There are rumors on the internets, swirling, swirling. The widely pooh-poohed Penta-USB Mac Mini has re-resurfaced, as well as some mysterious FCC updates for Time Capsule and Airport Extreme. Lastly, some driver diving has revealed support for AMD’s 4000-series video cards and Intel’s Core i7 series of processors. The latest info has Apple addressing us on the 24th of March, so we’ve got about three weeks of white-knuckle expectation ahead of us.
The suspicious Mac Mini has shown itself in its box form (above). I’m not sure I buy the picture there, it’s not like Apple to put the ugly rear of the machine on the top of the box. That text in the middle says “Advanced NVIDIA Integrated Graphics.”
The FCC listings for the “new” Time Capsule and Airport Extreme are here and here, respectively. There’s not a lot to be gleaned unless you’re really interested in antenna gain levels. If I had to guess, it is probably a tweaking of the accessories’ capabilities, having to do with a new chipset, wireless component, or the like.
The Mac Pro is the surest bet of all these. It’s been a long, long time since they’ve been updated and at this point they’re outclassed by machines less than half their price. An update to a new chipset supporting top-of-the-line Core i7 processors and perhaps dual Radeon 4870s would put them back in the game.
We’ll keep you updated all they way up to the morning of the event.
[via TUAW, Engadget, Ars Technica]