Hijinks Inc.

Behold the new iPod Nano! At least, that’s what Kevin Rose thinks. In a post on his blog Rose cites several rumors, including:

- Revamp of entire iPod line.
- Small cosmetic changes to Touch, Nano to see significant redesign.
- iPods to see fairly large price drops to distance itself from the $199 iPhone.
- iPod touch 2.1 software, iPhone to get update very soon after.
- iTunes 8.0 (”it’s a big update w/new features”).
- All of this coming in the next 2-3 weeks.

Crazy? Well, rumors of a Zune-like iPod have been floating around for a few weeks now, and Kevin’s comments would lend credence to the theory. There are a couple interesting things about this set of rumors.

First and foremost, the price cuts. If Apple rethinks their pricing structure based on a $199 iPhone, can we expect a $99 Nano? And second, if the announcement window Kevin presents is correct, Apple will be celebrating the 1st anniversary of the 3rd gen Nano by replacing it with the 4th gen version. Either the fatty didn’t get them the sales they expected, or Apple is counting on their customers to buy a new iPod every time they release a new generation. I’d say a little of both is true.

If Kevin Rose is correct, expect Apple’s shares to plummet as investors cry bitterly about the price cuts, then recommit their souls to Steve Jobs as Apple rakes in disgusting amounts of money this holiday season.

WWDC is tomorrow, and as always speculation and rumors are making the rounds like wildfire on the internet.

My WWDC predictions?

1. Much to my disappointment, there will be no Apple Tablet released or announced.
2. 3G iPhone will be announced, but not available until later this month. Launch of 3G iPhone will also see a 32GB model introduced.
3. iPhone 2.0 software will be demoed and likely released.
4. MacBook Pros may see a refresh.
5. 10.6 might get a mention, but I’m not at all confident of this.

What are your predictions?

Looks like the rumors were true! Apple announced today that they will be offering students a free iPod touch or iPod Nano with the purchase of a Mac computer (Mac Mini excluded of course).

My question is simple, why would you ever pick an iPod Nano over an iPod touch?

This is just a concept, while the hardware should be compatible I cannot vouch for this as I haven’t built one yet. I am however planning on building one in the next few weeks after which I will post a full breakdown.

Case: Linkworld MicroATX Mini Tower with 430W Power Supply
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX
Processor: 2.2GHz Pentium E2200 (Dual Core)
Memory: Transcend JETRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB
Optical Drive: Lite-On 20X DVD±R DVD Burner
[ View prices ]

The price of the above configuration comes to $297.94 (not including shipping and handling), you can of course save some money by switching to a slower processor, smaller hard drive, less memory, or downgrading to just a DVD drive. Also of note, this doesn’t include a licensed copy of Leopard, which adds a solid $119 to its pricetag.

Kind of a cool idea…

So if you have an older PowerBook laying around and a corkboard and some push pins, why not give it a try? Or if it’s an iBook, go with the iBook server idea.

There’s another shot of the corkboard mac on his website.