Last Chance to Be Wrong About Apple's News!

What will Apple announce at its press event on Tuesday morning in San Francisco? Almost any guess hazarded by a journalist, blogger, or civilian Apple fan is likely to be anywhere from slightly off to wrong, wrong, wrong. But as usual, that isn't stopping anybody and everybody from jumping into the fray with speculation, informed or otherwise, about what will be unveiled.

A sampling of the buzz as of tonight:

ThinkSecret, which reported a week ago that Tuesday's launch would include new iMacs--they turned up last week instead--is now saying that Apple will be offering movie downloads from Disney, but only Disney.

AppleInsider is talking about movie downloads, new iPods, and some sort of movie-streaming device.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has posted a not-terribly-convincing-sounding agenda for the announcement event involving iTunes 7, a new Nano, a widescreen iPod, and "TubePort," a setup for getting movies from a Mac onto a TV.

The "iPhone" comes up a lot in discussions of the Tuesday event, but I haven't seen anyone come right out and predict that we'll see it.

There have been times when the rumors immediately preceding an Apple event had a ring of truth about them, such as when the Web was abuzz with talk of an undersized, under-$500 Mac right before the Mac Mini was unveiled. Tonight, practically all the discussion out there sounds more like a blend of savvy prediction and wishing-and-hoping.

I'm not immune to the temptation...but I am feeling a tad cautious. So I'll make two suitably vague guesses about what's in the offing:

Apple will indeed announce movie downloads, but with offerings that fall well short of blanket availability of major features. But just as its announcement of a few Disney-owned TV shows, Pixar cartoons, and rock videos a year ago quickly led to a lot of TV being available in various digital forms, whatever the company announces on Tuesday will once again signal a sea change.

It'll announce an interesting movie-related device. Historically, significant new Apple services are accompanied by new hardware that's related. A new Nano or a full-size iPod that simply has a bigger hard drive would clear the bar of interestingness here. An iPod with a big screen would, as would any sort of movie-streaming device, although I'm doubtful that Apple would release a plain-vanilla movie streamer; if they do one, it would most likely have an inventive twist or two. And I'm not discounting the interesting hardware device being something out of left field...or even a computer of some sort.

Or perhaps renaming the iTunes store?

Enough likely-to-be-wrong guessing--the event is less than ten hours away. I'll be there, liveblogging it here (technology permitting), nd we'll report back later in the day with more on whatever gets announced. Until then, feel free to make any last-moment stabs at telling us what Apple has been up to before Steve Jobs does...