Last week, selected members of the press were invited to a “Mac Product Event” scheduled for Tuesday, August 7. Speculation and rumor websites are predicting an assortment of updates to the Mac product line. The most significant is a rumored update to the iMac, featuring a new brushed aluminum finish and a new thin MacBook-like keyboard. Other speculation includes new Mac Minis and some long-expected updates to the iLife and iWork suites.
Today, new reports are describing a notification .Mac subscribers are seeing today on the .Mac homepage.
Due to scheduled maintenance, .Mac members might be intermittently unable to access some .Mac services from 10 AM to 12 PM PDT on 08/07/2007. We apologize for any inconvenience.
The notification describes the update to be issued somewhere between 10 and 12 tomorrow morning, which is the exact same time the special event is to take place. This leads to speculation that a new version of .Mac and some new features could also be delivered along with the other Mac product updates.
So, this brings me back to wondering if the WWDC rumors of a Google-Apple partnership are going to be announced tomorrow. Apple and Google worked together on developing great integration with online Google services; Google supplies the back-end and Apple develops the slick interface. Together, they could release an online services bundle that could be ad-supported, featuring productivity applications and integration with Google’s stable online services.
This strategy would benefit both companies, mainly because of their mutual competitor Microsoft, which plans to seek domination over internet multimedia. Together, they could offer a powerful line of web applications and services that are stable, easy-to-use, integrated with iLife and iWork, and offer a sleek “Apple-like” interface.
[Via AppleGazette]
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