Jobs presentation speculation

WON’T BE LONG NOW: Because neither Jobs nor any of his staffers has left any new hardware in a bar in recent weeks, we can only guess what he’ll spring this morning at his latest presentation in San Francisco. But souces told CNET there’s one bit of non-hardware news we can reliably expect Jobs to break out: a substantial lengthening of song samples at the iTunes Store, possibly to as long as 90 seconds. If this is the case, shoppers can reliably expect to actually hear the hook of a track, which is not always the case with the present 30-second samples. Apple watchers are expecting some other improvements to iTunes as well. But considering that Apple has yet to lock down any new licensing deals with the Big Four, it’s highly unlikely that Jobs will announce the launch of that much-rumored cloud-based music streaming service—unless Apple believes the current licenses cover subscription streaming services, that is. We’ll just have to wait and see what Steve’s got up his sleeve… (9/1a)