What To Expect From the Steve Jobs Keynote at the Apple “Special Event”

There’s a good reason that “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” is one of the best-selling and most influential books of the past half-century. People like to know whats coming. No surprises, please. It’s a human instinct to fear the unknown, or at least be mighty uncomfortable not knowing. Lucky for you, much of what can be expected from the Apple “Special Event” later today can be surmised from the various rumors which seem all but official. Here is what we can expect from the Stevenote, along with the patented Gearfuse percentage of likeliness:

• A New iPod Touch (probability near 100%) – almost certainly with retina display, a front-facing camera and FaceTime support
• An Updated Apple TV (probability: 85%) featuring Netflix (probability: 84%), potentially renamed iTV (probability: 50%)
• $0.99 iTunes TV Episode Rentals (probability: 75%)
• Longer iTunes Song Samples (probability: 40%), up to 60 seconds (probability if announced: 80%), or maybe even 90 seconds (probability if announced: 15%)

Steve Jobs has been known to throw a bone into the mix every once in a while and surprise a bunch of people, but I don’t see this being that sort “blow out” event. I’m super jazzed about the potential new iPod Touch. Also, for the first time ever, you can watch the event streamed live from Apple.com at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET as long as you’re running Snow Leopard with the Safari browser or from your iPhone or iPad running iOS 3.0 or higher.