what their events are all about. This one, set for September 9th at 10 AM Pacific Time in San Francisco, simply says, ”Let’s Rock.”

Those two words are pregnant with meaning, and it easy to cover a reasonable set of possibilities. At its core, though, it’s clearly iPod-related, witness the telltale artwork that typifies the standard iPod promotional motif. It doesn’t take a huge stretch to consider the fact that September is the time for those annual updates to Apple’s best-selling digital music player.

Already, there have been mock-ups of possible revisions to the iPod nano, but it’s not at all clear if they are based on actual design graphics leaking from Apple or a little wishful thinking. I’m inclined to consider the latter. But the betting is that any changes to the iPod lineup will be relatively minor, since Apple has no real competition, and there’s only so far you can expand the traditional iPod before it morphs into something else entirely.

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Consider what Steve Jobs said in his widely-quoted employee memo about the failed rollout of MobileMe, that Apple could have waited somewhat longer to make sure things were working properly before transitioning from .Mac.

He clearly had a point, but he really isn’t going far enough. You see, it has been clear to me for the last several years that marketing considerations and not product readiness are playing too much of a role in Apple’s recent release dates.

Certainly that was probably also true with the iPhone 3G and version 2.0 software. You can see that in the 3G-related issues, which were supposedly addressed, at least in part, in the 2.0.2 update. Then again, if what Roughly Drafted Magazine’s Daniel Eran Dilger suggests in a recent article, it may require all or most iPhone 3G users upgrading the firmware before the problems settle down. That is unless there’s another update forthcoming to expand upon the list of bug fixes.

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