September 9, Yerba Buena Center for the Art, San Francisco. That’s part of what a very secretive e-mail sent by Apple to reporters read. The rest of the piece showed the fuchsia-colored silhouette of a man listening to an iPod and also said “Let’s Rock” and “Playing Soon”.

Rumour has it that the invitation is to the launch of a new iPod, since it is customary for the company to stage a media event in September or October in order to introduce the consumers to new such devices.

Another reason could be, as American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu believes, that Apple wants to announce price cuts for the iPod Touch, which is a portable media player and a Wi-Fi mobile platform with a touch-sensitive interface and a wide screen . Currently, the gadget costs more than the iPhone. Its price is suspected to go from $299 to $199, according to what Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote in a note to investors.

Although many are holding their breath for Apple’s update to MacBook laptop computers to be released, it appears that this will not happen next Tuesday during the scheduled event.

Among other speculations, there is talk about the company announcing that the Beatles catalog will join iTunes.

Speaking of speculations, the news that the band Snow Patrol would be the first artist to release an interactive album for the iPhone and iPod Touch is said to have opened the gate towards Apple enabling fan-artist interactivity.

Moreover, word has it that the company's new version of iPhone Software with system-wide push notification support and improved GPS tracking is due for release this month.