With all the speculation going about as to "What will Steve Jobs do next (in MacWorld 2007)?", it's a wonder the organizers don't move it from San Francisco to Las Vegas. Not only would it make a good pool for bookies, we could probably recoup some of our budget after blowing the iPhone naming bet.

Mac Rumors specializes in Mac rumors (well... doi), and with MacWorld 2007 just around the corner, they wanted to run up the final running pool of all the Apple-related rumors having to do with new product showcases that could potentially be announced or detailed in an event like MacWorld. All these rumors should sound so familiar to you guys by now, so we'll just provide a list format, a quick summary of Mac Rumor's thoughts, and then our own quick thoughts as well.

• What used to be the iPhone: possibly an announcement, but the more credible rumors suggest that there WON'T be a launch at MacWorld (Probably a new name, though, we think). Fair enough, we say. When it was first announced, same thing with the...

• iTV: more details expected. We think even a potential launch/availability date.

• Mac Pro: is there a potential eight-core Mac Pro coming out sometime in 2007? One rumor suggested one should have launched back in November, but this did not come to pass. Another report suggests a January release. Hey, we know there are quad-core chips quickly coming into the manufacturing stream, so there's nothing stopping Apple from making at least a quad Mac. Mac Rumor's thinking the same thing, citing the pending availability of a 2.0Ghz quad-core chip at US$ 690/chip.

• OS X Leopard: yet another demo preview of Leopard, but no exact dates for final release, let alone in MacWorld. Hey, they're just getting into the groove of Bug Month right now...

• New iPod models? If it's not the iPhone (oops, used to be), it's the full-screen Video iPod. Mac Rumor's latest resources say "early 2007" release. If that's true enough, we think MacWorld 2007 would be a perfect venue to show a demo of the device. And if it's not... well, how many iPods does it take to float an Apple?
  

Hmm... strange Mac Rumors hasn't mentioned the MacBook Thin. Then again, it would have been swamped by the used-to-be-iPhone alone, worse if an eight-core and iTV were included.

Now you can have LightScribe drives in your Mac. Announced by LaCie earlier today, their drives are now Mac-compatible, along with the release of its LightScribe Labeling software.

LightScribe is the software which allows you to create labels on your burned CDs or DVDs without the need for those printer or sticky label papers. The drive has a "direct-to-disc" label technology that etches it right on the disc itself. You can even make it funky by putting in an artwork or whatever design you may be so inclined to put. The announcement is particularly fantastic, because although there are already some Mac users who have had the LightScribe drives for a while now, it is only now that LaCie's software allowed for it to be Mac-compatible.

The drives are already available for just under US $100, while the software comes free with the drives. The LightScribe labeling software is also released for Linux.

Apple has posted an impressive US$ 4.84 billion revenue and net profit of US$ 546 million for the fiscal fourth quarter ended September 30. Now, we know that's a lot of money in the bank. But what's even more interesting is that Apple continues to sell tons of iPods. Yeah, that stylish music device isn't losing steam as it nears its fifth birthday.

Apple shipped 8,729,000 iPods during the quarter, a 35% growth from the previous quarter. With such remarkable staying power, it'll take a lot to dethrone the iPod. To date, Apple has sold more than 39 million iPods, and with the red iPod nano in the works, there'll be several millions more added to that record. Surely, there'll be more birthdays to come for the small wonder.

While the iPod is hogging the limelight, 1,610,000 Macs found their way into homes and offices, representing a 30% growth from the year-ago quarter. That translates to a total of 5.3 million Macs sold to date.

Steve Jobs has this to say: "This strong quarter caps an extraordinary year for Apple. Selling more than 39 million iPods and 5.3 million Macs while performing an incredibly complex architecture transition is something we are all very proud of. Looking forward, 2007 is likely to be one of the most exciting new product years in AppleÂ?s history.Â?

We couldn't agree more.

Now, before you can say "zip-a-de-doo-dah", the juiced-up Mac Pro most probably beat you to it already - about 200 bajillion times faster, as a matter of fact. Ok, exaggerating aside, we know how fast the Quad Core is. But is there any proof? Friends, Romans, Steve Jobians... Folks over at PC Pro have clocked the Mac Pro as "teh win" when it comes to running Windows XP.

Using Apple's Boot Camp beta, they've sneaked in XP Professional and tested it with some of the more demanding tasks that you can work with in Windows apps: like running Adobe Photoshop and decoding music simultaneously, or rendering 3D graphics. For the latter example, usual tests would give them frame renders of over a minute; with the Mac Pro, they achieved complete renders under 34 seconds.

If that's not enough evidence, maybe you want to test it out yourself. If you got a Quad Core Mac Pro (you lucky devil, you), maybe you can open up some videos, music, and slideshows. Then, while that's running in the background, see if you can play your Sudoku widget on the dashboard. Well? Cheering "zip-a-de-doo-dah" yet? Or did your Mac Pro beat you to it again?

Mobility is what the Apple Remote offers for those who live day-in and day-out with their Macs. The remote lets you do things even if you're 10 ft away from your Mac. But, like any gadget, it can only do so much -- unless some really cool software comes along and liberates you from its limitations. Now, imagine your Apple Remote integrated with any Mac - yep, any Mac - and with just IR receivers on USB G3, G4, G5 & the new Mac Pro. Also, imagine that you can import and export application profiles which you can share online. It's now possible with mira.

Basically, mira allows you to personalize the control of your Apple Remote. It's like "easy" made "easier". It comes bundled with over 40 profiles for popular programs which you can easily change according to your own settings. Where you used to only open Front Row, with mira you'll have a giant menu that you can view across the room. The software application allows us to control any program even without knowing how to create scripts.

mira comes with a host of other features which you can check at Twisted Melon, but meanwhile you can check out some of the application's screenshots here.

Before the year ends, Intel is expected to introduce two four-core processors that are compatible to its Core 2 and Xeon Line. With these, it is now theoretically possible to have an 8-core Mac Pro (it features two LGA-771 sockets). Single systems can experience a dramatic increase in processing power should this quad-core processors become a reality.

To test the validity of this assumption, the guys over at AnandTech ran a simple experiment. According to them: "We grabbed a pair of 2.4GHz Clovertown samples and tossed them in the system, and to our pleasure, they worked just fine. The most important part of the test is that all 8 cores were detected and functional." The final chip is foreseen to use a 1333MHz FSB.

No crashes with the processors were also encountered after a series of stability test was performed.

If you're tempted to switch to Mac because of the new programs, such as Parallels and Boot Camp, you should always first consider the pros and cons (e.g. price, features). If you're already a Mac Pro user, you're probably looking forward to acquiring the Apple Premium, except that it really breaks the wallet. There are, however, some things you can do to relieve you of the pain of hefty purchase. An example is upgrading your RAM -- the do-it-yourself way.

Adam Pash tells us that it's possible to save $300 on a RAM upgrade. Apple, of course, being the manufacturer, can hack the entire thing in a second, but you can do the same, if you follow the steps in the tutorial that you can both view and download here. Pash's trick is to grab a 2 x 1GB sticks of RAM from Newegg that costs around $170. Of course, if you're purchasing the 2GB RAM upgrade from Apple, your MBP would cost around $500.

Download: [MacBook Pro RAM Upgrade Tutorial 1]
Download: [MacPro PDF Alert]

This is - for lack of a better word - nice.

The 512MB, 2x dual-link ATI X1900XT graphics card (fine, let's just call it the "graphics card") Apple offers with its Mac Pro desktops is now $100 cheaper than it used to be. The announcement was made via an email to Apple Store online customers. It mentioned that the Mac Pros they ordered are now cheaper, though it failed to mention the graphics card specifically.

However, checks with the Store found that, when purchased alone, the graphics card - originally priced at $499 - is now being sold for $399.

No explanation was given by Apple for the price drop. (Maybe the answer could be found with the manufacturer of the graphics card, ATI?).

With all the news of Dell laptops blowing up, you can't help but wonder if Dell is going to get back up from all the problems it's facing this year.

Well, this isn't the news that's going to turn the tide of bad press they're getting. In fact, it doesn't look good for Dell on both the laptop AND desktop side of the business.

In an Associated Press review on Yahoo by Robert Weston, the Mac Pro defeated a Dell desktop PC with similar specs on both price and functionality.

According to the review, there is more than a $900 difference between a low-end Mac Pro and a Dell Precision 490 with identical configurations, and the difference in price gets even better for Apple with more upgrades.

Borrowing a high-end Mac Pro with a pair of 3 gigahertz processors, an Nvidia Quadro FX 4500 graphics card with 512 megabytes of video memory and four 500 gig hard drives and 4 gigs of system memory, Weston compared the Mac Pro setup to a Dell Precision 690 with the same specs. The result? $7449 vs $8534 in Apple's favor.

Not only that, but there is a large amount of easy customizability. As Weston notes, "It comes with two optical drive bays, four PCI Express expansion slots and four hard drive bays. The computer also can handle up to 16 gigabytes of system memory." The changing of hard drives is also a breeze with the Mac Pro - just pull out a tray, take out one drive, stick another one in, and push it back! No cables and a ton of ports for different uses makes it versatile, with the ease of use only making it more enticing.

Dell has a lot of catching up to do, or they may just get completely decimated by the competition. First, they have to stop their products from blowing up, then they have improve their tech and their pricing scheme. Then they have to pray for a bigger miracle. Let's hope something good happens for Dell soon, before the final nail gets driven into their coffin.

Speaking of nails and coffins... You may want to know that the Mac Pro can just as easily run Windows as a Mac OS. Another point to Apple.

The team at Bare Feats may never win a Nobel prize for this but if you're a consumer on the market for a new computer, we suggest you check out their findings. The team put the 2.66GHz Mac Pro mano-a-mano with the 2.5GHz G5 Quad-Core Power Mac through a series of CPU intensive tests that include running:

Non-Universal Binary Apps

• PhotoShop CS2
  
• After Effects 7.0

Universal Binary Apps

• iMovie HD6
• Final Cut Pro 5
• FileMaker Pro 8.5
• Cinebench 9.5

And the results are...drumroll please...

Quad-Core G5 Power Mac beats Mac Pro Xeon/2.66GHz when running Photoshop CS2 and After Effects 7. Between the 3.0GHz Mac Pro and the Quad Core G5 Power Mac, Mac Pro is 5% slower on the Photoshop but 8% faster on the After Effects test.

Both versions of the Mac Pro are faster than the G5 Power Mac running iMovie, Final Cut Pro, FileMaker and Cinebench with the Mac Pro 2.66GHz up to 62% faster than the 2.5 GHz Quad-Core G5 Power Mac. The Mac Pro 3.0GHz was even faster by as much as 85%.

The Bottomline: If money is a big issue and the machine will be used for non-UB pro apps (like Photoshop CS2), Quad-Core G5 Power Mac is a good choice. If the machine is destined for heavy Universal Binary apps (like Final Cut Pro 5.1) and cost is not a factor, go for the new Mac Pro plus the expensive memory (the team recommend at least 4GB). However, expect a 5-week wait for the optional Radeon X1900 XT and the scarcity of correct memory from upgrade sources.