Warning - Half-witted rambling ahead...
I was looking at the buyer's guide, which lists the avg update time as 185 days. However, I looked at all the updates listed going back to 2003 and thought, since this is obviously only going to be a speed bump, how long is the average cycle for speed bumps alone? I would expect that since a re-design would take longer than a speed bump, I thought it would give me more reason to think that a speed bump is imminent. Unfortunately that wasn't the case:
If you take out these spans:
09/03-11/03 - Added the 20" model, rest stayed the same so not really an update
11/03-08/04 - Introduced the G5 iMac
10/05-01/06 - Introduced the Intel iMac
09/06-08/07 - Introduced the Aluminum iMac
All that's left are spec speed bumps. Averaging out the times between those, I got about 215 days, not 185. Granted, if I keep the switch to Intel into the equation, since it wasn't really a redesign, it brings it down to 190 days, but the Intel switch was an extenuating circumstance, so I don't think it should be considered.
So if we take 215 days as the average, it means we have about 2 months left (on average), i.e. March. If you look at all of the mac products in the buyer's guide, you'll see that Apple, at least in the last 5 years, has only once updated a product in March, a quiet update for the 30" display. There's also only been 3 updates during February for the last 5 years, and only 1 update in the last 4 years if you take out the xserve and iMac which were both updated in February 2003 (the mini got it's Intel switch in Feb 06). 8 updates have occurred during April in the last 5 years, with at least one product update every year during that month.
Of course, none of this might mean anything at all, but merely on a statistical standpoint, if I had to place a bet, it would be for April or May (which is unfortunate because I'm going to be buying soon and I'm hoping for an update)
I was looking at the buyer's guide, which lists the avg update time as 185 days. However, I looked at all the updates listed going back to 2003 and thought, since this is obviously only going to be a speed bump, how long is the average cycle for speed bumps alone? I would expect that since a re-design would take longer than a speed bump, I thought it would give me more reason to think that a speed bump is imminent. Unfortunately that wasn't the case:
If you take out these spans:
09/03-11/03 - Added the 20" model, rest stayed the same so not really an update
11/03-08/04 - Introduced the G5 iMac
10/05-01/06 - Introduced the Intel iMac
09/06-08/07 - Introduced the Aluminum iMac
All that's left are spec speed bumps. Averaging out the times between those, I got about 215 days, not 185. Granted, if I keep the switch to Intel into the equation, since it wasn't really a redesign, it brings it down to 190 days, but the Intel switch was an extenuating circumstance, so I don't think it should be considered.
So if we take 215 days as the average, it means we have about 2 months left (on average), i.e. March. If you look at all of the mac products in the buyer's guide, you'll see that Apple, at least in the last 5 years, has only once updated a product in March, a quiet update for the 30" display. There's also only been 3 updates during February for the last 5 years, and only 1 update in the last 4 years if you take out the xserve and iMac which were both updated in February 2003 (the mini got it's Intel switch in Feb 06). 8 updates have occurred during April in the last 5 years, with at least one product update every year during that month.
Of course, none of this might mean anything at all, but merely on a statistical standpoint, if I had to place a bet, it would be for April or May (which is unfortunate because I'm going to be buying soon and I'm hoping for an update)
