November 11th Apple Announcement?

Apple’s recent string of press events has brought us new iPods and new notebooks. On the theory that things go better in threes, is a November press event on the horizon?

Courtesy of Apple

Apple loves Tuesday events, and always seems to prefer the first or second week of the month for its announcements. With that in mind, the best time for a November event would be the 11th, since not even Apple could compete with Election Day coverage on the 4th.

If an announcement is in the offing, what could we expect? Two items come immediately to mind: An upgrade to the Mac Mini, which is sorely needed and would be just in time for the holiday shopping season; and updated iMacs, also just in time for the holidays.

The Mac Mini and the iMac could incorporate the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M or 9600M graphics cards that Apple is already using in the new MacBook and MacBook Pro. After all, the Mac Mini is essentially a MacBook repackaged in a smaller form factor, minus the display and keyboard. The iMac is also essentially created mostly from notebook components.

In addition to the graphics updates, I would expect new processor offerings for the Mac Mini, to bring it up to date, and a minor speed bump for the iMac.

Apple hasn’t issued any press invitations yet, and the rumor mill has been pretty quiet, so there’s a very good chance that November will come and go without any new Apple products. But there’s also the possibility of a silent release, something Apple has done with speed bump-type updates in the past. A silent release is when Apple simply updates a product’s specs on its web site or issues a press release through normal PR channels, without a press event.