14 DAY TRIAL // On Thursday, October 16, Apple will be holding its second event for the fall of 2014 at the Town Hall auditorium on its Cupertino, California campus. Word on the web is that the ceremony will be streamed live.
Everyone with a browser or an iDevice will be able to catch the announcements as they come out of Tim Cook’s mouth, according to a person who is familiar with the situation.
Keeping our fingers crossed for smooth streaming
A source tells MacRumors that “Apple has plans to offer a live stream of its October 16 event,” which certainly doesn’t count as confirmation but there’s no reason to dismiss it as a feeble rumor either.
In recent years Apple has live streamed most of its events, and even when things don’t go exactly as planned, the company continues to improve its streaming capabilities, rather than keep us waiting for the keynote video to hit Apple.com hours after the showcase went down.
Apple’s last event – the iPhone 6 unveiling on September 9 – was spotted with complications that eventually led to one of the worst streaming efforts ever made by the Cupertino company. We’re keeping our fingers and toes crossed to experience a botch-free keynote this time around.
A more intimate affair
The showcase will be at a smaller venue, so the attending crowd will be considerably smaller compared to the September 9 gathering. The announcements will also be less exciting than the iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch. But that doesn’t mean they won’t count.
Far from it. For the customer base who actually gets work done using Apple gear, this showcase will be even more important than the iPhone 6 launch event. The company reportedly has in store a bunch of new Macs and iPads, and will most likely launch Yosemite in the Mac App Store.
What to expect from Apple
The safest bet is Yosemite, Apple’s eleventh major iteration of the Mac operating system. We know this one’s coming no matter what, so there’s no finger crossing here. It’s a given. The software will be offered free of charge to all users running at least Mac OS X 10.6.6 (Snow Leopard). We hear that the system requirements are as low as they’ve been for the past few years. Which is certainly good.
iPad Air 2 is almost a certainty too. According to various leaks, the tablet will have recessed buttons, a thinner profile, a more powerful processor, and double the RAM of its predecessors.
A Retina-enabled iMac is also said to be in the cards, but this one is less certain. Other potential announcements include a 12-inch Retina MacBook Air and a 13-inch iPad Pro / Plus. Apple could also be revisiting its Apple TV set-top box.