If you had placed bets on when Apple would schedule their annual media-centric event for next month, we hope you put your money on September 1, because the company has announced that’s when the gauntlet is officially being thrown down.

What can we hope to see Cupertino announce next Wednesday? We dusted off an old magic eight-ball and translated the results for you, so read on and find out what’s on deck -- or not.

“Signs Point to Yes”: New iPods, iTunes 10, iLife ’11

Although new Apple products are typically shrouded in mystery prior to events such as the one on September 1, we have the advantage of tapping into nearly a decade of history and dug up clues as to what is most likely going to be announced next week. The original iPod was first introduced in the fall of 2001, and almost every year since, without fail, Apple has refreshed our favorite media player with new powers, new models and bigger storage.

We shook up our magic eight-ball and indeed, it came up with a cheery “All signs point to yes” regarding new iPods -- specifically new iPod touch models featuring shiny new Retina Displays. The iPod nano should also get a refresh, with bigger storage capacity and a higher-quality camera, although the eight-ball stopped short of predicting 720p HD video recording, sorry.

A new iPod shuffle is probably also in the cards, mostly because it’s the iPod form factor that Apple still hasn’t gotten quite right yet -- it’s too little for most users, especially when the price point between the shuffle and the nano will likely narrow yet again this year.

Sadly, the eight-ball is also predicting the end of the line for the iPod classic, much as we hate to see it go. Let’s face it -- hard drives for portable media players were a great idea back in the day (that is, until you dropped one), but flash storage is where it’s at now. However, the remaining iPod models should get increased storage capacity, which should help ease some of the suffering you might feel as the iPod classic slips away into the great beyond. (Sniff, sniff…)

iTunes 10 is another safe bet, mostly because almost every major revision to the software has corresponded with new iPod hardware. With the help of the magic eight-ball, we’ve already cooked up a little list of 10 things we might see as iTunes crosses the double-digit threshold, so we won’t go into all of that again here. But yeah, iTunes 10… count on it.

Right on the cusp of “maybe not happening,” the magic eight-ball is going out on a limb to also offer up iLife ’11 as a contender for next week, likely with some amazing new music creation features added to GarageBand (assuming that Apple’s guitar-themed invitation provides a not-so-subtle clue). Will iDVD finally be put out to pasture as rumored earlier this year? Has iPhoto finally been souped up to work better with multiple libraries and thousands of images? Could iWeb finally become a truly useful tool for WYSIWYG web designers? Tune in next week to find out for sure.

“Reply Hazy, Try Again”: iPod touch FaceTime, 99-Cent TV Shows

Although the magic eight-ball was certain that a new iPod touch model is on the way, it was less sure about the recent rumors that the device would gain a front-facing camera, enabling iPhone 4-style FaceTime superpowers.

Despite the fact that none other than Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself claimed that there would be “millions” of FaceTime-enabled devices by year’s end during the iPhone 4 announcement, we think Apple still has to perfect any kind of camera at all on the iPod touch, which has clearly been a stumbling block for the company. Images of a rear camera-enabled iPod touch appeared prior to last year’s September music event (and some of those have even popped up on eBay throughout the year), so it’s clear that Cupertino is working hard to make it happen. We’d put the safer money on a rear camera capable of both pictures and SD video, comparable to what the iPhone 3GS already has, and maybe FaceTime and 720p HD video recording for next year.

The magic eight-ball has also had a hard time churning its purple water on the subject of recent rumors claiming that 99-cent TV show rentals are on the way to iTunes. This one has a long history of being all talk, mostly because the networks are loathe to irritate their main bread and butter -- namely the cable and satellite providers. However, the days of Apple and the networks collecting upwards of $2.99 for an HD episode of a TV show are clearly numbered, given the rising popularity of streaming services from Netflix and Hulu Plus -- we’re just not so sure if the tide will turn this year or next.

Since the magic eight-ball feels that iLife ’11 is potentially imminent, what about iWork ’11? Although the software suites are often released in tandem, we’d say that business-oriented software like Pages, Numbers and Keynote are an odd fit for a traditional media-focused event -- but, you never know with these things sometimes. If iWork ’11 is indeed announced, we’d say there’s also a good chance for iPhone versions of the three productivity apps to be released at the same time as well.

While we’re at it, we’ll throw a wildcard into the mix for those of you still waiting (im)patiently for a white iPhone 4. After a couple of delays already, we figure Apple might cap off the event next week by announcing that you can finally preorder your white iPhone 4, much to the glee of fans of that color which is not technically a color everywhere. And hey, maybe there will even be some modification to the external antenna… we can dream, can’t we?

 

“Outlook Not So Good”: Cloud-Based iTunes, iTV, iPad 2, The Beatles

As much as we want to see certain things from Apple, sometimes no amount of shaking the magic eight-ball seems to make our dreams come true. After hearing the recent comments from Yoko Ono, we can probably forget about The Beatles coming to iTunes at long last, ‘cause it ain’t likely to be happening. Is this some kind of evil conspiracy or do they just want to be the last band on Earth to enter the iTunes catalog?

Sadly, we’d have to put a cloud-based iTunes in the same category as world peace or The Beatles on iTunes, at least for now. Apple executives have recently murmured to record labels that the company’s Lala.com acquisition may take longer than expected to bear fruit (pun intended), and we have no reason to believe otherwise. That huge server farm down in North Carolina hasn’t even fired up yet, but it’s planned for year’s end, so next year would likely be a good time to start placing those bets.

The outlook is also not so good for those “free MobileMe” rumors -- that service will likely play into the same server farm that Apple is building, and the company probably figures that if people are willing to pay $99 a year for the service as is, why fix it if it ain’t broke? The least they could do is up the storage and give us some easier sharing features to rival Google’s YouTube.

We also wouldn’t put any good money on an iPad refresh just yet -- after all, the tablet device hasn’t even gotten an update to iOS 4 yet, and isn’t expected to get one for another couple of months, if recent communication between Apple and iAd clients is to be believed. It’s a safe bet that the iPad will pick up a front-facing, FaceTime-equipped camera and probably some form of Retina Display for its sequel, but Apple is still having too much fun (and profit) selling the first one right now.

There’s no doubt that the living room will be the next battleground for Apple and its competitors as desktop computers and even laptops succumb to mobile phones and tablet devices. Some folks feel that Apple may take the larger step toward an all-in-one HDTV set with built-in Internet connectivity and likely driven by iOS, but we wouldn’t be placing any bets on that coming down the pike anytime soon.

The most recent speculation about an Apple product seems to be swirling around what is being dubbed “iTV” -- the company’s supposed replacement for the aging Apple TV box, which is aimed at taking over the living room and making everyone forget that Google is about to release a competing product. We definitely feel like it’s time to put a Sopranos-style bullet in the head of the existing Apple TV, but it’s a safer bet to come after Google TV and the Boxee Box hit the market, when Apple can better analyze the strengths and weaknesses of those devices and better fine-tune their own box to meet loft expectations.

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We realize that your magic eight-ball might show different results than ours, so why not shake it up and share with your fellow MacLife.com readers in the comments? T-minus one week and counting, so get your speculation on!

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