Rumor Mill: MacBook Pros, No iPhone at WWDC?


Piper Jaffrey's Gene Munster is confidently predicting we will see new MacBook Pro models at WWDC in June, as well as a working demo of OS X 10.5 - but don't expect an iPhone launch, he warns, as Computerworld reports.

The next MacBook Pros are thought to contain the much-vaunted Intel Santa Rosa chipsets and the likelihood of an update or major upgrade is thought to be a dead certainty, given Apple's release of revved consumer MacBooks last week.

Munster is also predicting a widescreen iPod in September, leveraging the iPhone's multitouch technology. He predicts a price point below $400 for the new iPod.

Analysis: Although iPhone is more likely to be the subject of a separate launch, given the product anticipation, let's not forget that iPhone runs a version of OS X as well, and developers are going to be very interested in assembling third-party apps for the iPhone. It may take a couple of years, but we'll bet here and now that inside 2 years there'll be an ecosystem of iPhone apps that begin to rival iPod's.