B. Mann Consulting

Troy posts some predictions for Apple's October 12 event. He figures Intel-based Powerbooks and iPod Minis that have no hard drives. He also says "I really doubt all this nonsense about video iPods. I just can't see it. Video is not that useful to people".

Well, I've already speculated that an Airport Express Video might be more likely than a video iPod (I would buy a Sony PSP over a video iPod...but that would mean Apple would need to allow Fairplay DRM to be built into the PSP, which seems unlikely).

I've been writing about iTunes Movies since October 2004...when the iPod Photo came out. I really do think video is "useful" to people. At least, in the small world of anecdotal stories.

Apple has stopped posting new music video content for the past couple of weeks. This seems to be one indication that *something* with video is coming. What if they did offer video content? Movies? TV Shows? I mean, Google Video is already going to be offering UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris".

Ever since the Airport Express came out, I've been speculating about what else could be done with it. Surely that USB port wasn't just for something as mundance as printer sharing.

Well, there's another Apple Special Event coming up. They might be announcing the bundling of the Google Toolbar with Safari....or it might be a video version of the Airport Express to coincide with the opening of the iTunes Movie Store.

Yep, put me down for not believing in the fabled video iPod. Well, actually, I do believe in it, but Travis figures the Airport Express Video edition is a safer bet. Travis said I *had* to blog about this, so I am.

So, the special event will announce the opening of for-pay video downloads via the iTunes store, at the same time as they announce how to connect it to your TV via Airport. Apparently, there has been no new music video content in iTunes for the past couple of weeks, perhaps indicating a build up of new content. With Google announcing streaming of UPN shows, Apple's timing is probably about right.

There are a bunch of us (Scott, James, and Chris, too, once we told him the specs) that are lusting after the Nokia N91, but it is supposedly delayed until the first quarter of 2006.

Some background on the specs: this phone is a pretty high end unit, including a 4GB hard drive (store tons of music, photos, etc.), standard headset jack (use your killer headphones to listen to the music), 2MP camera (almost decent enough quality to leave your low-end digital camera at home) AND, the big one, built in Wi-Fi of the 802.11G flavour.

It's this last that is interesting. Nokia has already said that is working on Voice over WLAN: see Time Europe -- "2006 will be a big year for [mobile] wi-fi" and vnunet.com -- "replacing mobile and desktop phones with series 60 Nokia smartphones could make IT management easier". So, my guess is that they are specifically holding back the release of the N91 so it can be one of the flagship phones to include this functionality.