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Wednesday, September 1 2010, Apple will hold it’s annual September event, which has come to mean iPods, Music, and Video.

This is the time of year when iTunes gets a big refresh, the new iPod’s hit the shelves, and AppleTV gets ignored for some unknown reason.

So what might Apple be cooking up for us this year? There’s been rumors flying around, some of them a lot less likely than others.

iPod Touch with front facing camera

I give this one a 90% chance of happening. Apple is incorporating FaceTime into the iPhone email system as an even more robust way to initiate face time calls, and it seems they want to push video calling to the next level. In order to do that, they will need more devices with support for FaceTime, and the Touch just seems all too logical to not happen.

iPod Nano with Touch Screen

95% chance of happening. Flicking is the news clicking, and Apple is bent on pushing it’s multi-touch GUI to the masses. The Nano should get a solid refresh with a smaller touch screen display and some version of IOS on board.

Also, I expect to see the death of the Shuffle once and for all, and probably a front facing camera on the Nano that supports FaceTime, but we will see I guess.

iPad 2.0 with front facing camera

25% chance of this one happening. I know Apple is already working on the next iPad, but this is too soon. And the iPad is really a full computing device rather than an oversized iPod Touch, so it really belongs in the Spring refresh line.

It will happen, but not yet.

Verizon iPhone

5% chance of happening. Verizon will get the iPhone sooner or later, but my bet is still on later. Aside from the marketing directly against the iPhone which had to upset Mr. Jobs ("There’s a map for that"), there are simply too many technical challenges in rolling out the phone on a new network.

This rumor keeps popping up as though it will happen any day, mostly by Verizon customers who hate the iPhone, because they don’t have one. And some day it will be that "any day", but I strongly suspect this week won’t be it. In fact, I’d be shocked if T-Mobile didn’t land the iPhone before Verizon, and possibly Sprint too.

iTV

AppleTV has been the redheaded step child of Apple for four years now, and rumors persist that they will dump it in favor of an HD TV that connects directly to iTunes.

0% chance of happening in my opinion. I’d be utterly shocked if Apple wanted to enter the television market any deeper than the set-top box they’ve already shipped out and don’t seem to care about.

With GoogleTV hitting soon, everyone expects Apple to climb into this market quickly, but that’s just not Apple’s bag. They don’t want to play in other people’s markets, they want to invent their own.

When GoogleTV can sit in your lap at an airport and let you watch the latest episodes of Pawn Stars, I’ll consider it a threat to Apple’s market. In the meantime, iTunes TV shows have a pretty good revenue base for Apple because they are portable.

Remember, some people though the Surface was a real threat to the iPhone too. 

iTunes Streaming

I dont’ see this one not happening to be honest. Apple didn’t buy LaLa, and then promptly close it down, for no reason. They also didn’t schedule a press conference to put a camera on the iPod touch, which seems to be the closest thing to a sure bet as we have here.

Apple is going to announce something pretty nice tomorrow, and the only thing I can see demanding an entire press conference is a streaming iTunes service that lets you listen to your home library on the go.

Lets not forget that we used to use iTunes Sharing to listen to our music all over the house. Then we got "Home Sharing"… which lets us listen to our music all over the house. Oh, yeah, we can copy that music from computer to computer too, in case we need to … well.. listen to it in the house. Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Until you couple that with the technology LaLa offered. Now "Home Sharing" makes sense, when you’re at work. Or in the airport. Or anyplace not at home.

If Apple doesn’t release some type of streaming service, I’ll be beyond shocked. And while it may integrate nicely with Facebook or Twitter, you can bet right now that Apple didn’t buy LaLa because they couldn’t figure out how to change your Facebook status to your favorite song on their own. That’s not only a smokescreen, it’s a stupid one.

TV Show Rentals in iTunes

Probably going to happen, 75% chance of it, but I still don’t see why. Renting a show for 99 cents?

Um, I can probably watch that show for free on Hulu. If I want to get it on iTunes, it’s because I want to own the season, and I’d rather pay the $1.99 or @2.99 and own it forever than pay the 99 cents to watch it for the next 24 hours.

But hey, they might surprise me and do something really special with it. Of course, odds are, I’ll still watch it on Hulu.